Methods and apparatus for wafer edge processing

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for remedying arc-related damage to the substrate during plasma bevel etching. A plasma shield is disposed above the substrate to prevent plasma, which is generated in between two annular grounded plates, from reaching the exposed metallization on the substrate. Additionally or alternatively, a carbon-free fluorinated process source gas may be employed and / or the RF bias power may be ramped up gradually during plasma generation to alleviate arc-related damage during bevel etching. Also additionally or alternatively, helium and / or hydrogen may be added to the process source gas to alleviate arc-related damage during bevel etching.

Description

Background technique [0001] Plasma processing has long been used to treat substrates and form devices on the substrates. In general, the substrate can be processed in a plasma processing chamber through multiple steps designed to ultimately deposit and etch selected areas of the substrate to form electronic devices thereon, on any given substrate In , the central portion of the substrate is typically divided into a plurality of dies, each of which represents an electronic device, such as an integrated circuit, that the manufacturer wishes to form on the substrate. Generally, those areas at the periphery of the substrate are not processed as electronic devices but form the edge of the wafer. [0002] Various processing steps in a plasma processing chamber may form unwanted residues or deposits that need to be cleaned before the next processing step. For example, after a metallization deposition step, the peripheral region of the wafer may contain unwanted sputtered metal part...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In general, uncontrollable events are undesirable during plasma processing because parameters are uncontrollable and indeterminate results are often disruptive

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