713 results about "Plasma cleaning" patented technology

Improved methods and apparatuses for removing residue from the interior surfaces of the deposition reactor are provided. The methods involve increasing availability of cleaning reagent radicals inside the deposition chamber by generating cleaning reagent radicals in a remote plasma generator and then further delivering in-situ plasma energy while the cleaning reagent mixture is introduced into the deposition chamber. Certain embodiments involve a multi-stage process including a stage in which the cleaning reagent mixture is introduced at a high pressure (e.g., about 0.6 Torr or more) and a stage the cleaning reagent mixture is introduced at a low pressure (e.g., about 0.6 Torr or less).

Provided is a novel method of cleaning a chemical vapor deposition processing chamber having deposits on an inner surface thereof is provided. The process involves forming a plasma from one or more gases comprising a fluorine-containing but otherwise halogen-free non-global-warming compound, and contacting active species generated in the plasma with the inner surface of the chamber, with the proviso that the non-global-warming compound is not trifluoroacetic anhydride. Also provided is a method of etching a layer on a silicon wafer. The method involves the steps of: (a) introducing a silicon wafer into a processing chamber, the silicon wafer comprising a layer to be etched; and (b) forming a plasma from one or more gases comprising a fluorine-containing but otherwise halogen-free non-global-warming compound. Active species generated in the plasma are contacted with the silicon wafer, thereby etching the layer, with the proviso that the non-global-warming compound is not trifluoroacetic anhydride. The chemistries in accordance with the invention provide environmentally benign alternatives to the conventionally used global-warming chemistries for chamber cleaning and semiconductor etching processes.

A method for processing a substrate includes disposing the substrate in a deposition chamber configured to perform a deposition process and depositing a film on the substrate using the deposition process. The substrate having the film thereon is then transferred from the deposition chamber into a treatment chamber and a plasma cleaning process is performed on the substrate in the treatment chamber. Further processing of the substrate is performed after the plasma cleaning process.

Embodiments described herein provide methods for removing native oxide surfaces on substrates while simultaneously passivating the underlying substrate surface. In one embodiment, a method is provided which includes positioning a substrate containing an oxide layer within a processing chamber, adjusting a first temperature of the substrate to about 80° C. or less, generating a cleaning plasma from a gas mixture within the processing chamber, such that the gas mixture contains ammonia and nitrogen trifluoride having an NH₃/NF₃ molar ratio of about 10 or greater, and condensing the cleaning plasma onto the substrate. A thin film, containing ammonium hexafluorosilicate, is formed in part, from the native oxide during a plasma clean process. The method further includes heating the substrate to a second temperature of about 100° C. or greater within the processing chamber while removing the thin film from the substrate and forming a passivation surface thereon.

The present invention is a method for removing deposited etch byproducts from surfaces of a semiconductor processing chamber after a copper etch process. The method of the invention comprises the following general steps: (a) an oxidation step, in which interior surfaces of the processing chamber are contacted with an oxidizing plasma; (b) a first non-plasma cleaning step, in which interior surfaces of the processing chamber are contacted with an H+hfac-comprising gas; and (c) a second cleaning step, in which interior surfaces of the processing chamber are contacted with a plasma containing reactive fluorine species, whereby at least a portion of the copper etch byproducts remaining after step (b) are volatilized into gaseous species, which are removed from the processing chamber. The method of the invention is preferably performed at a chamber wall temperature of at least 150° C. in order to achieve optimum cleaning of the chamber at the chamber operating pressures typically used during the cleaning process. The dry cleaning method of the invention can be performed between wafer processing runs without opening the processing chamber, thereby minimizing potential contamination to the chamber as well as chamber downtime.

Disclosed herein are surface coatings for plasma components that have the benefit of being robust against chemical and plasma physical attack in aggressive (e.g., fluorine-based) plasma environments. The coatings also provide low plasma surface recombination rates for active oxygen, nitrogen, fluorine, and hydrogen species when compared with other known surface treatments. The coatings can be applied to any plasma system component not requiring etching or plasma cleaning including but not limited to materials like quartz, aluminum, or anodized aluminum. Additionally, the efficiency of the system is increased by applying a non-reactive coating to system components thereby increasing the flow of excited plasma species to the plasma chamber of the system.

A method for post-etch copper cleaning uses a hydrogen plasma with a trace gas additive constituting about 3-10 percent of the plasma by volume to clean a copper surface exposed by etching. The trace gas may be atomic nitrogen or other species having an atomic mass of 15 or greater. The trace gas adds a sputtering aspect to the plasma cleaning and removes polymeric etch by-products and polymeric and other residuals formed during the deposition of dielectric materials or etch stop layers over the copper surface. An anti-corrosion solvent may be used to passivate the copper surface prior to formation of the dielectric materials or etch stop layers.

The present invention relates to plasma cleaning methods for removing surface deposits from a surface, such as the interior of a depositions chamber that is used in fabricating electronic devices. The present invention also provides gas mixtures and activated gas mixtures which provide superior performance in removing deposits from a surface. The methods involve activating a gas mixture comprising a carbon or sulfur source, NF₃, and optionally, an oxygen source to form an activated gas, and contacting the activated gas mixture with surface deposits to remove the surface deposits wherein the activated gas mixture acts to passivate the interior surfaces of the apparatus to reduce the rate of surface recombination of gas phase species.

A method and apparatus for reducing fluorine and other sorbable contaminants in plasma reactor used in chemical vapor deposition process such as the deposition of silicon oxide layer by the reaction of TEOS and oxygen. According to the method of the present invention, plasma of an inert gas is maintained in plasma reactor following chamber clean to remove sorbable contaminants such as fluorine. The plasma clean is typically followed by seasoning of the reactor to block or retard remaining contaminants. According to one embodiment of the invention, the combination of chamber clean, plasma clean, and season film is conducted before PECVD oxide layer is deposited on wafer positioned in the plasma reactor.

Various methods of fabricating a silicide structure are provided. In one aspect, a method of fabricating a circuit structure on a silicon surface is provided that includes exposing the silicon surface to a plasma ambient containing hydrogen and an inert gas, and depositing a metallic material capable of forming silicide on the silicon surface. The metallic material is heated to form a metal silicide on the silicon surface. The method provides for low sheet resistance silicide structures by eliminating native oxide films without the risk of spacer material backsputtering.

The invention provides a multifunctional integrated microfluidic nucleic acid analysis chip. The chip is prepared by preparing a combination mould according to 3D printing or micromachining technology, generating a microfluidic substrate according to an injection moulding method, and completing bonding of multiple layers including a chip substrate, a liquid circuit layer, an elastic film, a gas circuit layer and the like by means of plasma cleaning to finally obtain the complete chip. The chip integrates various structures including reagent cavities, mixing cavities, a splitting cavity, a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) extraction cavity, amplification reaction cavities, a microvalve, a microchannel and the like and has functions of sample loading, reagent mixing, heating for splitting, DNA adsorption, cleaning, eluting, amplification reaction and the like. The multifunctional integrated microfluidic nucleic acid analysis chip has the advantages that totally-closed automatic operation of 'sample input-result output' is realized, complicated manual operations are avoided, and detection efficiency is improved.

A method for plasma cleaning a CVD reactor chamber including providing a plasma enhanced CVD reactor chamber comprising residual deposited material; performing a first plasma process comprising an oxygen containing plasma; performing a second plasma process comprising an argon containing plasma; and, performing a third plasma process comprising a fluorine containing plasma.

The invention discloses a method for metallizing the surface of a microwave dielectric ceramic. The method comprises (1) surface treatment: carrying out fine grinding on the surface of a microwave dielectric ceramic and carrying out ultrasonic cleaning and vacuum plasma cleaning, (2) depositing an underlying metal through a magnetron sputtering method under low magnetron sputtering atmospheric pressure of 0.1-0.2 pa, and (3) depositing a metallized film system through the magnetron sputtering method under conventional magnetron sputtering atmospheric pressure of 0.3-0.7 pa. Compared with the other microwave dielectric ceramic surface metallization methods, the method utilizes a two-step atmospheric pressure sputtering method to deposit a multiple-layer metallized film system, effectively improves the adhesion of a metallized film layer on the surface of a microwave dielectric ceramic, has a simple and reasonable process design, has industrial production feasibility, is environmentally friendly and does not produce pollution in production.

The invention discloses an all-inorganic SMD LED packaging method. The method includes the following processes that firstly, a support is manufactured, secondly, dehumidification, baking and plasma cleaning are conducted on the whole ceramic support, thirdly, wafer expanding is conducted on a flip chip, fourthly, a ceramic substrate is baked, fifthly, a glass cover plate is closed, and a second metal layer and an LED support are welded in a seamless mode, and sixthly, cutting is conducted. The first process particularly includes the following steps that the ceramic substrate is prepared; the ceramic substrate with a circuit is manufactured; the glass cover plate is manufactured; the edge of the ceramic substrate obtained through the twelfth process and the edge of the glass cover plate obtained through the thirteenth step are ground respectively; a first metal layer is arranged around the ceramic substrate, the second metal layer is arranged around the side, covering the ceramic substrate, of the glass cover plate, and then a metalized ceramic substrate frame and a glass cover plate frame which have high heat conduction performance are formed; a groove of the ceramic plate is plated with silver; a metal heat sink body and a metal bonding pad are arranged. In the fifth process, LED device indirect high-temperature heating rapid inorganic material airtight packaging is achieved.

A method involving plasma cleaning of deposit residues in process chamber using duo-step wafer-less auto clean method is detailed. Specifically, the method involves cleaning the processing chamber by flowing a first gaseous composition with at least about 75% of fluorine-containing compound of the formula X_yF_z, into a processing chamber and then forming a first etchant plasma which removes silicon and silicon based byproducts from the interior surfaces of the processing chamber. The method then involves flowing a second gaseous composition into the processing chamber with a composition of at least about 50% O₂ and forming a plasma from the second gaseous composition to provide a second etchant plasma which removes carbon and carbon based byproducts from the interior surfaces of the processing chamber. A system configured to execute the two step cleaning process is also provided.

A plasma processing system includes a processing chamber, a substrate holder provided within the processing chamber for holding a target substrate, a composite electrode provided within the processing chamber so as to oppose the substrate holder and having a plurality of first electrodes and second electrodes for generating plasma, and a gas supply section for supplying a material gas into the processing chamber. The system further includes a plasma region increasing/reducing section for increasing or reducing a plasma region formed in the processing chamber, and a cleaning section for plasma cleaning the inside of the processing chamber by using plasma generated in the plasma region increased or reduced by the plasma region increasing/reducing section. Thus, the quality of a film to be deposited can be improved by eliminating ion impact against the target substrate, and the system cost can be lowered by efficiently removing, with a simple structure, particles produced in the processing chamber.