Applied Materials, Inc.

Extreme Networks, Inc.

Thanh X Nguyen

Xianmin Tang

Muhammad M Rasheed

Yong Cao

Rongjun Wang

Srinivas Gandikota

Kirankumar Neelasandra Savandaiah

Keith A Miller

Ananthkrishna Jupudi

Jianxin Lei

Weimin Zeng

Prakash Kashyap

Boon Ling Chew

Wei D Wang

Alan A Ritchie

Jothilingam Ramalingam

Kevin Vincent Moraes

Yana Cheng

Zhendong Liu

Uday Pai

Zhiyong Wang

Wei W Wang

Tza-Jing Gung

Martin Lee Riker

Jallepally Ravi

Prashanth Kothnur

Daniel Lee Diehl

William R Johanson

Ilya Lavitsky

Srinivasa Rao Yedla

Donny Young

Srinivas Guggilla

Alexander Jansen

William Fruchterman

Ryan Hanson

Randy D Schmieding

Randal Dean Schmieding

Mike Yip

Sally Lou

Joel Aller

Sundarapandian Reddy

A movable substrate support with a top surface for holding a substrate, when present, is used in conjunction with a cover ring that is stationary to adjust for a shadow effect to control substrate edge uniformity during deposition processes. The cover ring is held stationary by an electrically isolated spacer that engages with a grounded shield in the process volume of a semiconductor process chamber. A controller adjusts the substrate support in response to deposition material on a top surface of the cover ring to maintain the shadow effect and substrate edge uniformity.

Methods and apparatus for substrate edge uniformity

Embodiments of process kits for process chambers and methods for processing a substrate are provided herein. In some embodiments, a process kit includes a non-conductive upper shield having an upper portion to surround a sputtering target and a lower portion extending downward from the upper portion; and a conductive lower shield disposed radially outward of the non-conductive upper shield and having a cylindrical body with an upper portion and a lower portion, a lower wall projecting radially inward from the lower portion, and a lip protruding upward from the lower wall. The cylindrical body is spaced apart from the non-conductive upper shield by a first gap. The lower wall is spaced apart from the lower portion of the non-conductive upper shield by a second gap to limit a direct line of sight between a volume within the non-conductive upper shield and the cylindrical body of the conductive lower shield.

Process kit and method for processing a substrate

Systems and methods for sputtering a layer of refractory metal layer onto a barrier layer disposed on a substrate are disclosed herein. In one or more embodiments, a method of sputter depositing a tungsten structure in an integrated circuit includes: moving a substrate into a plasma processing chamber and onto a substrate support in opposition to a sputter target assembly comprising a tungsten target having no more than ten parts per million of carbon and no more than ten parts per million of oxygen present as impurities; flowing krypton into the plasma processing chamber; and exciting the krypton into a plasma to deposit, by sputtering, a tungsten film layer on a material layer of a substrate supported by the substrate support. In some embodiments, the target assembly further includes a titanium backing plate and an aluminum bonding layer disposed between the titanium backing plate and the tungsten target.

Systems and methods for low resistivity physical vapor deposition of a tungsten film

Embodiments of target retaining apparatus and substrate processing chambers incorporating same are provided herein. In some embodiments, a target retaining apparatus includes a housing including a first slot and a second slot; a cam movably disposed in the housing, wherein movement of the cam is constrained along the first slot; a retaining arm movably coupled to the cam, wherein movement of the retaining arm is constrained along the second slot; a linking member including a first end rotatably coupled to the cam and a second end rotatably coupled to the retaining arm; and a biasing element biasing the cam towards a first position in which the retaining arm extends away from the housing.

Target retaining apparatus

Apparatus for physical vapor deposition are provided. In some embodiments, an apparatus for use in a physical vapor deposition substrate processing chamber includes a process shield having a central opening passing through a body of the process shield and defining a processing volume of the substrate processing chamber, wherein the process shield comprises an annular dark space shield fabricated from a ceramic material and an annular ground shield fabricated from a conductive material, and wherein a ratio of a length of the annular dark space shield to a length of the annular ground shield is about 1:2 to about 1:1.6.

Extended dark space shield

Embodiments of target assemblies for use in substrate processing chambers are provided herein. In some embodiments, a target assembly includes a plate comprising a first side including a central portion and a support portion; a target disposed on the central portion; a plurality of recesses formed in the support portion; and a plurality of pads partially disposed in the plurality of recesses.

Physical vapor deposition (PVD) target having low friction pads

Apparatus for physical vapor deposition of dielectric material is provided herein. In some embodiments, a chamber lid of a physical vapor deposition chamber includes an inner magnetron assembly coupled to an inner target assembly, and an outer magnet assembly coupled to an outer target assembly, wherein the inner magnetron assembly and the inner target assembly are electrically isolated from the outer magnet assembly and the outer target assembly.

Apparatus for PVD dielectric deposition

Methods and apparatus for reducing particles generated in a process carried out in a process chamber are provided herein. In some embodiments, a process kit shield includes: a body having a surface facing a processing volume of a physical vapor deposition (PVD) process chamber, wherein the body is composed of aluminum oxide (AlO); and a silicon nitride layer on the surface of the body.

Particle reduction in a physical vapor deposition chamber

In some embodiments a method of processing a substrate disposed atop a substrate support in a physical vapor deposition process chamber includes: (a) depositing a dielectric layer to a first thickness atop a first surface of the substrate via a physical vapor deposition process; (b) providing a first plasma forming gas to a processing region of the physical vapor deposition process chamber, wherein the first plasma forming gas comprises hydrogen but not carbon; (c) providing a first amount of bias power to a substrate support to form a first plasma from the first plasma forming gas within the processing region of the physical vapor deposition process chamber; (d) exposing the dielectric layer to the first plasma; and (e) repeating (a)-(d) to deposit the dielectric film to a final thickness.

Methods for depositing dielectric films via physical vapor deposition processes

Embodiments of apparatus for physical vapor deposition are provided. In some embodiments, a target assembly for use in a substrate processing system to process a substrate includes a plate having a first side and an opposing second side, wherein the second side comprises a target supporting surface extending from the second side in a direction normal to the second side, wherein the target supporting surface has a first diameter and is bounded by a first edge; and a target having a first side bonded to the target supporting surface, wherein a diameter of the target is greater than the first diameter of the target supporting surface.

Target for PVD sputtering system

Apparatus for processing substrates are provided herein. In some embodiments, an apparatus for processing a substrate includes a substrate support that may include a dielectric member having a surface to support a substrate thereon; one or more first conductive members disposed below the dielectric member and having a dielectric member facing surface adjacent to the dielectric member; and a second conductive member disposed about and contacting the one or more first conductive members such that RF energy provided to the substrate by an RF source returns to the RF source by traveling radially outward from the substrate support along the dielectric member facing surface of the one or more first conductive members and along a first surface of the second conductive member disposed substantially parallel to a peripheral edge surface of the one or more first conductive members after travelling along the dielectric layer facing surface.

Substrate support with radio frequency (RF) return path

A dual magnetron particularly useful for RF plasma sputtering includes a radially stationary open-loop magnetron comprising opposed magnetic poles and rotating about a central axis to scan an outer region of a sputter target and a radially movable open-loop magnetron comprising opposed magnetic poles and rotating together with the stationary magnetron. During processing, the movable magnetron is radially positioned in the outer region with an open end abutting an open end of the stationary magnetron to form a single open-loop magnetron. During cleaning, part of the movable magnetron is moved radially inwardly to scan and clean an inner region of the target not scanned by the stationary magnetron. The movable magnetron can be mounted on an arm pivoting about an axis at periphery of a rotating disk-shaped plate mounting the stationary magnetron so the arm centrifugally moves between radial positions dependent upon the rotation rate or direction.

Variable radius dual magnetron

Embodiments of the invention generally relate to a grounding kit for a semiconductor processing chamber, and a semiconductor processing chamber having a grounding kit. More specifically, embodiments described herein relate to a grounding kit which creates an asymmetric grounding path selected to significantly reduce the asymmetries caused by an off center RF power delivery.

Uniformity tuning capable ESC grounding kit for RF PVD chamber

Embodiments described herein provide a semiconductor device and methods and apparatuses of forming the same. The semiconductor device includes a substrate having a source and drain region and a gate electrode stack on the substrate between the source and drain regions. In one embodiment, the method includes positioning a substrate within a processing chamber, wherein the substrate includes a source and drain region, a gate dielectric layer between the source and drain regions, and a conductive film layer on the gate dielectric layer. The method also includes depositing a refractory metal nitride film layer on the conductive film layer, depositing a silicon-containing film layer on the refractory metal nitride film layer, and depositing a tungsten film layer on the silicon-containing film layer.

Low resistivity tungsten PVD with enhanced ionization and RF power coupling

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Thanh X Nguyen