The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 16, 1994
Filed:
Nov. 06, 1992
Gregory Hindman, Boise, ID (US);
Jack Berg, Boise, ID (US);
Zilog, Inc., Campbell, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention concerns a method of preventing the staining and voiding in an aluminum layer. This staining and voiding was found to be caused by cross-contamination of nitrogen from other processing steps in a multi-chambered wafer processing device. The present invention avoids the staining and voiding by introducing a pumping-out step of an aluminum layer sputtering chamber to remove some of the nitrogen from the aluminum layer deposition chamber before sputtering the aluminum layer onto the silicon wafer. Alternately, the temperature of the aluminum layer deposition step can be reduced to 310.degree. C. or less to prevent the staining or voiding.