Method and apparatus for cleaning a semiconductor wafer processing system
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsMichael Chiu Kwan, Alan W. Collins, Jalel Hamila, Padmanabhan Krishnaraj, Zhengquan Tan
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for cleaning a semiconductor wafer processing system comprising a turbomolecular pump. In one embodiment, the invention may be reduced to practice by first supplying a cleaning agent to a chamber; pumping the cleaning agent from the chamber through an the exhaust port; at least partially opening a gate valve; and drawing at least a portion of the cleaning agent through the gate valve and into the turbomolecular pump.
Claims12
A method for cleaning a semiconductor process chamber comprising the steps of:
- removing a processed substrate from the chamber;
- supplying a cleaning agent to said chamber;
- pumping said cleaning agent from the chamber;
- at least partially opening a gate valve coupled between said chamber and a turbomolecular pump coupled in parallel;
- and
- drawing at least a portion of said cleaning agent through said turbomolecular pump.
A method for cleaning a semiconductor process chamber, comprising:
- supplying a cleaning agent to a deposition chamber;
- pumping said cleaning agent from the deposition chamber through a pumping system having a turbomolecular pump and roughing pump coupled in parallel;
- partially opening a valve coupled between said deposition chamber and the turbomolecular pump of the pumping system;
- and
- drawing at least a portion of said cleaning agent through said turbomolecular pump.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.