Plasma ashing process
AssigneeAxcelis Technolgoies, Inc.
InventorsQingyuan Han, Ivan Berry, Palani Sakthivel, Carlo Waldfried
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Abstract
A plasma ashing process and apparatus for selectively ashing photoresist and/or post etch residues from a semiconductor substrate includes generating a reduced ion density plasma in a plasma generation region at a pressure of at least 2 torr greater than the processing chamber pressure; and exposing the wafer surface having the photoresist and/or post etch residues thereon to the reduced ion density plasma to selectively remove the photoresist and/or post etch residues from the surface and leave the surface substantially the same as before exposing the substrate to the reduced ion density plasma.
Claims4
A downstream plasma asher comprising:
- a processing chamber;
- a plasma generating region comprising a gas inlet, a plasma tube coupled to the gas inlet and a discharge opening;
- a conduit in communication with the processing chamber and the discharge opening of the plasma generating region for discharging a plasma formed in the region into the processing chamber;
- and
- an orifice disposed in the conduit, wherein the orifice narrows an opening of the conduit to create a pressure differential greater than 2 torr between the plasma tube and the processing chamber, wherein the pressure is greater in the plasma tube.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.