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:
Feb. 16, 2010
Filed:
Aug. 15, 2005
Atsushi Yoshida, Kudamatsu, JP;
Kotaro Fujimoto, Kudamatsu, JP;
Takeshi Shimada, Hikari, JP;
Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
To provide a cleaning method for an etching apparatus for a metal film that efficiently removes an etching residue deposited in an etching process chamber, assures the reproducibility of the etching performance, and keeps the etching process chamber in a low-dust-emission condition. Each time one workpiece with a metal film is etched (S), the interior of the vacuum chamber is cleaned by replacing the workpiece with a dummy substrate (S), performing a first step of plasma processing using oxygen (O) and carbon tetrafluoride (CF) to remove a carbon-based deposit pile (S), and performing a second step of plasma processing using boron trichloride (BCl) and chlorine (Cl) to remove a residue that could not be removed by the first step and an etching residue of the metal film (S).