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. 12, 2006
Filed:
Apr. 27, 2004
Yasuo Kobayashi, Nirasaki, JP;
Yasuo Kobayashi, Nirasaki, JP;
Tokyo Electron Limited, Tokyo-To, JP;
Abstract
The present invention provides method and apparatus for surface treatment which, when employed in process steps of manufacturing semiconductor devices, can result in the final products having enhanced reliability. According to the surface processing method, an obeject to be processed W is introduced in a processing vessel, which is then supplied with ClFgas serving as cleaning gas from a supply unit. The ClFgas is bound to the surface of the object to be processed W, and although the supply of the gas to the processing vessel is interrupted, the ClFgas bound to the surface of the object to be processed W serves to clean the surface of the object to be processed. Next, reducing gas is introduced into the processing vessel W to remove chlorine from the object to be processed W, the chlorine being derived from the ClFgas. After that, the introduction of the reducing gas is interrupted, and the cleaned object to be processed W is exported from the processing vessel. In addition to that, a surface processing apparatusand other processing devices are arranged in a cluster device so that an object to be processed therein is transported among them from one to another under a vacuum environment.