Method and apparatus for ionized physical vapor deposition

An ionized physical vapor deposition apparatus comprising:

• a vacuum chamber having a chamber wall surrounding a vacuum processing space inside of the chamber, the chamber wall having an opening therein at one end of the chamber;
• an IPVD source assembly situated in and forming a vacuum tight closure of the opening in the chamber wall;
• a gas supply system connected to the chamber so as to supply a gas into the processing space;
• a vacuum system connected to the chamber and operative to maintain gas in the processing space at a vacuum pressure level;
• an RF energy source outside of the chamber;
• the IPVD source assembly including:
• a ring-shaped coating material source from which coating material is supplied to the processing space, the ring-shaped source having an open center and at least one surface in communication with the vacuum processing space, the ring-shaped coating material source including:
• an annular sputtering target having a back surface outside of the vacuum and the processing space, an annular front sputtering surface in the chamber facing the processing space, an inner rim adjacent the central opening, an outer rim, vacuum sealing surfaces on the inner and outer rims thereof capable of forming a vacuum tight seal between the sputtering target and the chamber wall and between the sputtering target and the window when the target is compressed between the window and the chamber wall to form a vacuum tight enclosure that includes the chamber wall, the target and the window, and
• a target cover configured to twist lock to at least one of the rims of the target by rotation relative thereto of a fraction of a turn to form a cooling fluid channel bounded in part by the back surface of the target;
• an annular permanent magnet assembly adjacent the back surface of the target and configured to produce a sputtering-plasma-confining magnetic field adjacent the front surface of the target,
• a window assembly including a dielectric window situated at the open center of the ring-shaped source and forming part of a vacuum tight enclosure with the chamber wall and having a chamber side and an outside, and
• a coil outside of the chamber at said one end of the chamber adjacent and on the outside of the dielectric window and connected to the RF energy source so as to inductively couple energy from the RF energy source, when energized thereby, through the window and into the processing space to sustain an inductively coupled plasma in the processing space that is sufficiently dense to ionize coating material from the ring-shaped source in the processing space;
• a substrate support inside of the chamber opposite the processing space from the ring-shaped coating material source and having a wafer supporting surface thereon facing the processing space, the outer rim of the target being closer to the plane of the wafer supporting surface of the substrate support than the inner rim.