Three-Port Gas Supply Valve Layout for Particle-Free Chamber Purge
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional gas supply line arrangements in semiconductor processing chambers fail to effectively inhibit or remove particle contamination during clean and purge cycles, leading to wafer contamination and valve leakage due to the formation of dead zones where particles accumulate.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a three-port valve in the gas supply line arrangement that strategically coincides the gas diversion and termination points within the valve body, ensuring no external dead zone forms, and allowing purge gas to safely divert particles away from the process chamber.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional gas supply line arrangements are used with separate gas diversion and termination points, then gas flow control is achieved, but external dead zones form where particles accumulate causing contamination
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the gas diversion point and gas termination point into a single location within the valve body. This eliminates the external dead zone that forms between separate diversion and termination points, preventing particle accumulation while maintaining gas flow control functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The valve body acts as an intermediary structure that houses both the diversion and termination points internally. This intermediary design allows gas to be diverted and terminated within the same component, eliminating external dead zones without requiring complex external piping arrangements.
2Object-generated harmful factors
If purge gas is directed through external lines to divert particles, then particle removal is attempted, but dead zones form allowing particles to accumulate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the gas termination function from external lines and places it internally within the valve body at the same location as the diversion point. This eliminates the external line segment that would otherwise form a dead zone, allowing purge gas to effectively remove particles without creating accumulation points.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from a linear external gas line configuration to a three-dimensional internal valve body structure. By positioning both diversion and termination points within the valve body volume, the design eliminates the external dead zone while maintaining effective particle removal capability.
3Reliability
If cleaning and purge cycles are performed, then chamber maintenance is achieved, but particles collect on internal surfaces of gas supply lines
Solution Approach 1:
By merging the diversion and termination points into the same location within the valve body, the patent eliminates the external gas supply line segment where particles would otherwise collect during cleaning and purge cycles. This internal configuration prevents particle accumulation while maintaining chamber cleanliness.
Data Source
AI summary
In some examples, a gas supply line arrangement is provided for inhibiting particle contamination in a substrate process chamber. An example gas supply line arrangement comprises a cleaning gas source for a clean cycle of the substrate process chamber, a purge gas source for a purge cycle of the substrate process chamber, and a gas supply line to carry cleaning gas and purge gas towards the substrate process chamber. A three-port valve in the gas supply line arrangement comprises a valve inlet connected to the gas supply line, a first valve outlet in fluid communication with the substrate process chamber, the first valve outlet operable to admit or prevent a passage of cleaning gas to the substrate process chamber, and a second valve outlet connected to a divert line and operable to admit or prevent a passage of particle-containing purge gas to the divert line.