Cleaning and liquid contact with solids – Processes – Including application of electrical radiant or wave energy...
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-03
2003-02-11
Markoff, Alexander (Department: 1746)
Cleaning and liquid contact with solids
Processes
Including application of electrical radiant or wave energy...
C134S022100, C118S7230IR
Reexamination Certificate
active
06516814
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a method for rapid preventing particles in a pre-clean chamber and, more particularly, to a method for rapid preventing particles in a pre-clean chamber of a physical vapor deposition (PVD) device.
2. Related Art
In a conventional semi-conductor manufacturing procedure, a PVD device is used to execute a metallic film plating procedure. As shown in
FIG. 1
, a conventional PVD device includes a buffer chamber
1
, a pre-clean chamber
2
, a transfer chamber
3
, a process chamber
4
and a robot arm
5
. The pre-clean chamber
2
is employed to execute a wafer pre-cleaning procedure. As shown in
FIG. 2
, the pre-clean chamber
2
includes a radio frequency (RF) generator
21
, a bell-jar
22
, a shield
23
, and a pre-clean chamber body
24
. When the pre-cleaning of a wafer
6
is going to be executed, the wafer
6
is transferred into the pre-clean chamber
2
by the robot arm
5
. Then, as shown in
FIG. 3
, a gas such as argon is induced into the pre-clean chamber
2
, which is then ionized into plasma using the RF wave from the RF generator
21
. By impacting the plasma onto the wafer
6
, etching removes chemical residue remaining on the wafer
6
surface. It also removes the thin layer of oxide, which is formed when the wafer
6
is exposed to atmosphere.
When the plasma impacting method completes the pre-cleaning of the wafer
6
, the removal material further adheres to the bell-jar
22
and the shield
23
. In this case, if the metallic film deposition procedure to be executed in the PVD device is a pre-metallic deposition procedure like Cobalt deposition process of gate manufacturing procedure, the essential surface ingredient of the wafer
6
to be pre-cleaned in the pre-clean chamber
2
is silicon, as usual. Therefore, after multiple pre-cleaning procedures, a large amount of silicon-rich oxide will accumulate on the bell-jar
22
and the shield
23
.
Since the bell-jar
22
is generally made of quartz and the adherent effect between the silicon-rich oxide and the quartz is poor, a peeling phenomenon occurs leading to particle contamination on the wafer
6
in the pre-clean chamber
6
. Therefore, any subsequent metallic film manufacturing procedure will be inversely affected.
To resolve the above-mentioned problem, a manufacturer, usually, will clean the bell-jar
22
after a certain period of time to avoid the particle problem caused by the peeling of silicon-rich oxide from the bell-jar
22
.
However, the manufacturing procedure must be suspended during the cleaning period and thus production efficiency is inversely affected. Therefore, it is an important objective to prevent rapidly the peeling of silicon-rich oxide and extend the life of the bell-jar
22
in the pre-clean chamber
2
so as to reduce time for maintenance and to promote production efficiency.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above, an objective of the invention is to provide a method for rapid preventing particles in a pre-clean chamber so as to extend the life of the bell-jar in the pre-clean chamber, to reduce the time required for maintenance, and thus to promote production efficiency.
The method for rapid preventing particles in a pre-clean chamber according to the invention is featured by impacting argon plasma onto a silica material to dislodge silica. The argon plasma is formed by using RF to ionize the argon gas and oxygen gas injected into the pre-clean chamber. The dislodged silica and ionized oxygen are allowed to co-deposit on a layer of silicon-rich oxide already formed on the bell-jar. A layer of silicon oxide formed with the dislodged silica could prevent the silicon-rich oxide from peeling quickly so as to extend the life of the bell-jar.
To achieve the objective of the invention, a method for rapid preventing particles in a pre-clean chamber according to the invention includes following steps:
a silica material supply step for providing a silica material in the pre-clean chamber;
a gas supply step for providing oxygen gas and sputtering gas into the pre-clean chamber; and
a plasma generating step for ionizing the oxygen gas and the sputtering gas by RF to form plasma and then impacting the plasma onto the silica material, so that the silica dislodged from the silica material and the silicon-rich oxide react with the oxygen at a time so as to form a silica layer rapidly on the bell-jar in the pre-clean chamber.
As mentioned above, the adherence effect between silica and the bell-jar is better than that between silicon-rich oxide and the bell-jar. Thus, when a layer of silicon-rich oxide is formed on the bell-jar, silica can be generated rapidly via the reactions of oxygen gas and silicon-rich oxide, and oxygen gas and silica material. Coating silica on the bell-jar prevents the silicon-rich oxide from peeling quickly so as to extend the life of the bell-jar.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5812403 (1998-09-01), Fong et al.
patent: 5968587 (1999-10-01), Frankel
patent: 6019848 (2000-02-01), Frankel et al.
patent: 6067999 (2000-05-01), Hines et al.
patent: 6121161 (2000-09-01), Rossman et al.
patent: 6139702 (2000-10-01), Yang et al.
patent: 6223685 (2001-05-01), Gupta et al.
patent: 6348099 (2002-02-01), Xia et al.
patent: 11269644 (1999-10-01), None
Huang Chao-yuan
Kuo Chia-ming
Birch & Stewart Kolasch & Birch, LLP
Markoff Alexander
Silicon Integrated Systems Corp.
LandOfFree
Method of rapid prevention of particle pollution in... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method of rapid prevention of particle pollution in..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method of rapid prevention of particle pollution in... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3150681