Applied Materials, Inc.

Rick Gilbert

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Jianhua Zhou

Jeongmin Lee

Karthik Thimmavajjula Narasimha

Hiroyuki Ogiso

Ganesh Balasubramanian

Kwangduk Douglas Lee

Hari K Ponnekanti

Prashant Kumar Kulshreshtha

Dale Robert Du Bois

Kalyanjit Ghosh

Paul Dennis Connors

Venkatanarayana Shankaramurthy

Mohsin Waqar

Saptarshi Basu

Liliya Krivulina

Brett Berens

Abdul Aziz Khaja

Vinay K Prabhakar

Zonghui Su

Sang Heon Park

Implementations disclosed herein describe a bevel etch apparatus within a loadlock bevel etch chamber and methods of using the same. The bevel etch apparatus has a mask assembly within the loadlock bevel etch chamber. During an etch process, the mask assembly delivers a gas flow to control bevel etch without the use of a shadow frame. As such, the edge exclusion at the bevel edge can be reduced, thus increasing product yield.

Loadlock integrated bevel etcher system

Implementations described herein generally relate to methods for leveling a component above a substrate. In one implementation, a test substrate is placed on a substrate support inside of a processing chamber. A component, such as a mask, is located above the substrate. The component is lowered to a position so that the component and the substrate are in contact. The component is then lifted and the particle distribution on the test substrate is reviewed. Based on the particle distribution, the component may be adjusted. A new test substrate is placed on the substrate support inside of the processing chamber, and the component is lowered to a position so that the component and the new test substrate are in contact. The particle distribution on the new test substrate is reviewed. The process may be repeated until a uniform particle distribution is shown on a test substrate.

Critical methodology in vacuum chambers to determine gap and leveling between wafer and hardware components

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Rick Gilbert