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:
May. 07, 2002
Filed:
Nov. 29, 1999
Masahiro Nakahara, Kokubu, JP;
Yumiko Itoh, Kokubu, JP;
Kyocera Corporation, Kyoto, JP;
Abstract
The present invention is to provide ceramic members for being used as members constituting a processing chamber for etching or cleaning semiconductor substrates or wafers by halogen plasma. A ceramic member includes at least 10% by volume of a compound of yttrium-aluminum-garnet (YAG) phase and not more than 90% by volume of at least an oxide phase selected from aluminum oxide, yttrium oxide and aluminum nitride. Particularly, the ceramic member contains yttrium within a range of 35 to 80 mole % in terms of yttrium oxide Y O and aluminum within a range of 20 to 65 mole % in terms of aluminum oxide Al O to form a mixture of YAG phase with yttria phase, producing ceramic material having high corrosion resistance to halogenous gas and its plasma. Such ceramic material may be well applicable to members to be exposed by the halogen plasma, for example, a chamber wall, a wafer stage, a clamp ring, a shower head, which are used in systems for etching and cleaning semiconductor wafers. A ceramic member of the invention can also be composed of YAG and alumina or aluminum nitride, showing high thermal conductivity enough to prevent a deposit of the reaction products of halide over the whole members in the chamber by external heating.