Electrical feed-through structure and method
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsJimmy Vishnipolsky, Efim Vinnitsky, Eliyahu Almog
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Electrical lead-through systems from atmospheric into vacuum environments are presented. Electrical feed-through structures (EFTS) comprised of a multiplicity of parallel connection lines used to operate e-beam tip-array sources in high vac environments for chip lithography are disclosed. In one embodiment, an EFTS comprises a sheet of insulating material having conductive tracks extending along potions of the sheet and a vacuum seal separating one portion from another portion of the sheet so as to maintain a pressure differential among multiple portions of the sheet.
Claims18
An electrical feed-through structure (EFTS) comprising:
- a sheet of insulating material, the sheet including at least one embedded layer of conductive tracks, the conductive tracks extending from a first portion of the sheet to a second portion;
- and
- a vacuum seal made to the sheet so as to separate the first and second portions and permit evacuation of a first volume in contact with said first portion whilst a second volume, in contact with said second portion, is maintained at higher pressure.
Lithography apparatus comprising:
- an e-beam source comprising an array of tips, and having a plurality of control terminals to enable selective control of emission from said tips the source being positioned in an evacuable volume;
- and
- an electrical feed-through structure in accordance with any preceding claim, arranged such that said second portion is inside the evacuable volume, and said first portion is outside the evacuable volume,
- wherein said control terminals are connected to said tracks in the first portion, the apparatus further comprising e-beam source control electronics arranged outside said evacuable volume, and connected to said tracks in the second portion.
Use of a multi-layer interconnect structure as an electrical feed-through into a vacuum environment, the multi-layer interconnect structure comprising a sheet of insulating material, the sheet including at least one embedded layer of conductive tracks, the tracks extending from a first portion of the sheet to a second portion.
A method of operating an electrical device in a vacuum environment, the device having a plurality of terminals and the method comprising the steps of:
- providing an interconnect structure comprising a sheet of insulating material, the sheet including at least one embedded layer of conductive tracks, the tracks extending from a first portion of the sheet to a second portion;
- positioning the electrical device generally over the first portion of the sheet;
- forming electrical connections between said terminals and said tracks in the first portion;
- forming a vacuum seal to the sheet to include the device inside the seal and to separate the first portion from the second portion;
- forming a plurality of external connections to the tracks in the second portion of the sheet;
- evacuating a volume inside the vacuum seal, said volume including said device;
- and
- operating said device via said external connections.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.