Applied Materials, Inc.

Freescale Semiconductor,inc.

Shahid Rauf

Kartik Ramaswamy

Kenneth S Collins

James D Carducci

Andrew Nguyen

Leonid Dorf

Ajit Balakrishna

Douglas A Buchberger, Jr

Zhigang Chen

Jason Andrew Kenney

Kallol Bera

Ankur Agarwal

Hamid Tavassoli

Hiroji Hanawa

Nipun Misra

Richard Charles Fovell

Walter R Merry

Lawrence Wong

Steven Lane

James P Cruse

Peter L G Ventzek

Yang Yang

Jennifer Y Sun

Steven C Shannon

Subhash Deshmukh

Troy S Detrick

Michael D Willwerth

Matthew L Miller

Zheng John Ye

Satoru Kobayashi

Igor Markovsky

Valentin Nikolov Todorow

Martin Jeffrey Salinas

Imad Yousif

Gary Leray

Michael Robert Rice

Yogananda Sarode Vishwanath

Ying Rui

Eric D Luckowski

Jonathan Liu

Ying Di Zhang

Vijay D Parkhe

Marius K Orlowski

Tza-Jing Gung

Sergio Fukuda Shoji

Vladimir Knyazik

Benjamin Schwarz

Katsumasa Kawasaki

Nancy Fung

Xiaoping Zhou

Zhiqiang Guo

Surajit Kumar

Bradley J Howard

Anand Kumar

Duy D Nguyen

Douglas R Roberts

Chih-Hsun Hsu

Anchel Sheyner

Bryan Liao

Phillip Stout

Yashaswini Pattar

Ming-Feng Wu

Rajinder Dhindsa

Ajay Kumar

John C Forster

Thorsten B Lill

Anantha K Subramani

Wei E Wu

Olubunmi O Adetutu

Tom K Cho

Samer Banna

Jie Yu

Banqiu Wu

Yue Guo

Omkaram Nalamasu

David Palagashvili

Sunil Srinivasan

Stephen Donald Prouty

Sidharth Bhatia

Roger Alan Lindley

Denis M Koosau

Tom K Choi

Adam Brand

Terry Grant Sparks

Jaeyong Cho

Xue Chang

Valentin N Todorov

Gonzalo Monroy

Tao Zhang

Martin Jeff Salinas

Gerhard M Schneider

Bhushan N Zope

Olga Regelman

Mathew Abraham

Chung Liu

Roland R Smith

Aneesh Nainani

Kuan-Ting Liu

Michael Nichols

Embodiments of an electrostatic chuck are provided herein. In some embodiments, an electrostatic chuck for use in a substrate processing chamber includes a plate having a first side and a second side opposite the first side, a first electrode embedded in the plate proximate the first side, a second electrode embedded in the plate proximate the second side, a plurality of conductive elements coupling the first electrode to the second electrode, a first gas channel disposed within the plate and between the first electrode and the second electrode, a gas inlet extending from the second side of the plate to the first gas channel; and a plurality of gas outlets extending from the first side of the plate to the first gas channel.

Electrostatic chuck for high bias radio frequency (RF) power application in a plasma processing chamber

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to a system used in a semiconductor device manufacturing process. More specifically, embodiments provided herein generally include apparatus and methods for synchronizing and controlling the delivery of an RF bias signal and a pulsed voltage waveform to one or more electrodes within a plasma processing chamber. The apparatus and methods disclosed herein can be useful to at least minimize or eliminate a microloading effect created while processing small dimension features that have differing densities across various regions of a substrate. The plasma processing methods and apparatus described herein are configured to improve the control of various characteristics of the generated plasma and control an ion energy distribution (IED) of the plasma generated ions that interact with a surface of a substrate during plasma processing. The ability to synchronize and control waveform characteristics of a voltage waveform bias established on a substrate during processing allows for an improved control of the generated plasma and process of forming, for example, high-aspect ratio features in the surface of the substrate by a reactive ion etching process. As a result, greater precision for plasma processing can be achieved, which is described herein in more detail.

Reducing aspect ratio dependent etch with direct current bias pulsing

Embodiments disclosed herein include a dynamic load simulator. In an embodiment, the dynamic load simulator comprises an impedance load, a reverse match network, and a smart RF controller. In an embodiment, the smart RF controller comprises a dynamic load generator, and a reverse match controller.

Smart dynamic load simulator for RF power delivery control system

The disclosure pertains to a capacitively coupled plasma source in which VHF power is applied through an impedance-matching coaxial resonator having a symmetrical power distribution.

Symmetric VHF source for a plasma reactor

Implementations of the present disclosure provide a process kit for an electrostatic chuck. In one implementation, a substrate support assembly is provided. The substrate support assembly includes an electrostatic chuck having a first recess formed in an upper portion of the electrostatic chuck. A process kit surrounds the electrostatic chuck. The process kit includes an inner ring and an outer ring disposed radially outward of the inner ring. The outer ring includes a second recess formed in an upper portion of the upper ring. The inner ring is positioned within and is supported by the first recess and the second recess. An upper surface of the inner ring and an upper surface of the outer ring are co-planar.

Apparatus to reduce polymers deposition

Embodiments of the present invention provide a plasma chamber design that allows extremely symmetrical electrical, thermal, and gas flow conductance through the chamber. By providing such symmetry, plasma formed within the chamber naturally has improved uniformity across the surface of a substrate disposed in a processing region of the chamber. Further, other chamber additions, such as providing the ability to manipulate the gap between upper and lower electrodes as well as between a gas inlet and a substrate being processed, allows better control of plasma processing and uniformity as compared to conventional systems.

Symmetric plasma process chamber

Gas distribution modules comprising a housing with an upper plenum and a lower plenum are described. One of the upper plenum and lower plenum is in fluid communication with an inlet and the other is in fluid communication with an outlet. A plurality of upper passages connects the upper plenum to the bottom of the housing to allow a flow of gas to pass through and be isolated from the first plenum.

Showerhead with interlaced gas feed and removal and methods of use

A plasma reactor includes a chamber body having an interior space that provides a plasma chamber, a gas distributor to deliver a processing gas to the plasma chamber, a workpiece support to hold a workpiece, an electrode assembly comprising a plurality of conductors spaced apart from and extending laterally across the workpiece support in a parallel coplanar array, a first RF power source to supply a first RF power to the electrode assembly, and a dielectric bottom plate between the electrode assembly and the workpiece support, the dielectric bottom plate providing an RF window between the electrode assembly and the plasma chamber.

Plasma reactor with electrode array in ceiling

A method of etching uses an overhead electron beam source that generates an ion-ion plasma for performing an atomic layer etch process.

Ion-ion plasma atomic layer etch process

A plasma reactor has an overhead inductively coupled plasma source with two coil antennas and symmetric and radial RF feeds and cylindrical RF shielding around the symmetric and radial RF feeds. The radial RF feeds are symmetrically fed to the plasma source.

Symmetrical plural-coil plasma source with side RF feeds and RF distribution plates

Electrostatic chucks with variable pixelated magnetic field are described. For example, an electrostatic chuck (ESC) includes a ceramic plate having a front surface and a back surface, the front surface for supporting a wafer or substrate. A base is coupled to the back surface of the ceramic plate. A plurality of electromagnets is disposed in the base, the plurality of electromagnets configured to provide pixelated magnetic field tuning capability for the ESC.

Electrostatic chuck with variable pixelated magnetic field

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally provide various apparatus and methods for reducing particles in a semiconductor processing chamber. One embodiment of present disclosure provides a vacuum screen assembly disposed over a vacuum port to prevent particles generated by the vacuum pump from entering substrate processing regions. Another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a perforated chamber liner around a processing region of the substrate. Another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a gas distributing chamber liner for distributing a cleaning gas around the substrate support under the substrate supporting surface.

Apparatus and methods for reducing particles in semiconductor process chambers

Growing community of inventors

Pleasanton, CA, United States of America

Shahid Rauf