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:
Dec. 09, 2003
Filed:
Feb. 12, 2002
Padmapani Nallan, San Jose, CA (US);
John Holland, San Jose, CA (US);
Valentin Todorov, Fremont, CA (US);
Thorsten Lill, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
We have discovered a method which permits plasma etching at a constant etch rate. The constant etch rate is achieved by controlling plasma process parameters so that a stable plasma is obtained, with a portion of the power deposited to the plasma being a capacitive contribution, and a portion being an inductive contribution. In particular, a stable plasma may be obtained within two process regions. In the first region, the gradient of the capacitive power to the power applied to the inductively coupled source for plasma generation [∂P /∂P ] is greater than 0. In the second region, plasma stability is controlled so that [∂P /∂P ] is less than 0 and so that P <<P . Typically, the magnitude of P is less than about 10% of the magnitude of P . Operation of the etch process in a stable plasma region enables use of a timed etch end point.