Plasma etching in-situ cleaning process for vacuum deposition chambers - with separate plasma discharge excitation of etch gas and admission of activated etch gas to chamber

摘要

Cleaning process for vacuum deposition chambers used in semiconductor technology has etch gases intensively excited in a microwave plasma discharge separate from the deposition chamber and the activated, electrically neutral etch gas particles are then admitted to the deposition chamber to etch all surfaces at high rates irrespective of surface position and arrangement. Pref. a lower plasma, esp. below 50 W, can additionally be applied in the chamber during cleaning, to intensify the etching rate. USE/ADVANTAGE - The invention provides an improved in-situ cleaning process for vacuum film deposition chambers used in the mfr. of silicon wafer integrated chips