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:
Jan. 31, 2017
Filed:
Jan. 17, 2014
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Wendell Boyd, Jr., Morgan Hill, CA (US);
Vijay D. Parkhe, San Jose, CA (US);
Matthew Busche, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Konstantin Makhratchev, Fremont, CA (US);
Masanori Ono, Chiba, JP;
Senh Thach, Union City, CA (US);
APPLIED MATERIALS, INC., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A control system that includes deflection sensors which can control clamping forces applied by electrostatic chucks, and related methods are disclosed. By using a sensor to determine a deflection of a workpiece supported by an electrostatic chuck, a control system may use the deflection measured to control a clamping force applied to the workpiece by the electrostatic chuck. The control system applies a clamping voltage to the electrostatic chuck so that the clamping force reaches and maintains a target clamping force. In this manner, the clamping force may secure the workpiece to the electrostatic chuck to enable manufacturing operations to be performed while preventing workpiece damage resulting from unnecessary higher values of the clamping force.