US 5,964,949 AGranted

ICP reactor having a conically-shaped plasma-generating section

AssigneeMattson Technology, Inc.

InventorStephen E. Savas

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Abstract

Disclosed is an inductively-coupled plasma reactor that is useful for anisotropic or isotropic etching of a substrate, or chemical vapor deposition of a material onto a substrate. The reactor has a plasma-generation chamber with a conically-shaped plasma-generating portion and coils that are arranged around the plasma-generating portion in a conical spiral. The chamber and coil may be configured to produce a highly uniform plasma potential across the entire surface of the substrate to promote uniform ion bombardment for ion enhanced processing. In addition, a conical chamber and coil configuration may be used to produce activated neutral species at varying diameters in a chamber volume for non-ion enhanced processing. Such a configuration promotes the uniform diffusion of the activated neutral species across the wafer surface.

Claims34

Dependent claims

An inductively-coupled plasma reactor for processing a substrate comprising:

a reactor chamber having a cylindrical section and a substantially conical section above the cylindrical section for producing a plasma containing at least one plasma product for processing the substrate, wherein the substantially conical section has a cone angle greater about ninety (90) degrees and less than about one hundred forty (140) degrees and a cone divergence within a range of less than about five (5) percent in a convex direction and less than about twenty five (25) percent in a concave direction;
a gas inlet coupled to to reactor chamber for providing gas to the reactor chamber;
a first power source;
an induction coil coupled to the first power source to couple power from the first power source into the reactor chamber to sustain the plasma, wherein at least a portion of the induction coil is positioned along the substantially conical section;
the induction coil having up to about five (5) turns and coupling power predominantly through the substantially conical section;
and
a support for the substrate positioned such that the substrate is exposed to the at least one plasma product during processing.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.