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:
Nov. 20, 2001
Filed:
Apr. 27, 1999
Tokyo Electron Limited, Tokyo-To, JP;
Abstract
An objective of this invention is to provide a plasma processing method that is capable of reducing particle contamination during plasma processing performed upon a semiconductor wafer. If the use of electron cyclotron resonance to generate a plasma and form a thin film of SiOF or the like is used by way of example, a sheath zone of a few mm thick is formed between the wafer and the plasma, and particles are trapped within a boundary zone between the sheath zone and the plasma. At this point, a microwave power is not dropped suddenly to zero after the film-formation processing, but is reduced to a lower level of, for example, 1 kW and is held for 10 seconds. This reduces the plasma density and thickens the sheath zone, so that particles are held away from the wafer surface. When the microwave power is subsequently cut, the particles move freely around, but only a small proportion thereof adhere to the wafer.