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US 5,628,870 AGranted
Method for marking a substrate using ionized gas
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsYan Ye, Anand Gupta, Yuri S. Uritsky
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus suitable for marking a substrate comprises a holder for holding a substrate and a ground for electrically grounding the substrate. At least one needle electrode has a tip located proximate to the substrate so that there is a gap between the substrate and the tip. A high voltage source provides a current to the electrode tip to ionize the gas in the gap so that the ionized gas can impinge upon and mark the substrate.
Claims21
A method for marking a semiconductor substrate, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) electrically grounding the substrate;
- (b) placing at least one needle electrode tip proximate to the substrate to form a gap between the electrode tip and the substrate, the gap having a gas therein;
- and
- (c) electrically biasing the needle electrode tip with respect to the electrically grounded substrate by applying a sufficiently high voltage to the electrode tip to ionize the gas in the gap so that the ionized gas impinges upon and marks the substrate.
1 more element
A method for marking a substrate, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) electrically grounding the substrate;
- (b) placing at least one needle electrode tip proximate to the substrate to form a gap between the electrode tip and the substrate;
- (c) introducing a gas in the gap, the gas selected from the group consisting of Ar, Xe, and He;
- and
- (d) passing a current having a sufficiently high voltage through the electrode tip to ionize the gas into the gap so that the ionized gas impinges upon and marks the substrate.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.