公开(公告)号：US10483141B2

公开(公告)日：2019-11-19

申请号：US15697492

申请日：2017-09-07

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Karthik Janakiraman ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez

IPC分类号： H01L21/677 ,  H01L21/67 ,  B65G54/02

摘要： A substrate transport system is disclosed and includes a chamber having an interior wall, a planar motor disposed on the interior wall, and a substrate carrier magnetically coupled to the planar motor. The substrate carrier comprises a base and a substrate supporting surface coupled to a support member extending from the base in a cantilevered orientation.

公开(公告)号：US10435787B2

公开(公告)日：2019-10-08

申请号：US15806600

申请日：2017-11-08

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： James L'Heureux ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti

IPC分类号： C23C16/22 ,  C23C16/455 ,  C23C16/505 ,  C23C16/511 ,  C23C16/52 ,  C23C16/40 ,  C23C16/44

摘要： A method for removing one or more processing by-products found in deposition systems, such as in vacuum forelines of vapor deposition systems is provided. The method comprises performing a deposition process to deposit a layer on a substrate positioned in a deposition chamber. Hydrogen-containing by-products are produced in a vacuum foreline fluidly coupled with the deposition chamber during the depositing process. The method further comprises flowing an oxidizing agent gas into the vacuum foreline to react with at least a portion of the hydrogen-containing by-products in the foreline.

公开(公告)号：US10403535B2

公开(公告)日：2019-09-03

申请号：US14824229

申请日：2015-08-12

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Zheng John Ye ,  Jay D. Pinson, II ,  Hiroji Hanawa ,  Jianhua Zhou ,  Xing Lin ,  Ren-Guan Duan ,  Kwangduk Douglas Lee ,  Bok Hoen Kim ,  Swayambhu P. Behera ,  Sungwon Ha ,  Ganesh Balasubramanian ,  Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez ,  Prashant Kumar Kulshreshtha ,  Jason K. Foster ,  Mukund Srinivasan ,  Uwe P. Haller ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti

IPC分类号： H02N13/00 ,  H01L21/683 ,  H01L21/687

摘要： Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an electrostatic chuck for maintaining a flatness of a substrate being processed in a plasma reactor at high temperatures. In one embodiment, the electrostatic chuck comprises a chuck body coupled to a support stem, the chuck body having a substrate supporting surface, and the chuck body has a volume resistivity value of about 1×107 ohm-cm to about 1×1015 ohm-cm in a temperature of about 250° C. to about 700° C., and an electrode embedded in the body, the electrode is coupled to a power supply. In one example, the chuck body is composed of an aluminum nitride material which has been observed to be able to optimize chucking performance around 600° C. or above during a deposition or etch process, or any other process that employ both high operating temperature and substrate clamping features.

公开(公告)号：US10388549B2

公开(公告)日：2019-08-20

申请号：US15347519

申请日：2016-11-09

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Khokan C. Paul ,  Jay D. Pinson, II ,  Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Rupankar Choudhury ,  Shekhar Athani ,  Sandeep Kumpala ,  Hanish Kumar Panavalappil Kumarankutty

IPC分类号： H01L21/67 ,  H01L21/673 ,  H01L21/687 ,  G05B19/04 ,  G05B19/401 ,  H01L21/677

摘要： Implementations of the present disclosure generally relate to an improved factory interface that is coupled to an on-board metrology housing configured for measuring film properties of a substrate. In one implementation, an apparatus comprises a factory interface, and a metrology housing removably coupled to the factory interface through a load port, the metrology housing comprises an on-board metrology assembly for measuring properties of a substrate to be transferred into the metrology housing.

公开(公告)号：US10056279B2

公开(公告)日：2018-08-21

申请号：US15004406

申请日：2016-01-22

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Karthik Janakiraman ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Juan Carlos Rocha ,  Mukund Srinivasan

IPC分类号： H01L21/677

CPC分类号： H01L21/67709 ,  H01L21/67736 ,  H01L21/67742

摘要： A system for processing a substrate is provided including a first planar motor, a substrate carrier, a first processing chamber, and a first lift. The first planar motor includes a first arrangement of coils disposed along a first horizontal direction, a top surface parallel to the first horizontal direction, a first side, a second side. The substrate carrier has a substrate supporting surface parallel to the first horizontal direction. The first processing chamber has an opening to receive a substrate disposed on the substrate carrier. The first lift includes a second planar motor having a second arrangement of coils disposed along the first horizontal direction. A top surface top surface of the second planar motor is parallel to the first horizontal direction. The first lift is configured to move the top surface of the second planar motor between a first vertical location and a second vertical location.

公开(公告)号：US20130102109A1

公开(公告)日：2013-04-25

申请号：US13655170

申请日：2012-10-18

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Michael P. Stewart ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Prabhat Kumar ,  Jeffrey L. Franklin ,  Kapila P. Wijekoon

IPC分类号： H01L31/18

CPC分类号： H01L31/02167 ,  H01L31/022425 ,  Y02E10/50

摘要： Embodiments of the present invention generally provide improved processes and apparatus for removing passivation layers from a surface of photovoltaic cells and improving contact resistance in rear point contact photovoltaic cells. In one embodiment, a method of processing a solar cell substrate includes providing a substrate having a passivation layer deposited on a first surface of the substrate. The passivation layer is a layer stack comprising an aluminum oxide and a silicon nitride. The method also includes exposing the first surface of the substrate to an etchant, and heating the etchant to dissolve the aluminum oxide of the passivation layer on the first surface. The method may further include forming a metal containing layer on a second surface of the substrate that is opposite to the first surface.

摘要翻译： 本发明的实施例通常提供用于从光伏电池的表面去除钝化层的改进的工艺和装置，并且改善了后点接触光伏电池中的接触电阻。 在一个实施例中，处理太阳能电池基板的方法包括提供具有沉积在基板的第一表面上的钝化层的基板。 钝化层是包含氧化铝和氮化硅的层叠层。 该方法还包括将衬底的第一表面暴露于蚀刻剂，并加热蚀刻剂以溶解第一表面上钝化层的氧化铝。 该方法还可以包括在与第一表面相对的基板的第二表面上形成含金属层。

公开(公告)号：US10854432B2

公开(公告)日：2020-12-01

申请号：US15614794

申请日：2017-06-06

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Hari K. Ponnekanti

IPC分类号： H01J37/32

摘要： The present disclosure generally relates to methods and apparatus for facilitating electrical feedthrough in plasma processing chambers. The apparatus includes an electrically insulating housing positioned on a backside of the substrate support to contain a secondary plasma therein. The secondary plasma facilitates an electrical connection between the substrate support and electrical power or ground located outside the processing chamber. The methods include utilizing a secondary plasma to electrically couple substrate support to and electrical power or ground located outside the processing chamber.

公开(公告)号：US10597785B2

公开(公告)日：2020-03-24

申请号：US15703626

申请日：2017-09-13

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Anantha K. Subramani ,  Praburam Gopalraja ,  Tza-Jing Gung ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Philip Allan Kraus

IPC分类号： C23C14/34 ,  C23C28/02 ,  C23C14/35 ,  C23C16/44 ,  C23C14/56 ,  C23C14/02 ,  C23C14/14 ,  C23C14/50 ,  C23C16/06 ,  C23C16/40 ,  C23C16/458 ,  H01J37/32 ,  H01J37/34 ,  H01L21/02 ,  H01L21/285

摘要： Implementations described herein generally relate to metal oxide deposition in a processing chamber. More specifically, implementations disclosed herein relate to a combined chemical vapor deposition and physical vapor deposition chamber. Utilizing a single oxide metal deposition chamber capable of performing both CVD and PVD advantageously reduces the cost of uniform semiconductor processing. Additionally, the single oxide metal deposition system reduces the time necessary to deposit semiconductor substrates and reduces the foot print required to process semiconductor substrates. In one implementation, the processing chamber includes a gas distribution plate disposed in a chamber body, one or more metal targets disposed in the chamber body, and a substrate support disposed below the gas distribution plate and the one or more targets.

公开(公告)号：US10518418B2

公开(公告)日：2019-12-31

申请号：US15860102

申请日：2018-01-02

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Dale R. Du Bois ,  Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez ,  Karthik Janakiraman ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Sanjeev Baluja ,  Prajeeth Wilton

IPC分类号： H01L21/67 ,  B25J11/00 ,  H01L21/677

摘要： The present disclosure generally relates to semiconductor process equipment used to transfer semiconductor substrates between process chambers. More specifically, embodiments described herein are related to systems and methods used to transfer, or swap, semiconductor substrates between process chambers using a transport device that employs at least two blades for the concurrent transfer of substrates between processing chambers.

公开(公告)号：US10236197B2

公开(公告)日：2019-03-19

申请号：US14589990

申请日：2015-01-05

申请人： Applied Materials, Inc.

发明人： Karthik Janakiraman ,  Abhijit Basu Mallick ,  Hari K. Ponnekanti ,  Mandyam Sriram ,  Alexandros T. Demos ,  Mukund Srinivasan ,  Juan Carlos Rocha-Alvarez ,  Dale R. Dubois

IPC分类号： H01L21/67 ,  C23C16/458 ,  H01L21/687 ,  C23C14/58 ,  C23C14/50 ,  B05C13/00 ,  C23C16/56 ,  H01L21/677

摘要： An apparatus and method for processing a substrate in a processing system containing a deposition chamber, a treatment chamber, and an isolation region, separating the deposition chamber from the treatment is described herein. The deposition chamber deposits a film on a substrate. The treatment chamber receives the substrate from the deposition chamber and alters the film deposited in the deposition chamber with a film property altering device. Processing systems and methods are provided in accordance with the above embodiment and other embodiments.