Applied Materials, Inc.

Keith Brian Porthouse

Michael Robert Rice

Peter G Borden

Nir Merry

Lisong Zhou

Vinay K Shah

Dmitry A Dzilno

John William Lane

Mariusch Gregor

Alex Minkovich

Derek G Aqui

Tristan R Holtam

Hongbin Li

Ian Scott Latchford

Methods and apparatus are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, methods of controlling process chambers may include predetermining a relationship between pressure in a processing volume and a position of an exhaust valve as a function of a process parameter; setting the process chamber to a first state having a first pressure in the processing volume and a first value of the process parameter, wherein the exhaust valve is set to a first position based on the predetermined relationship to produce the first pressure at the first value; determining a pressure control profile to control the pressure as the process chamber is changed to a second state having a second pressure and a second process parameter value from the first state; and applying the pressure control profile to control the pressure by varying the position of the exhaust valve while changing the process chamber to the second state.

Methods and apparatus for processing substrates using model-based control

The present invention generally provides a batch substrate processing system, or cluster tool, for in-situ processing of a film stack used to form regions of a solar cell device. In one configuration, the film stack formed on each of the substrates in the batch contains one or more silicon-containing layers and one or more metal layers that are deposited and further processed within the various chambers contained in the substrate processing system. In one embodiment, a batch of solar cell substrates is simultaneously transferred in a vacuum or inert environment to prevent contamination from affecting the solar cell formation process.

Advanced platform for processing crystalline silicon solar cells

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Keith Brian Porthouse