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:
Apr. 02, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 14, 1998
Salvador P. Umotoy, Antioch, CA (US);
Steve H. Chiao, Fremont, CA (US);
Anh N. Nguyen, Milpitas, CA (US);
Be V. Vo, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Joel Huston, San Jose, CA (US);
James J. Chen, San Jose, CA (US);
Lawrence Chung-Lai Lei, Milpitas, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus for wafer processing, which comprises a chamber body and a heated liner which are thermally isolated from each other by isolating pins. During wafer processing, e.g., deposition of titanium nitride film by thermal reaction between titanium tetrachloride and ammonia, a wafer substrate is heated to a reaction temperature in the range of 600-700° C. by a heated support pedestal. The chamber liner and the interior chamber walls are maintained at a temperature between 150-250° C. to prevent deposition of undesirable by-products inside the chamber. This facilitates the chamber cleaning procedure, which can be performed using an in-situ chlorine-based process. The excellent thermal isolation between the heated liner and the chamber body allows the chamber exterior to be maintained at a safe operating temperature of 60-65° C. A heated exhaust assembly is also used in conjunction with the process chamber to remove exhaust gases and reaction by-products. External heaters are used to maintain the exhaust assembly at a temperature of about 150-200° C. to minimize undesirable deposits on the interior surfaces of the exhaust assembly.