High productivity plasma processing chamber

A plasma processing chamber, comprising:

• a chamber body including chamber walls, a chamber floor, and a lid support;
• a lid assembly on the lid support;
• a processing region formed between the lid assembly and a substrate support;
• a lower chamber region formed by the floor and walls of the plasma processing chamber and the bottom of the substrate support when the substrate support is in process position;
• a cooling system adapted to prevent the lid assembly temperature from rising above an optimal setpoint when plasma processing takes place in said chamber;
• a heating system adapted to prevent the lid assembly temperature from dropping below an optimal setpoint when plasma processing does not take place in the plasma processing chamber;
• a further heating system adapted to heat the walls of the lower chamber region;
• and
• a thermal isolator disposed between the lid assembly and the lid support.

A plasma processing heater assembly, comprising:

• a support shaft;
• a ceramic heater support structure disposed on the support shaft;
• and
• an aluminum heater pedestal disposed on the ceramic heater support structure.

A plasma processing heater assembly, comprising:

• an aluminum pedestal adapted to contain an electrical heating element, the pedestal configured to form one side of a plasma processing region;
• an electrical heating element inside the pedestal;
• a temperature sensor inside the pedestal;
• a double-walled support shaft, the inner wall of said shaft being fixed in a vacuum tight manner to a side of said pedestal not exposed to said processing region;
• a volume between the outer and inner walls of said shaft, the volume being vented to the plasma processing region;
• a further volume disposed inside the inner wall of said shaft, the further volume being vented to atmospheric pressure;
• and
• electrical feed-throughs for the heating element and the temperature sensor, said feed-throughs being disposed on the side of said pedestal not exposed to said processing region and further disposed inside the further volume at atmospheric pressure.

A plasma processing substrate support, comprising:

• an pedestal configured to support a substrate during plasma processing;
• a plurality of sapphire balls of equal diameter swaged into the face of the pedestal;
• and
• an absence of any dead volume between said balls and the face of the pedestal.

A method of preventing failure of a substrate support heating element, comprising:

• utilizing a dual filament tubular heating element inside a substrate support;
• feeding the conductors for the heating element into the substrate support through a single aperture;
• and
• constraining the heating element inside the substrate support only at one end of the heating element.

A method of maintaining uniformity of substrate heating, comprising:

• utilizing a dual filament tubular heating element inside a substrate support;
• feeding the conductors for the heating element into the substrate support through a single aperture at the center of the substrate support;
• and
• arranging the heating element inside the substrate support in the form of an Archimedes spiral.

A method of preventing particle generation from surfaces in a plasma-processing chamber, comprising:

• cooling the lid assembly of the chamber when the temperature of the lid assembly is measured to be above about 200 degrees C.;
• heating the lid assembly of the chamber when the temperature of the lid assembly is measured to be below about 195 degrees C.;
• and
• minimizing heat transfer to and from the lid assembly with a thermal isolator.