Applied Materials, Inc.

Tejas Ulavi

Sanjeev Baluja

Amit Kumar Bansal

Dhritiman Subha Kashyap

Joseph F AuBuchon

Kalyanjit Ghosh

Shailendra Srivastava

Yusheng Zhou

Ashutosh Agarwal

Arkaprava Dan

Akshay Gunaji

Michael Robert Rice

Ajit Balakrishna

Jared Ahmad Lee

Wei V Tang

Kaushik Comandoor Alayavalli

Uday Pai

Timothy J Roggenbuck

Kalesh Panchaxari Karadi

Jun Ma

Tuan Anh Nguyen

Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

Vijay D Parkhe

Ganesh Balasubramanian

Hanhong Chen

Jianhua Zhou

Jason M Schaller

Kevin Griffin

David T Blahnik

Swaminathan T Srinivasan

Edward P Hammond

Matthew James Busche

Zhijun Jiang

Mayur G Kulkarni

Juan Carlos Rocha

Kenneth Brian Doering

Surajit Kumar

Nitin Pathak

Chi-Chou Lin

Yuxing Zhang

Shawyon Jafari

Thuy Britcher

Priyanka Dash

Eric J Hoffmann

Qiang Ma

Daniel Hwung

Mike Murtagh

Naveen Kumar Nagaraja

Zhejun Zhang

Rohit Ode

Plasma showerhead assemblies are disclosed comprising a conductive plate having a plurality of the conductive plate gas openings, a dielectric faceplate having a thickness and a plurality of dielectric faceplate gas openings extending through the dielectric faceplate thickness in fluid communication with the plurality of the conductive plate gas openings. A conductive insert is disposed within at least one of the dielectric faceplate gas openings or adjacent o-rings included in the plasma showerhead assemblies.

Plasma showerhead assembly and method of reducing defects

Apparatus and methods for loading and unloading substrates from a spatial processing chamber are described. A support assembly has a rotatable center base and support arms extending therefrom. A support shaft is at the outer end of the support arms and a substrate support is on the support shaft. Primary lift pins are positioned within openings in the substrate support. Secondary lift pins are positioned within openings in the support arms and are aligned with the primary lift pins. An actuation plate within the processing volume causes, upon movement of the support assembly, the primary lift pins to elevate through contact with the secondary lift pins.

Apparatus and methods to transfer substrates into and out of a spatial multi-substrate processing tool

Implementations disclosed herein generally relate to systems and methods of protecting a substrate support in a process chamber from cleaning fluid during a cleaning process. The method of cleaning the process chamber includes positioning in the process chamber a cover substrate above a substrate support and a process kit that separates a purge volume from a process volume. The method of cleaning includes flowing a purge gas in the purge volume to protect the substrate support and flowing a cleaning fluid to a process volume above the cover substrate, flowing the cleaning fluid in the process volume to an outer flow path, and to an exhaust outlet in the chamber body. The purge volume is maintained at a positive pressure with respect to the process volume to block the cleaning fluid from the purge volume.

Method and system for cleaning a process chamber

Process chambers and methods for leveling a motor shaft and substrate support plane are described. The process chamber includes a motor shaft connected to the process chamber with a plurality of motor bolts. A first plurality of sensors is arranged at about the same radial distance from the rotational axis and at different angular positions relative to the rotational axis and a second plurality of sensors are arranged to measure the support plane. An angle-dependent motor leveling profile is determined and shim values for the motor bolts are determined to level the motor shaft. The support plane is measured using the second plurality of sensors to level the support plane perpendicular to the motor shaft.

Apparatus and methods for motor shaft and heater leveling

A heater assembly having a top seal and a second seal configured to account for deviation in processing heights and motor runoff of a heater standoff. The top seal is positioned between a shield plate and a top plate and the bottom seal is positioned between a heater mounting base and the heater standoff.

Heater assembly with process gap control for batch processing chambers

Process assemblies and cable management assemblies for managing cables in tight envelopes. A processing assembly includes a top chamber having at least one substrate support, a support shaft, a robot spindle assembly, a stator and a cable management system. The cable management system includes an inner trough assembly and an outer trough assembly configured to move relative to one another, and a plurality of chain links configured to house at least one cable for delivering power to the process assembly.

Dynamic electrical and fluid delivery system with indexing motion for batch processing chambers

Apparatus and methods for providing backside pressure control and edge purge gas to a substrate in a processing chamber. A seal band within a pocket of a substrate support defines an inner pocket region and an outer pocket region. The seal band has a pressure dependent controlled leakage rate so that a backside gas flow to the inner pocket region can diffuse through the seal band to the outer pocket region to create an edge purge while providing backside pressure to the substrate. Processing chambers, methods of processing a substrate and non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions to process a substrate are also disclosed.

Dual-function wafer backside pressure control and edge purge

Substrate supports, substrate support assemblies and methods of using the substrate supports are described. The substrate support has a support surface with at least two electrodes and a plurality of purge channels bounded by a seal band. A power supply connected to the electrodes configured as an electrostatic chuck. A capacitance of the substrate is measured while on the substrate support to determine the chucking state of the substrate.

Apparatus and methods for real-time wafer chucking detection

Substrate supports comprising a plurality of bonded plates forming a single component support body and methods of forming the substrate supports are described. The single component support body has an outer peripheral edge, a top surface and a bottom surface. A pocket is formed in the top surface and has a bottom surface, a depth and an outer peripheral edge. A purge ring is spaced a distance from the outer peripheral edge and comprises at least one opening in the top surface in fluid communication with a purge gas line within the body thickness.

Wafer heater with backside and integrated bevel purge

Substrate supports comprising a top plate positioned on a shaft are described. The top plate including a primary heating element a first depth from the surface of the top plate, a inner zone heating element a second depth from the surface of the top plate and an outer zone heating element a third depth from the surface of the top plate. Substrate support assemblies comprising a plurality of substrate supports and methods of processing a substrate are also disclosed.

Pedestal heater for spatial multi-wafer processing tool

Substrate supports, substrate support assemblies and methods of using an arc generated between a first electrode and a second electrode to clean a support surface. The first electrode comprises a plurality of first branches which are interdigitated with a plurality of branches of the second electrode in a finger-joint like pattern creating a gap between the first electrode and the second electrode.

In-situ DC plasma for cleaning pedestal heater

Apparatus and methods to process one or more wafers are described. A processing chamber comprises a first processing station comprising a first gas injector having a first face, a first emissivity and a first temperature, a second processing station comprising a second gas injector having a second face, a second emissivity and a second temperature, and a substrate support assembly comprising a plurality of substantially coplanar support surfaces, the substrate support assembly configured to move the support surfaces between the first processing station and the second processing station. When a wafer is on the support surfaces, a temperature skew of less than about 0.5&#xb0; C. is developed upon moving the wafer between the stations in about 0.5 seconds.

Spatial wafer processing with improved temperature uniformity

Embodiments described herein relate to ground path systems providing a shorter and symmetrical path for radio frequency (RF) energy to propagate to a ground to reduce generation of the parasitic plasma. The ground path system bifurcates the processing volume of the chamber to form an inner volume that isolates an outer volume of the processing volume.

Ground path systems for providing a shorter and symmetrical ground path

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Tejas Ulavi