Plasma processing apparatus
AssigneeTokyo Electron Limited
InventorJun Oyabu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention provides a plasma processing apparatus, comprising a chamber for applying a film depositing treatment or an etching treatment to a target object by utilizing plasma, and a gate liner covering the surface of the open portion of a chamber gate for transferring the target object into and out of the chamber so as to prevent the chamber gate from being affected by the plasma. A gate aspect ratio, which is a ratio of the depth of the open portion of the chamber gate to the length in the short-side direction, is determined in accordance with the anode/cathode ratio, which is a ratio in area of the anode region to the cathode region within the chamber, so as to prevent an abnormal discharge within the gate space.
Claims5
A plasma processing apparatus, comprising:
- a chamber whose inner space can be held in a vacuum state and in which a plasma processing is applied to a target object;
- an exhaust mechanism for exhausting the inner space of the chamber to establish a vacuum state;
- a gas introducing mechanism for introducing a process gas into the chamber;
- a lower electrode supporting the target object;
- an upper electrode arranged to face the lower electrode;
- a power source arranged outside the chamber for supplying an electric power to the electrodes so as to form a plasma of the process gas within the chamber;
- a gate open portion formed in the chamber for transferring the target object into and out of the chamber;
- and
- a gate valve for opening/closing the gate open portion,
- wherein a gate aspect ratio, which is a ratio of a depth of the gate open portion to a width of the gate open portion, is at most 1.5, and an anode/cathode ratio, which is a ratio of an area of an anode portion to an area of a cathode portion in the chamber falls within a range of 18 to 25.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.