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. 01, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 16, 1997
Shingo Kadomura, Kanagawa, JP;
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Controlling ion/radical ratio and monoatomic/polyatomic radical ratio in a process plasma provides improved processing performance during inductively-coupled plasma and/or helicon wave plasma processing of substrate materials. In a plasma processing method employing inductively coupled plasma, high frequency current to a high frequency antenna is intermittently supplied in a controlled manner to control the state of gas dissociation to promote formation of polyatomic radicals. In a plasma processing method employing helicon wave plasma, current supplied to a magnetic field generator is intermittently supplied in a controlled manner to promote formation of ions. In a preferred method, both the high frequency current and magnetic field generating current are varied in a controlled manner to provide a variable plasma composition, i.e., radical rich plasma or ion-rich plasma, as desired, for improved plasma processing, especially improved selective anisotropic dry etching at high etch rate.