A remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the chamber

Abstract

The present invention discloses a remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the chamber, and relates to the technical field of plasma source chambers. The present invention adopts ceramic material as a whole, including two-petal semicircular ring-shaped tubular chambers, an air inlet pipe, and an air outlet pipe; the chamber is an overall circular ring structure formed by sealing and welding the two-petal semicircular ring-shaped tubular chambers by microwave welding ceramic technology. The present invention reduces the contact and collision between the plasma and the inner wall of the cavity when the plasma makes a spiral motion inside the cavity, thereby reducing the impact damage of the anodized film on the inner wall of the plasma and extending the service life of the cavity; the ceramic material is used, which has the advantages of light weight, suitable price, good corrosion resistance, and high temperature resistance. The structure not only ensures the symmetry of the structure, but also ensures the airtightness of the cavity structure, avoiding the problem of cavity leakage caused by improper assembly. The overall appearance is simple and the assembly is simple, which greatly saves time and labor costs.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention belongs to the technical field of plasma source cavities, and in particular relates to a remote plasma source ceramic reaction cavity and a plasma source with the cavity. Background Art

[0002] Plasma reaction chambers are used in existing wafer manufacturing, chamber cleaning equipment, and semiconductor CVD coating processes. Plasma reaction chambers are multi-section hollow rectangular chambers made of aluminum. Since fluorine ions in the reaction chamber are corrosive, the inner surface of the chamber is coated with an anodic oxide film, which can improve the corrosion resistance of the inner wall of the chamber, enhance the wear resistance of the chamber and the hardness of the surface, and protect the metal surface. The chamber itself is assembled from multi-section hollow tubes. The working principle of the chamber part of the generator is: the coil provides high-frequency alternating current, and through the principle of electromagnetic induction, an alternating magnetic field is generated on the magnetic core. The alternating magnetic field generates an alternating electric field under the action of the coil. The gas is accelerated under the high-frequency alternating electric field, and fluorine ions and nitrogen ions are dissociated through mutual collision. Fluoride ions are used to clean the chamber, react with pollutants in the chamber, produce silicon fluoride, and are finally pumped out by a vacuum pump.

[0003] The existing chamber has many structural parts, which are difficult to process and not easy to assemble, which will consume a lot of time and labor costs. The existing chamber adopts a rectangular hollow tube structure. Since the corner curvature is not large enough, when the plasma moves inside the cavity, it will be subject to magnetic confinement, causing the plasma to gather in the center of the rectangular cavity to form a sheath area. At the corner, due to the inertia of the airflow, a certain contact and collision occurs with the inner wall of the cavity, which can easily lead to damage to the hard anodized film of the cavity, shortening the service life of the cavity and requiring frequent replacement of the cavity structure, which increases the cost. Since the existing cavity shape adopts a multi-stage phase assembly structure, the air tightness of the cavity is reduced, and air enters the cavity, thereby reducing the cavity's ability to clean dust particle pollutants. The inner wall of the reaction chamber is plated with an anodized film. The fluorine-containing gas introduced during the reaction is easy to corrode the inner wall of the chamber. The irregular collision of the reaction gas will cause the anodized film to fall off, which can easily cause dust pollution in the chamber, pollute and damage the chip, and greatly reduce the product yield. Summary of the invention

[0004] The present invention provides a remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the chamber, which solves the above problems.

[0005] In order to solve the above technical problems, the present invention is achieved through the following technical solutions:

[0006] A remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the chamber of the present invention are made of ceramic material as a whole, and include two semicircular annular tubular chambers, an air inlet pipe, and an air outlet pipe;

[0007] The cavity is an overall annular structure formed by sealing and welding two semi-circular annular tubular chambers using microwave welding ceramic technology;

[0008] The air inlet pipe and the air outlet pipe are respectively arranged at the middle position of the outer arc side of a single semicircular tubular chamber, and are connected to the annular chamber of the cavity. The straight line connecting the air inlet pipe and the air outlet pipe is perpendicular to the welding line between the two semicircular tubular chambers.

[0009] Furthermore, the entire cavity is made of yttrium trioxide ceramic.

[0010] Furthermore, the inner wall of the reaction chamber of the cavity is covered with an yttrium oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, a silicon dioxide film or an aluminum nitride film.

[0011] Furthermore, the ends of the air inlet pipe and the air outlet pipe are provided with circular scraping edges for docking, and the docking parts with the cavity are sealed and connected with a perfluoro ring; the surface of the circular scraping edge is provided with a through hole connected to the air inlet pipe or the air outlet pipe.

[0012] A plasma source comprises the remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber.

[0013] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following beneficial effects:

[0014] 1. The ceramic cavity of the present invention is an annular tube-shaped annular chamber structure as a whole, which is composed of equally divided semicircular rings, improving the shortcomings of the remote plasma source reaction chamber due to the small curvature of the rectangular corner. This structure reduces the contact and collision between the plasma and the inner wall of the cavity when the plasma makes a spiral motion inside the cavity, thereby reducing the impact damage of the anodized film on the inner wall of the plasma and extending the service life of the cavity;

[0015] 2. The cavity of the present invention is made of ceramic material, and with the circular chamber structure, it is beneficial to reduce the pollution of dust particles in the cavity. The surface is smooth and not easy to react with plasma. The ceramic material has good corrosion resistance and plasma resistance, thereby increasing the service life of the cavity. The ceramic material has the advantages of light weight, suitable price, good corrosion resistance, high temperature resistance, easy to manufacture, and reduces the production cost and time;

[0016] 3. The ceramic cavity of the present invention is formed by sealing and welding two semicircular annular tubular chambers made of ceramic material by microwave welding ceramic technology. The structure has basically no divided parts and fewer structural components. The annular cavity made of ceramic material has smooth corners and fewer cavity interfaces, which can greatly reduce the poor air tightness caused by too many interfaces, ensuring the symmetry of the structure and the air tightness of the cavity structure, and avoiding the problem of cavity leakage caused by inadequate assembly;

[0017] 4. The ceramic cavity of the present invention has a simple appearance and is easy to assemble, which greatly saves time and labor costs.

[0018] Of course, any product implementing the present invention does not necessarily need to achieve all of the advantages described above at the same time. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0019] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the accompanying drawings required for describing the embodiments will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the accompanying drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present invention. For ordinary technicians in this field, other accompanying drawings can be obtained based on these accompanying drawings without paying creative work.

[0020] Figure 1 It is a structural schematic diagram of a remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the chamber according to the present invention;

[0021] Figure 2 for Figure 1 A top view of the structure;

[0022] Figure 3 for Figure 1 The main view of the structure;

[0023] Figure 4 for Figure 2 Middle AA section view;

[0024] Figure 5 It is an exploded schematic diagram of the cavity of the present invention consisting of two semicircular annular tubular chambers;

[0025] Figure 6 for Figure 5 The structural diagram of the B angle;

[0026] Figure 7 It is a structural schematic diagram of an existing reaction chamber;

[0027] Figure 8 for Figure 7 Structural diagram from the middle C perspective;

[0028] Fig. 9 for Figure 7 The main view of the structure;

[0029] Fig.10 The structural principle diagram of the plasma source of the ceramic reaction chamber using the technical solution;

[0030] In the accompanying drawings, the components represented by the reference numerals are listed as follows:

[0031] 1-semicircular tubular chamber, 101-air inlet pipe, 102-air outlet pipe, 103-circular scraping edge. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] The following will be combined with the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention to clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without creative work are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0033] In the description of the present invention, it should be understood that terms such as "side", "middle position", "vertical", "inner wall", "end", "surface" and the like indicating orientation or positional relationship are only for the convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, rather than indicating or implying that the components or elements referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore should not be understood as limiting the present invention.

[0034] like Figure 7-9 As shown, it is a structural schematic diagram of the existing reaction chamber. It can be seen from the figure that the plasma source reaction chamber has many divided parts and is assembled from multiple structural parts. The chamber tends to be rectangular, which is not conducive to the movement of plasma in an alternating magnetic field. The corner curvature is not enough, resulting in the collision of the plasma with the inner wall of the chamber due to the inertia of movement, causing damage to the hard anodized film of the chamber, thereby reducing the service life of the chamber. And due to this structural setting, since the existing cavity shape adopts a multi-stage phase assembly structure and is made of aluminum, the air tightness of the cavity is reduced, and air enters the interior of the cavity, thereby reducing the cavity's ability to clean dust particle pollutants; the inner wall of the reaction chamber is plated with an anodized film, and the fluorine-containing gas introduced during the reaction is easy to corrode the inner wall of the chamber. Due to the irregular impact of the reaction gas, the anodized film will fall off, which is easy to cause dust pollution in the chamber, which will cause pollution and damage to the chip, greatly reducing the product yield. Therefore, in view of the above problems, it is of great significance to provide a remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the cavity. The specific embodiments of this technical solution are as follows: Specific embodiment 1:

[0036] See also Figure 1-6 As shown, a remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber and a plasma source with the chamber of the present invention are made of ceramic material as a whole, and include two semicircular ring-shaped tubular chambers 1, an air inlet pipe 101, and an air outlet pipe 102;

[0037] The cavity is an overall annular structure formed by sealing and welding two semi-circular annular tubular chambers 1 by microwave welding ceramic technology;

[0038] The air inlet pipe 101 and the air outlet pipe 102 are respectively arranged at the middle position of the outer arc-shaped side surface of a single semicircular tubular chamber 1, and are connected to the annular chamber of the cavity. The straight line connecting the air inlet pipe 101 and the air outlet pipe 102 is perpendicular to the welding line between the two halves of the semicircular tubular chamber 1.

[0039] Among them, the entire cavity is made of yttrium trioxide ceramic; the ends of the air inlet pipe 101 and the air outlet pipe 102 are both provided with circular scraping edges 103 for docking, and the docking parts with the cavity are sealed with a perfluoro ring; the surface of the circular scraping edge 103 is provided with a through hole connected to the air inlet pipe 101 or the air outlet pipe 102.

[0040] A plasma source includes the above-mentioned remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber structure, and its specific structure is as follows: Fig.10 shown.

[0041] The cavity of this specific embodiment adopts a ceramic material made of yttrium trioxide to replace the aluminum material of the original cavity, and the original rectangular tubular structure of the cavity is changed to an annular tubular structure. The cavity specifically uses a mold to first produce a two-petal semicircular annular tubular chamber 1 of ceramic material, and then uses microwave welding ceramic technology to butt and seal the two petals of the semicircular annular tubular chamber 1 to form an integral annular chamber. This design reduces the pollution of dust particles in the cavity; ceramic material is selected, the surface is smooth and not easy to react with plasma, the ceramic material has good corrosion resistance and plasma resistance, thereby increasing the service life of the cavity, the ceramic material is light in weight, the price is suitable, and it is easy to make, reducing the production cost and production time; and the above design improves the shortcomings of the remote plasma source reaction cavity in material and interior due to the small curvature of the rectangular corner. The ceramic tubular cavity of this technical solution will be a major breakthrough in the use of the reaction cavity, and it is also a new breakthrough in the service life and cleaning efficiency of the remote plasma source reaction cavity. Specific embodiment 2:

[0043] The difference between this specific embodiment and specific embodiment 1 is that:

[0044] Among them, the reaction chamber of the cavity is made of ceramic material as a whole, and the inner wall of the cavity is covered with yttrium oxide film, aluminum oxide film, silicon dioxide film or aluminum nitride film. After covering with the above materials, the inner wall of the chamber has good plasma resistance, heat resistance and corrosion resistance. The whole cavity is a circular ring structure, and the circular ring part is the whole circular ring divided into equally divided semicircular rings. This division method is convenient for the welding processing of the ceramic cavity. The cavity docking part is sealed with a perfluoro ring to ensure the airtightness of the cavity connection. This structure reduces the contact and collision between the plasma and the inner wall of the cavity when it makes a spiral motion inside the cavity, thereby reducing the impact damage of the anodized film on the inner wall of the plasma and extending the service life of the cavity.

[0045] The remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber of the technical solution serves as the reaction chamber of the equipment to clean the gas; first, the interior of the equipment reaction chamber is evacuated to a vacuum environment, and Ar argon gas is introduced into the reaction chamber to cause high-voltage ignition of the remote plasma source reaction chamber and ignition of the argon gas in the chamber. The argon gas is converted into plasma in the chamber, and the alternating magnetic field outside the chamber can maintain the plasma state in the chamber. Subsequently, NF3 nitrogen trifluoride or other cleaning gases are introduced into the reaction chamber for dissociation, and the plasma gas ions formed after the dissociation will enter the process chamber of the reaction equipment for gas cleaning.

[0046] The cavity of this technical solution adopts the following test steps:

[0047] Step 1: Install the reaction chamber on the machine for air leakage test, install air inlet and air outlet valves on the air inlet pipe 101 and the air outlet pipe 102 respectively, open the air valve to evacuate the chamber, close the air outlet valve after evacuation, and observe the air pressure change in the reaction chamber;

[0048] Step 2: Install the reaction chamber on the machine for a water leakage test. Install the inlet and outlet pipes on the water inlet and outlet respectively. After opening the water inlet valve to let water flow, observe whether the chamber leaks. Then perform a pressure holding test to observe whether the chamber leaks.

[0049] The cavity structure of the present technical solution specifically divides the circular cavity into two semicircular structures, which are welded by a microwave welding device, ensuring both the symmetry of the structure and the airtightness of the cavity structure. The ring structure reduces the impact contact of the gas cavity with the inner wall caused by insufficient corner curvature. Figure 1-6 As shown, it can be seen from the figure that the remote plasma source reaction chamber of the present invention has a structure with basically no divided parts, fewer structural components, and the chamber is a circular ring structure, which is conducive to the movement of plasma in the alternating magnetic field, thereby solving the damage to the cavity caused by the collision between the plasma and the inner wall of the cavity due to the inertia of movement, and reducing the production cost; the circular ring cavity made of ceramic material has a smooth corner arc and fewer cavity interfaces, which can greatly reduce the poor air tightness caused by too many interfaces. This technical solution uses ceramic as the cavity. Ceramics have the advantages of good corrosion resistance, light weight, and high temperature resistance. The cavity is welded by two semicircular tubular chambers 1, which avoids cavity leakage caused by improper assembly. The ceramic cavity has a simple appearance and simple assembly, which greatly saves time and labor costs.

[0050] This technical solution achieves the optimization of the ceramic material and the annular cavity structure of the remote plasma source reaction cavity. It adopts an equally divided two-petal annular structure, which reduces the contact between the plasma and the cavity wall when it moves inside the cavity, and optimizes the loss and cleanliness problems of the reaction cavity structure. The chamber adopts an annular structure to increase the corner curvature, which promotes the movement of plasma in the alternating magnetic field, thereby solving the damage to the cavity caused by the collision between the plasma and the inner wall of the cavity due to the inertia of movement. It has played a positive role in promoting the semiconductor cavity manufacturing industry, made great innovations, better met the needs of the cavity market, and brought new development to the semiconductor industry.

[0051] The preferred embodiments of the present invention disclosed above are only used to help illustrate the present invention. The preferred embodiments do not describe all the details in detail, nor do they limit the invention to the specific implementation methods described. Obviously, many modifications and changes can be made according to the content of this specification. This specification selects and specifically describes these embodiments in order to better explain the principles and practical applications of the present invention, so that those skilled in the art can understand and use the present invention well. The present invention is limited only by the claims and their full scope and equivalents.

Claims

1. A remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber, characterized in that: The whole is made of ceramic material, and comprises two semicircular annular tubular chambers (1), an air inlet pipe (101), and an air outlet pipe (102); The cavity is an overall annular structure formed by sealing and welding two semi-circular annular tubular chambers (1) using microwave welding ceramic technology; the entire cavity is made of yttrium trioxide ceramic; the inner wall of the reaction chamber of the cavity is covered with an yttrium trioxide film, an aluminum oxide film, a silicon dioxide film or an aluminum nitride film; The air inlet pipe (101) and the air outlet pipe (102) are respectively arranged at the middle position of the outer arc-shaped side surface of the single semicircular ring-shaped tubular chamber (1), and are connected to the annular chamber of the cavity body; the straight line connecting the air inlet pipe (101) and the air outlet pipe (102) is perpendicular to the welding line between the two lobes of the semicircular ring-shaped tubular chamber (1); The remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber is used as the reaction chamber of the equipment to clean the gas. First, the interior of the equipment reaction chamber is evacuated to a vacuum environment, and Ar argon gas is introduced into the reaction chamber to ignite the high voltage of the remote plasma source reaction chamber and stimulate the argon gas in the chamber to ignite. The argon gas is converted into plasma in the chamber, and the alternating magnetic field outside the chamber can maintain the plasma state in the chamber. Subsequently, nitrogen trifluoride is introduced into the reaction chamber for dissociation. The plasma gas ions formed after dissociation will enter the process chamber of the reaction equipment for gas cleaning.

2. A remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber according to claim 1, characterized in that: The ends of the air inlet pipe (101) and the air outlet pipe (102) are both provided with circular scraping edges (103) for docking, and the docking parts with the cavity are sealed and connected by a perfluoro ring; the surface of the circular scraping edge (103) is provided with a through hole connected to the air inlet pipe (101) or the air outlet pipe (102).

3. A plasma source, characterized in that: A plasma source comprising a remote plasma source ceramic reaction chamber as described in any one of claims 1-2.

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