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:
Jun. 11, 2002
Filed:
Sep. 05, 2000
Hideaki Amano, Zama, JP;
Tokyo Electron Limited, Tokyo-to, JP;
Abstract
A semiconductor wafer (W) is mounted on top of a mounting stand ( ) within a vacuum vessel of a vacuum processing apparatus such as a vacuum film-formation apparatus or an etching apparatus for semiconductor wafers. A heat-transfer gas such as helium is supplied to a gap between the wafer and the mounting stand, and film-formation or etching is performed while the wafer is held at a predetermined temperature. To ensure a simple and reliable detection of any leakage of the helium from between the wafer and the mounting stand during this process because of an abnormal state, the surface of a dielectric material such as aluminum nitride that configures the mounting stand ( ) is given a mirror finish and the wafer (W) is attracted to the surface of the mounting stand ( ) by an attractive force of at least 1 kg/cm , whereby the helium from the gas supply path ( ) is sealed in on the rear surface side of the wafer (W). A flowmeter ( ) is provided in the gas supply path ( ), a flowrate measured by this flowmeter is compared by a comparator ( ) against a threshold value, which corresponds to a flowrate that occurs when a leakage is generated between the rear surface side of the wafer (W) and the surface of the mounting stand ( ) in a normal state, and an abnormality signal is generated if the measured flowrate exceeds the threshold value. This ensures that the temperature of the wafer can be maintained accurately.