Novellus Systems Incorporated

Patrick Breling

Steven T Mayer

Jonathan David Reid

Bryan L Buckalew

Seshasayee Varadarajan

Thomas Anand Ponnuswamy

Zhian He

Bryan Pennington

Seyang Park

Glenn Ibarreta

An apparatus for electroplating a layer of metal on the surface of a wafer includes an ionically resistive ionically permeable element located in close proximity of the wafer (preferably within 5 mm of the wafer surface) which serves to modulate ionic current at the wafer surface, and a second cathode configured to divert a portion of current from the wafer surface. The ionically resistive ionically permeable element in a preferred embodiment is a disk made of a resistive material having a plurality of perforations formed therein, such that perforations do not form communicating channels within the body of the disk. The provided configuration effectively redistributes ionic current in the plating system allowing plating of uniform metal layers and mitigating the terminal effect.

Method and apparatus for electroplating

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Portland, OR, United States of America

Patrick Breling