Applied Materials, Inc.
BEAMLINE ARCHITECTURE WITH INTEGRATED PLASMA PROCESSING

Abstract:

A beamline architecture including a wafer handling chamber, a load-lock coupled to the wafer handling chamber for facilitating transfer of workpieces between an atmospheric environment and the wafer handling chamber, a plasma chamber coupled to the wafer handling chamber and containing a plasma source for performing at least one of a plasma pre-clean process, a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition process, a plasma annealing process, a pre-heating process, and an etching process on workpieces, a process chamber coupled to the wafer handling chamber and adapted to perform an ion implantation process on workpieces, and a valve disposed between the wafer handling chamber and the plasma chamber for sealing the plasma chamber from the wafer handling chamber and the process chamber, wherein a pressure within the plasma chamber and a pressure within the process chamber can be varied independently of one another.