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AssigneesTokyo Electron Limited, Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsJunichi Arami, Tamio Endo, Shiro Koyama, Kazuo Kikuchi, Teruaki Shiraishi, Isahiro Hasegawa, Keiji Horioka, Haruo Okano, Katsuya Okumura
Estimating the term…
A plasma processing apparatus has a process chamber for receiving an article to be processed, a monitoring window forming part of the peripheral wall of the process chamber, a pressure leading-out port, gates, and a plasma generating device for forming an electric field and generating plasma in the process chamber. The process chamber is defined by the peripheral wall having a circular cross section. Members forming parts of the peripheral wall each have an inner face continuous with the surface of the peripheral wall and curved substantially at the same radius of curvature as the surface of the peripheral wall.
A plasma processing apparatus comprising:
A plasma processing apparatus comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Gas-filled discharge tubes: constructional details of the reactor
Discharge tubes exposing object to beam, e.g. for analysis treatment, etching, imaging: vessels
Electric discharge tubes or discharge lamps
Term ended 12 Dec 2012 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a plasma etching apparatus, and more particularly to a plasma processing apparatus such as a plasma CVD apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate a presently preferred embodiment of the invention, and together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment given below, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of a plasma processing apparatus according to this invention;
FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a gate shown in FIG. 1;
This invention will now be explained in connection with preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.
A magnetron plasma etching apparatus will now be outlined with reference to FIG. 3. A first load lock chamber 12 for receiving a wafer and a second load lock chamber 14 for taking the wafer out are connected to the respective ones of both sides of a process chamber 10 in which magnetron etching is performed. Air can be evacuated from the chambers 10, 12 and 14 by means of a vacuum pump 15. A sender 16 and a receiver 18 are disposed opposed to the load lock chambers 12 and 14, respectively, in the normal pressure atmosphere. A wafer is taken out of a cassette (not shown) at the sender 16 and is pre-aligned. Then, the wafer is delivered through the load lock chamber 12 into the process chamber 10 by means of a transportation arm (not shown in FIG. 3) provided in the first load lock chamber 12. The receiver 18 supports the cassette and receives the processed or etched wafer through the load chamber 14.
Mounted between the sender 16 and the receiver 18 is a control box 20 in which are provided a control circuit for controlling the plasma etching apparatus and an electric power source.