INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMA REACTOR AND ITS METHOD

• Main Authors: ARNOLD JOHN C, HARTIG MICHAEL J
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 05.04.2007
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; PLASMA TECHNIQUE; PRODUCTION OF ACCELERATED ELECTRICALLY-CHARGED PARTICLES OR OFNEUTRONS; PRODUCTION OR ACCELERATION OF NEUTRAL MOLECULAR OR ATOMICBEAMS; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an inductively coupled high frequency plasma reactor and method of processing a semiconductor wafer. SOLUTION: An inductively coupled high frequency plasma reactor 10 is provided with a plasma source 16 having multiple channels 38, 44, to each of which a raw gas is independently supplied. A gas supply system 20 is provided with multiple gas supply lines 34, 35, and 36, each of which can separately supply gas with different flow rate and gas composition to multiple channels 38 and 44 in the plasma source 16. Each channel is surrounded by RF coils 54 and 56, to which electric power is independently supplied, and plasma density is made to be variable in each channel 38 and 44 of the plasma source 16. During operation, a material layer 66 on a semiconductor wafer 28 is uniformly etched or attached by locally space-controlling plasma characteristics at each location 64 of the entire semiconductor wafer 28. COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT