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:
Dec. 17, 1996
Filed:
Dec. 10, 1993
Monte A Douglas, Coppell, TX (US);
Texas Instruments Incorporated, Dallas, TX (US);
Abstract
An electrostatic decontamination method and decontamination device (10) is disclosed for decontaminating the surface of a semiconductor substrate. The decontamination device (10) includes particle ionizing device (24) that charges contaminating particles (26) on the surface of semiconductor substrate (16) thereby creating ionized particles. Decontamination device (10) also includes substrate biasing device (12) for creating a charge accumulation layer (14) at the top of semiconductor substrate (16) so that the charge accumulation layer (14) has the same charge sign as the ionized particles. In addition, the invention analytically characterizes particles using contaminating particle isolator (44) which contains a particle ionizing device (24) that charges contaminating particles (26) on the surface of semiconductor substrate (16) thereby creating ionized particles. Contaminating particle isolator (44) includes substrate biasing device (12) operable to create charge accumulation layer (14) at the top of semiconductor substrate (16) so that the charge accumulation layer (14) has the same charge sign as the ionized particles. Contaminating particle isolator (44) also includes particle collector (46) that collects the ionized particles. This permits characterizing the particles to determine their chemical composition.