Plasma Principle.ppt

* * * Power Supply - Frequency of Power Supply and Power General trend is the higher the frequency (from kHz to GHz) the ion energy decreases, however for ion density the opposite trend holds. In general, increasing the RF power increases the cleaning rate but also increases the temperature. * * Electrode Configuration - Polarity Power vs. Ground Electrode – Placing the substrate on the powered electrode results in an increase in cleaning time and etch rate when compared to the ground shelf. However, the temperature of the power electrode can become hotter than the ground, and ground electrode cleaning results in more uniform cleaning at a lower temperature at the cost of a slower etch rate. The consideration of uniformity, temperature, and etch rate must be considered to determine optimum configuration. * Argon – Physical processing of the surface by bombardment – in the case of bombardment, some amounts of the contaminant and the substrate surface are removed. The physical process in argon plasmas is a mild form of etching where in etch processes relatively large quantities of material is removed (1 micron), where in the cleaning processes only a few monolayers are removed (2 to 5 nanometers). For an etch process, more power and time is required or a more reactive plasma (different chemicals). The key is that once a good cleaning process is defined, there is little risk that too much material will be removed. Removal of epoxy bleed out without oxidation, oxide removal. Oxygen – Chemical processing by the oxidation of non-volatile organic compounds into gas phase (volatile) small organic compounds such as carbon dioxide and water and thus can be quickly be removed from the vacuum chamber. The rate at which the organic compounds are oxidized is a function of the oxygen concentration, thus the higher the pressure the faster the treatment rate. High pressures are in the 200 to 800 mTorr range. It is preferable to use oxygen over argon because of the rapid