Vacuum treatment chamber and method of manufacturing a vacuum treated plate-shaped substrate
AssigneeEvatec AG
InventorsFrantisek Balon, Jurgen Weichart
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A vacuum treatment chamber includes a vacuum recipient and therein a screen. Within the screen there is provided a stationary substrate support. Within the side wall of the vacuum recipient, there is provided a substrate handling opening and in the screen, a substrate handling cut-out. A drivingly, moveable screen-shutter frees or covers the substrate handling cut-out in the screen. Thereby, horizontal loading and un-loading (L/UL) of a substrate to the stationary substrate support is possible, although establishing an overall closed screen, once a substrate is treated in the vacuum treatment chamber.
Claims20
A vacuum treatment chamber for at least one plate-shaped substrate, comprising:
- a vacuum recipient with a side wall looping around a central axis and comprising a pumping port, said side wall having a bottom rim;
- a screen within said vacuum recipient looping around said central axis and along a part of said side wall, said screen having a bottom rim;
- a stationary substrate support exposed to the inside of said screen and adapted to support the plate-shaped substrate at one of its two-dimensionally extended surfaces and along a support-plane perpendicular to said central axis;
- at least one substrate handling opening in said side wall with an opening central axis perpendicular to and intersecting said central axis;
- at least one substrate handling cut-out in said screen;
- a drivingly movable screen-shutter drivingly freeing and covering said substrate handling cut-out;
- a bottom shield looping around said central axis and complementing said screen, said bottom shield being of metal, wherein:
- said substrate handling opening and said substrate handling cut-out are mutually aligned and tailored to allow handling of the plate-shaped substrate towards and from said substrate support there through;
- said screen has an electrically conductive surface;
- said screen-shutter has an electrically conductive shutter-surface, which is in electric contact with said electrically conductive surface of said screen at least when said substrate handling cut-out is covered by said screen-shutter;
- said stationary substrate support comprises an electrically conductive support surface for the plate-shaped substrate, electrically connected to an RF biasing source connector of said vacuum treatment chamber;
- said screen remote from its bottom rim is electrically connected via said side wall to a system ground connector of said vacuum treatment chamber for establishing a first current path, wherein said screen at its bottom rim is also in electric contact with said side wall;
- said bottom shield is mounted in an electrically isolated manner with the following exceptions:
- said bottom shield is firmly electrically connected to said system ground connector;
- said screen at its bottom rim is in electric contact with said bottom shield and is further electrically connected via said bottom shield to said system ground connector for establishing a second current path;
- and
- said side wall at its bottom rim is in electric contact with said bottom shield.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.