Anelva Corporation

Other

Nec Corporation

Tokyo Electron Limited

Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

Hitachi-kokusai Electric Inc.

Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Ulvac, Inc.

Kanto Denka Kogyo Co., Ltd.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Canon Anelva Corporation

Canon Anelva Corproation

Yoshimi Watabe

Yoichiro Numasawa

Hiroshi Tanabe

Akihisa Matsuda

Tomoyuki Akashi

Norikazu Ito

Takashi Hayakawa

Hideo Yamagishi

Masataka Kondo

Yukito Nakagawa

Shinya Hasegawa

Michio Kondo

Akira Kodama

Massashi Ueda

A plasma treatment apparatus has a reaction vessel () provided with a top electrode () and a bottom electrode (), and the first electrode is supplied with a VHF band high frequency power from a VHF band high frequency power source (), while the bottom electrode on which a substrate () is loaded and is moved by a vertical movement mechanism. The plasma treatment system has a controller () which, at the time of a cleaning process after forming a film on the substrate (), controls a vertical movement mechanism to move the bottom electrode to narrow the gap between the top electrode and bottom electrode and form a narrow space and starts cleaning by a predetermined high density plasma in that narrow space. In the cleaning process, step cleaning is performed. Due to this, the efficiency of utilization of the cleaning gas is increased, the amount of exhaust gas is cut, and the cleaning speed is raised. Further, the amount of the process gas used is cut and the process cost is reduced.

Plasma treatment system and cleaning method of the same

In a semiconductor thin film forming system for modifying a predetermined region of a semiconductor thin film by exposing the semiconductor thin film to a projected light patterned through a pattern formed on a photo mask, the system includes a mechanism (opt') for uniformizing the light for exposure in a predetermined area on the photo mask. This system can provide a crystallized silicon film having a trap state density less than 1012 cmand can provide a silicon-insulating film interface exhibiting a low interface state density.

Semiconductor thin film forming system

In a semiconductor thin film forming system for modifying a predetermined region of a semiconductor thin film by exposing the semiconductor thin film to a projected light patterned through a pattern formed on a photo mask, the system includes a mechanism (opt20') for uniformizing the light for exposure in a predetermined area on the photo mask. This system can provide a crystallized silicon film having a trap state density less than 1012 cmand can provide a silicon-insulating film interface exhibiting a low interface state density.

S system for the formation of a silicon thin film and a semiconductor-insulating film interface

A plasma processing system is comprised of a reaction vessel in which are provided a parallel high frequency electrode and ground electrode. The ground electrode is fixed at a ground potential portion, that is, a flange, by a conductive support column. A connection portion from the ground electrode to the ground potential portion, for example, the portions other than the surface of the ground electrode and the surface of the support column etc. are covered by an insulator serving as a high frequency power propagator while the surface of the insulator is covered completely by a conductive member except at the portion for introducing the high frequency power. In this plasma processing system, it is possible to reliably prevent undesirable discharge from occurring at the rear surface of the ground electrode when processing a substrate mounted on the ground electrode to deposit a film using a high frequency power in the VHF band.

Plasma processing system

A thin film forming method and apparatus forms a thin film having an excellent thickness uniformity over a substrate, particularly a large-area substrate. The thin film forming method and apparatus includes a film forming chamber in which an inductive coupling electrode having a feeding portion and a grounding portion at its two ends is arranged, a high-frequency power source for feeding a high-frequency power to the feeding portion, and a waveform generator for amplitude-modulating the high-frequency power outputted from the high-frequency power source. The amplitude-modulated high-frequency power is fed to the inductive coupling electrode to generate a plasma so that a thin film may be formed on a substrate arranged to face the inductive coupling electrode.

Thin film formation by inductively-coupled plasma CVD process

A substrate is disposed in a reactor kept to be a vacuum state, a material gas is supplied into a space in front of the substrate, high-frequency electric power is supplied to the material gas to generate plasma based on electric discharge excitation in the front space of the substrate, and an amorphous silicon thin film is deposited on the substrate by chemical vapour deposition. Further, an electrode section comprising tubular electrodes supplying the material gas through a plurality of gas discharge openings, and tubular electrode sucking and evacuating gases to the outside through a plurality of gas suction openings. Thereby, a higher silane gas and the like generated during the film deposition can be removed from a reactive region immediately, and a thin film is deposited on the substrate surface with the same condition of the film deposition at any spot of the substrate surface. Consequently, the amorphous silicon thin film with film quality may be deposited on the large-area substrate.

Plasma CVD apparatus suitable for manufacturing solar cell and the like

A process for forming a thin film of amorphous silicon of a uniform thickness on a relatively large glass plate. The process comprising forming a thin film of amorphous silicon on an insulating substrate by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition process while intermittently generating a high frequency discharge. The duration of each discharge is set shorter than the time period necessary for the DC bias voltage, which is generated on the high frequency-applying electrode side, to attain a saturated value.

Plasma CVD process for forming amorphous silicon thin film

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Yoshimi Watabe