Semiconductor film plating perimeter mapping and compensation
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorKyle M. Hanson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Conditions at the perimeter of the wafer may be characterized and and used to adjust current stolen by the weir thief electrodes during a plating process to generate more uniform film thicknesses. An electrode may be positioned in a plating chamber near the periphery of the wafer as the wafer rotates. To characterize the electrical contacts on the seal, a wafer with a seed layer may be loaded into the plating chamber, and a constant current may be driven through the electrode into the conductive layer on the wafer. As an electrical characteristic of this current varies, such as a voltage required to drive a constant current, a mapping characterizing the seal quality or the openings in the mask layer may be generated.
Claims18
A semiconductor plating system comprising:
- a vessel assembly for holding an electrolyte and a wafer in the electrolyte;
- a weir thief electrode assembly in the vessel assembly, the weir thief electrode assembly comprising a plurality of thief electrodes configured to steal current during a plating process;
- an electrode positioned in the vessel assembly to be submerged in the electrolyte during the plating process;
- and
- a controller programmed to cause a current to flow from the electrode to the wafer and to record an electrical characteristic associated with the current measured while the current flows from the electrode to a conductive layer on the wafer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.