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:
Feb. 21, 1995
Filed:
Aug. 11, 1992
Donald M Mintz, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
In a method for preparing a shield and/or clamping ring prior to use in a physical vapor deposition process, the shield and/or clamping ring is first bead blasted using an abrasive powder, then is treated in an ultrasonic cleaning chamber to remove loose particles and then sputter etched or treated with a plasma. The sputtering or plasma treatment serves to loosen contamination which may form a diffusion barrier and prevent the deposits from bonding to the shield and also serves to roughen the surface of the shield and/or clamping ring, to reduce interface voids and improve adhesion of sputtered material onto the shield and/or clamping ring. The process of the invention results in improved cleaning of the shield and/or clamping ring and improved adhesion of sputtered material thereon, thereby increasing the time before the shield/clamping ring must be cleaned and reducing down-time of the physical vapor deposition chamber.