Long life high temperature process chamber

A chemical vapor deposition apparatus for the processing of substrates such as semiconductor wafers comprising:

• a process chamber having quartz walls;
• a susceptor in said chamber for receiving a wafer;
• a ring closely surrounding the susceptor;
• a quartz chamber divider plate extending upstream from the ring in the approximate plane of the ring in the susceptor;
• a quartz plate downstream from the susceptor and ring extending across the chamber and generally in the plane of the susceptor and ring, said chamber being divided into an upper section and a lower section by the divider plates the ring and the susceptor;
• a getter plate positioned downstream from the susceptor and the ring extending generally parallel to and spaced above the downstream divider plate;
• and a thermocouple extending adjacent the susceptor to monitor susceptor temperature;
• said susceptor, said ring, said getter plate and an outer sheath of said thermocouple being formed of silicon carbide.

A chemical vapor deposition apparatus comprising:

• a reaction chamber having a reactant gas inlet;
• a generally planar susceptor in the chamber for supporting a semiconductor wafer;
• and
• a silicon carbide getter plate positioned downstream from the susceptor, the plate being generally parallel to the susceptor in a plane spaced above the plane of the susceptor and spaced below an adjacent quartz chamber wall so that unused reactant gases flow adjacent both sides of the plate to cause unused reactants to deposit on the plate rather than on the adjacent chamber wall.

A thermocouple for a chemical vapor deposition process chamber, comprising:

• thermocouple wires;
• a quartz sheath surrounding the wires;
• and
• a silicon carbide cap disposed over the quartz sheath.