Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Differential fluid etching apparatus – With microwave gas energizing means
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-28
2001-03-27
Dang, Thi (Department: 1763)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Differential fluid etching apparatus
With microwave gas energizing means
C118S719000, C118S7230ER, C204S298250, C204S298350
Reexamination Certificate
active
06207005
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the manufacture of substrates. More particularly, the invention provides techniques including an apparatus for processing substrates using a cluster tool apparatus with plasma immersion ion implantation (“PIII”). The present cluster tool apparatus with PIII can be used for the manufacture of a variety of substrates such as a silicon-on-insulator substrates for semiconductor integrated circuits, for example. Additionally, the present cluster tool apparatus can be generally used for the manufacture of integrated circuits. But it will be recognized that the invention has a wider range of applicability; it can also be applied to other substrates for multi-layered integrated circuit devices, three-dimensional packaging of semiconductor devices, photonic devices, piezoelectronic devices, microelectromechanical systems (“MEMS”), sensors, actuators, epitaxial-like substrates using similar or dis-similar materials, solar cells, flat panel displays (e.g., LCD, AMLCD), biological and biomedical devices, and the like.
As device size becomes smaller and wafer size becomes larger, it has been desirable to fabricate integrated circuits on multi-layered substrates such as a silicon-on-insulator (“SOI”) substrate or wafer, rather than conventional “bulk” silicon wafers. A variety of techniques have been proposed or used for fabricating the SOI wafer. These techniques include, among others, bonding a thick film of silicon material onto an insulating layer formed overlying a bulk substrate. The thick film of silicon material is commonly “thinned” by way of grinding and polishing techniques such as chemical mechanical planarization. Although this technique is fairly easy to useful in making an SOI wafer, the technique is extremely time consuming. Additionally, the technique is extremely expensive due to the use of the grinding or polishing technique, which often takes a long time and uses expensive processing chemicals. Grinding has also been shown to degrade device performance. Accordingly, an SOI wafer made by way of conventional bonding and grinding techniques are extremely costly and have numerous limitations.
A technique called “separation by implantation of oxygen,” commonly termed SIMOX also has been proposed. A detailed description of this process is described in Stanley Wolf Ph.D., SILICON PROCESSING FOR THE VLSI ERA (Volume 2), pages 66-79, which is hereby incorporated by reference. This technique generally uses conventional beam-line ion implanters for introducing the oxygen into the silicon wafer. Unfortunately, the conventional SIMOX process generally produces a costly resulting SOI wafer. This cost often stems from the long time needed to implant a sufficient dose of oxygen into the silicon wafer. Since ion implanters commonly represent one of the largest capital cost items in a fabrication facility, it is often difficult to allocate the implanter for use in the conventional SIMOX process, which is often used for a variety of other integrated circuit processing operations. Additionally, many fabrication facilities (e.g., integrated circuit and wafer) simply cannot afford purchasing additional ion implantation equipment due to its excessive cost. Accordingly, silicon-on-insulator wafers made using the conventional SIMOX process are often costly and generally take a long time to fabricate.
From the above, it is seen that techniques for the manufacture of substrates that are cost effective and efficient are often desirable.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, a technique including an apparatus for producing a substrate is provided. More particularly, the invention provides a variety of techniques including an apparatus for processing substrates using a cluster tool apparatus configured with a plasma immersion ion implantation system. The present cluster tool apparatus with PIII can be used for the manufacture of a variety of substrates such as a silicon-on-insulator, silicon-on-silicon, silicon-on-glass substrates for semiconductor integrated circuits, for example. Additionally, the present cluster tool apparatus can generally be used for the manufacture of integrated circuits, as well as other devices.
In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides a technique for processing substrates using a novel cluster tool apparatus. The apparatus includes, among other elements, a transfer chamber comprising a robot therein. A plasma immersion ion implantation chamber is coupled to the transfer chamber, and a second chamber is coupled to the transfer chamber. The second chamber can be selected from at least a CVD chamber, an etch chamber, a PVD chamber, a thermal annealing chamber, a bonding chamber, a CMP chamber, a thermal treatment chamber, a plasma treatment chamber, an epitaxial growth chamber, and others. The present apparatus can process a plurality of substrates without breaking vacuum, which enhances process quality and device yields, among other factors.
In an alternative specific embodiment, the present invention provides an alternative cluster tool apparatus for forming substrates. The cluster tool apparatus has a multiple chambers which are coupled to each other by way of a handling device such as a robot or the like. The apparatus has an input chamber for providing a donor substrate, e.g., silicon wafer. By way of a robot, which picks up the donor substrate from the input chamber, the donor substrate is placed in a first chamber such as a PIII chamber, where particles are introduced through a surface of the donor substrate to a selected depth underneath the surface by way of ion implantation or PIII. The particles are at a concentration at the selected depth to define a substrate material to be removed above the selected depth. Next, the donor substrate is placed in a second chamber (which can also be the same as the first chamber) using the robot. In the second chamber, which is a bonding chamber, the donor substrate is bonded to a receptor or target substrate to form a multi-layered substrate. The apparatus also has a third chamber, where the multi-layered substrate is placed. The third chamber is a CCP chamber, where energy is provided to a selected region of the substrate to initiate a controlled cleaving action at the selected depth in the substrate, whereupon the cleaving action is made using a propagating cleave front to free a portion of the substrate material to be removed from the substrate. In preferred embodiments, a plasma clean chamber also is provided. The plasma clean chamber removes impurities and/or particles from surfaces of the donor and receptor substrates before bonding to enhance the bonding process. The plasma clean chamber can also be used to substantially clean (e.g., remove particles and/or impurities) the surface to be implanted before introducing the impurities by way of PIII. This improves quality of the implanted substrate layer. Depending upon the embodiment, the present invention uses at least two chambers, which are coupled to each other by way of a robot, These two chambers are preferably in vacuum, which maintains cleanliness in the process.
Numerous benefits are achieved over pre-existing techniques using the present invention. In particular, the present invention provides a single solution or apparatus to form, for example, SOI wafers in a single (or multiple) cluster tool apparatus. Additionally, the present invention uses a novel cleaning and bonding technique which can occur in a chamber design without being exposed to ambient conditions, thereby preventing particulate contamination of the bonded substrates, for example. The present invention also provides an epitaxial chamber or molecular beam epitaxy (“MBE”) for growing films from a “seed” layer on a lattice mismatched substrate, for example. Furthermore, the present invention uses a high throughput PIII tool coupled in a cluster tool arrangement to enhance substrate throughput, which reduces the overall costs associated with fabrication of substrates such as SOI wafers and the like. These and
Cheung Nathan
Henley Francois J.
Dang Thi
Silicon Genesis Corporation
Townsend and Townsend / and Crew LLP
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