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. 14, 2001
Filed:
Jul. 02, 1999
Ravi Rajagopalan, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Patricia M. Liu, Saratoga, CA (US);
Pravin K. Narwankar, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Huyen Tran, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Padmanabhan Krishnaraj, San Francisco, CA (US);
Alan Ablao, San Jose, CA (US);
Tim Casper, Monte Sereno, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A processing chamber cleaning method is described which utilizes microwave energy to remotely generate a reactive species to be used alone or in combination with an inert gas to remove deposits from a processing chamber. The reactive species can remove deposits from a first processing region at a first pressure and then remove deposits from a second processing region at a second pressure. Also described is a cleaning process utilizing remotely generated reactive species in a single processing region at two different pressures. Additionally, different ratios of reactive gas and inert gas may be utilized to improve the uniformity of the cleaning process, increase the cleaning rate, reduce recombination of reactive species and increase the residence time of reactive species provided to the processing chamber.