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US 10,309,031 B2Granted
Plating power supply with headroom control and ethercat interface
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsCharles A. Cummings, Mikael R. Borjesson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for controlling the operation of apparatus for electroplating semiconductor substrates includes operating in a high mode of operation in which an off-the-shelf power supply provides current or voltage that is directly used to produce the channel control signal and in a low mode of operation in which the off-the-shelf power supply biases a circuit that provides a current or voltage to produce the channel control signal.
Claims9
A method of controlling operation of electroplating apparatus, comprising:
- generating, from a target electroplating process, an output electrical control signal schedule of target output electrical control signal values and corresponding durations;
- operating an alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) power block to generate a DC voltage according to the output control schedule in at least two modes, wherein
- in a high mode of operation, the AC-to-DC power block directly provides the output electrical control signal to an electroplating channel;
- and
- in a low mode of operation, the AC-to-DC power block provides a headroom voltage signal to bias a low range controller transistor stage, and wherein the low range control transistor acts as a post-regulator to control the output electrical control signal to the electroplating channel;
- and
- adjusting the headroom voltage to control abrupt variations in the output electrical control signal during transition from the low mode of operation to the high mode of operation and to minimize power consumption in the low range control transistor.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.