Tokyo Electron Limited

International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Lam Research Corporation

Texas Instruments Corporation

Hewlett-packard Company

University of Houston System

Sematech, Inc.

Tokyo Electon Limited

Lee Chen

Merritt Funk

Jianping Zhao

Radha Sundararajan

Zhiying Chen

Peter L G Ventzek

Gangadhara Swami Mathad

Barton Lane

Toshihisa Nozawa

Audunn Ludviksson

Lin Xu

Thomas W Anderson

Asao Yamashita

Daniel Joseph Prager

Toshihiko Iwao

Demetre J Economou

Ronald Victor Bravenec

Akira Koshiishi

Ikuo Sawada

Vincent M Donnelly

Hema Swaroop Mopidevi

Hiromitsu Kambara

Caiz Hong Tian

David V Horak

Naoki Matsumoto

Wesley Charles Natzle

Eric J Strang

Akiteru Ko

Peter Ventzek

Chienfan Yu

Kazuki Denpoh

Shwu-Jen Jeng

Tetsuya Nishizuka

Paul Moroz

Hiromasa Mochiki

Neil M P Benjamin

Tung J Chuang

Iwao Toshihiko

Peter Lg Ventzek

Richard Stephan Wise

Alan M Schoepp

Siddhartha Panda

Ping Jiang

Hongyu Henry Yue

Roger Patrick

Michael Ray Sievers

Charles J Hendricks

Clint Thomas

Caizhong Tian

Akihisa Sekiguchi

Masaaki Hagihara

Henri A Khoury

John R Lankard

Nobuhiro Iwama

Annie Xia

Dragan Podlesnik

Shaun Tyler Smith

Sang Heon Song

Radha Sundaranajan

Hitomitsu Kambara

Ying Zhang

Chen Yvonne

Peter Federlin

D Rex Wright

Stanley J Poloncic

Harlan R Seymour

An apparatus for forming a plasma may include one or more coupling ports to accept a radiofrequency (RF) current. The apparatus may additionally include one or more coupling structures which may include one or more conductive loops to permit the RF current to conduct from at least a first portion of the one or more coupling ports to at least a second port of the one or more coupling ports. The one or more conductive loops may each be configured to exhibit a first value of inductance in the absence of the plasma and to exhibit a second value of inductance in the presence of the plasma. The one or more coupling structures may each include a reactive element, in which each reactive element is coupled to a corresponding one of the one or more conductive loops so as to form a corresponding number of coupling structures. Each RF coupling structure may have a resonant frequency that increases in response to the presence of the plasma.

Control of plasma formation by RF coupling structures

An RF antenna is configured, when powered, to inductively generate plasma in a process region of a chamber, including: an array of parallel conductive lines that are oriented along a plane, the array including a first conductive line, a second conductive line, a third conductive line, and a fourth conductive line; wherein the first and second conductive lines are adjacent, wherein the second and third conductive lines are adjacent, and wherein the third and fourth conductive lines are adjacent; wherein when the RF antenna is powered, current flow in the adjacent first and second conductive lines occurs in an opposite direction, current flow in the adjacent second and third conductive lines occurs in a same direction, current flow in the adjacent third and fourth conductive lines occurs in an opposite direction.

Compact high density plasma source

This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system for controlling plasma density near the edge or perimeter of a substrate that is being processed. The plasma processing system may include a plasma chamber that can receive and process the substrate using plasma for etching the substrate, doping the substrate, or depositing a film on the substrate. This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system for controlling plasma density near the edge or perimeter of a substrate that is being processed. In one embodiment, the plasma density may be controlled by reducing the rate of loss of ions to the chamber wall during processing. This may include biasing a dual electrode ring assembly in the plasma chamber to alter the potential difference between the chamber wall region and the bulk plasma region.

Electric pressure systems for control of plasma properties and uniformity

A processing system is disclosed, having a power transmission element with an interior cavity that propagates electromagnetic energy proximate to a continuous slit in the interior cavity. The continuous slit forms an opening between the interior cavity and a substrate processing chamber. The electromagnetic energy may generate an alternating charge in the continuous slit that enables the generation of an electric field that may propagate into the processing chamber. The electromagnetic energy may be conditioned prior to entering the interior cavity to improve uniformity or stability of the electric field. The conditioning may include, but is not limited to, phase angle, field angle, and number of feeds into the interior cavity.

Microwave plasma device

A chemical processing system and a method of using the chemical processing system to treat a substrate with a mono-energetic space-charge neutralized neutral beam-activated chemical process is described. The chemical processing system comprises a first plasma chamber for forming a first plasma at a first plasma potential, and a second plasma chamber for forming a second plasma at a second plasma potential greater than the first plasma potential, wherein the second plasma is formed using electron flux from the first plasma. Further, the chemical processing system comprises a substrate holder configured to position a substrate in the second plasma chamber.

Mono-energetic neutral beam activated chemical processing system and method of using

An apparatus for generating plasma, including a quadrupole antenna having a center region and an outer region and configured to be disposed over a dielectric window of a plasma chamber. The quadrupole antenna including a first coil defining a first SDA and a second coil defining a second SDA, the first coil being in a nested arrangement within the second coil. The nested arrangement places a turn of the first coil to be adjacent to a corresponding turn of the second coil as the first and second coils spiral from the center region to the outer region of the quadrupole antenna. Adjacent turns of each of the first and second coils are horizontally separated from one another by a distance when disposed over the dielectric window.

RF antenna producing a uniform near-field Poynting vector

A processing system is disclosed, having an electron beam source chamber that excites plasma to generate an electron beam, and an ion beam source chamber that houses a substrate and also excites plasma to generate an ion beam. The processing system also includes a dielectric injector coupling the electron beam source chamber to the ion beam source chamber that simultaneously injects the electron beam and the ion beam and propels the electron beam and the ion beam in opposite directions. The voltage potential gradient between the electron beam source chamber and the ion beam source chamber generates an energy field that is sufficient to maintain the electron beam and ion beam as a plasma treats the substrate so that radio frequency (RF) power initially applied to the processing system to generate the electron beam can be terminated thus improving the power efficiency of the processing system.

Self-sustained non-ambipolar direct current (DC) plasma at low power

This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system for controlling plasma density near the edge or perimeter of a substrate that is being processed. The plasma processing system may include a plasma chamber that can receive and process the substrate using plasma for etching the substrate, doping the substrate, or depositing a film on the substrate. This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system that may be configured to enable non-ambipolar diffusion to counter ion loss to the chamber wall. The plasma processing system may include a ring cavity coupled to the plasma processing system that is in fluid communication with plasma generated in the plasma processing system. The ring cavity may be coupled to a power source to form plasma that may diffuse ions into the plasma processing system to minimize the impact of ion loss to the chamber wall.

Non-ambipolar electric pressure plasma uniformity control

A surface wave plasma (SWP) source couples microwave (MW) energy into a processing chamber through, for example, a radial line slot antenna, to result in a low mean electron energy (T). An ICP source, is provided between the SWP source and the substrate and is energized at a low power, less than 100 watts for 300 mm wafers, for example, at about 25 watts. The ICP source couples energy through a peripheral electric dipole coil to reduce capacitive coupling.

Low electron temperature, edge-density enhanced, surface-wave plasma (SWP) processing method and apparatus

The present invention provides a SWP (surface wave plasma) processing system that does not create underdense conditions when operating at low microwave power and high gas pressure, thereby achieving a larger process window. The DC ring subsystem can be used to adjust the edge to central plasma density ratio to achieve uniformity control in the SWP processing system.

Plasma generation and control using a DC ring

A method and apparatus for dry etching pure Cu and Cu-containing layers for manufacturing integrated circuits. The invention uses a directional beam of O-atoms with high kinetic energy to oxidize the Cu and Cu-containing layers, and organic compound etching reagents that react with the oxidized Cu to form volatile Cu-containing etch products. The invention allows for low-temperature, anisotropic etching of pure Cu and Cu-containing layers in accordance with a patterned hard mask or photoresist.

Neutral beam etching of Cu-containing layers in an organic compound gas environment

This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system for controlling plasma density near the edge or perimeter of a substrate that is being processed. The plasma processing system may include a plasma chamber that can receive and process the substrate using plasma for etching the substrate, doping the substrate, or depositing a film on the substrate. This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system that may include a power electrode that may be opposite a bias electrode and a focus ring electrode that surrounds the substrate. In one embodiment, the power electrode may be coupled to a direct current (DC) source. Power applied to the bias electrode may be used to draw ions to the substrate. The plasma density may be made more uniform by applying a focus ring voltage to the focus ring that is disposed around the substrate and/or the bias electrode.

System and method for controlling plasma density

This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system for controlling plasma density across a substrate and maintaining a tight ion energy distribution within the plasma. In one embodiment, this may include using a dual plasma chamber system including a non-ambipolar plasma chamber and a DC plasma chamber adjacent to the non-ambipolar system. The DC plasma chamber provide power to generate the plasma by rotating the incoming power between four inputs from a VHF power source. In one instance, the power to each of the four inputs are at least 90 degrees out of phase from each other.

Non-ambipolar plasma enhanced DC/VHF phasor

Growing community of inventors

Cedar Creek, TX, United States of America

Lee Chen