Plasma cleaning of deposition chamber residues using duo-step wafer-less auto clean method

A method for processing wafers comprising:

• first cleaning interior surfaces of a process chamber with a fluoride plasma including at least about 75% of a fluorine-containing compound of the formula XyFz, said fluoride plasma being optimized to remove silicon and silicon compounds;
• second cleaning said interior surfaces of said process chamber with an oxygen plasma including at least about 50% O2, said oxygen plasma being optimized to remove carbon and carbon compounds;
• and
• processing a wafer within said process chamber after said first cleaning and said second cleaning.

A method for cleaning interior surfaces of a processing chamber, comprising:

• flowing a first etchant process gas with a fluorine-containing compound of the formula XyFz, said fluorine-containing compound being optimized to remove silicon and silicon compounds;
• forming a plasma from said first etchant process gas;
• flowing a second etchant process gas containing oxygen upon removal of the first etchant gas, said process gas being optimized to remove carbon based compounds and an optional fluorine-containing compound of the formula XxFz, said fluorine-containing compound being optimized to remove silicon and silicon compounds;
• forming a plasma from said second etchant process gas;
• maintaining a pressure in the processing chamber between about 2 mTorr and about 100 mTorr;
• and
• monitoring said process for carbon-based compounds on interior surfaces of said processing chamber for reaching a predetermined level.