US 9,837,254 B2 · Differentially pumped reactive gas injector

Abstract

One process that may be used to remove material from a surface is ion etching. In certain cases, ion etching involves delivery of both ions and a reactive gas to a substrate. The disclosed embodiments permit local high pressure delivery of reactive gas to a substrate while maintaining a much lower pressure on portions of the substrate that are outside of the local high pressure delivery area. The low pressure is achieved by confining the high pressure reactant delivery to a small area and vacuuming away excess reactants and byproducts as they leave this small area and before they enter the larger substrate processing region. The disclosed techniques may be used to increase throughput while minimizing deleterious collisions between ions and other species present in the substrate processing region.

Claims25

Dependent claims

An apparatus for removing material from a semiconductor substrate, the apparatus comprising:

a reaction chamber;
a substrate support for supporting the substrate in the reaction chamber;
an ion or plasma source configured to deliver ions toward the substrate support;
an injection head for providing reactants to a surface of the substrate when the substrate is positioned on the substrate support, the injection head comprising:
a substrate-facing region comprising (i) a reactant outlet region of a reactant delivery conduit, and (ii) a suction region coupled to a vacuum conduit, wherein the ion or plasma source is positioned above the injection head such that ions from the ion or plasma source impinge downward upon an upper surface of the injection head;
and
a movement mechanism for moving the injection head or the substrate support with respect to one another.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Differentially pumped reactive gas injector

Life of this patent

Differentially pumped reactive gas injector

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25