Techniques for deposition of high-density dielectric films for patterning applications are described. More particularly, a method of processing a substrate is provided. The method includes flowing a precursor-containing gas mixture into a processing volume of a processing chamber having a substrate positioned on an electrostatic chuck. The substrate is maintained at a pressure between about 0.1 mTorr and about 10 Torr. A plasma is generated at the substrate level by applying a first RF bias to the electrostatic chuck to deposit a dielectric film on the substrate. The dielectric film has a refractive index in a range of about 1.5 to about 3.

A gas flow accelerator may include a body portion, and a tapered body portion including a first end integrally formed with the body portion. The gas flow accelerator may include an inlet port connected to the body portion and to receive a process gas to be removed from a semiconductor processing tool by a main pumping line. The semiconductor processing tool may include a chuck and a chuck vacuum line to apply a vacuum to the chuck to retain a semiconductor device. The tapered body portion may be configured to generate a rotational flow of the process gas to prevent buildup of processing byproduct on interior walls of the main pumping line. The gas flow accelerator may include an outlet port integrally formed with a second end of the tapered body portion. An end portion of the chuck vacuum line may be provided through the outlet port.

A plasma processing apparatus includes a processing container that defines a processing space, a gas supply unit provided on a sidewall of the processing container and configured to supply gas to the processing space, a dielectric member having a facing surface that faces the processing space, and an antenna provided on a surface opposite to the facing surface of the dielectric member and configured to radiate microwaves that turn the gas into plasma to the processing space through the dielectric member. The gas supply unit includes a transport hole transporting the gas to a position where the gas does not reach the processing space in the inside of the sidewall of the processing container and an injection hole communicated to the transport hole and configured to inject the gas transported to the position into the processing space. The injection hole has a diameter larger than that of the transport hole.

An endblock for a rotatable sputtering target, such as a rotatable magnetron sputtering target, is provided. A sputtering apparatus, including one or more such endblock(s), includes locating the electrical contact(s) (e.g., brush(es)) between the collector and rotor in the endblock(s) in an area under vacuum (as opposed to in an area at atmospheric pressure).

This disclosure relates to a plasma processing system and methods for high precision etching of microelectronic substrates. The system may include a combination of microwave and radio frequency (RF) power sources that may generate plasma conditions to remove monolayer(s). The system may generation a first plasma to form a thin adsorption layer on the surface of the microelectronic substrate. The adsorbed layer may be removed when the system transition to a second plasma. The differences between the first and second plasma may be include the ion energy proximate to the substrate. For example, the first plasma may have an ion energy of less than 20 eV and the second plasma may have an ion energy greater than 20 eV.

According to one embodiment, there is provided a carbon hard mask laminated on an etching target film, in which the concentration ratio of a methylene group CH.sub.2 and a methyl group CH.sub.3 contained in the carbon hard mask satisfies the expression CH.sub.2/(CH.sub.2+CH.sub.3)≥0.5.

A vacuum exhaust system and method of evacuating a plurality of chambers is disclosed. The vacuum exhaust system is within a clean room and comprises: a plurality of branch process gas channels each configured to connect to a corresponding chamber and a shared process channel formed from a confluence of the branch channels and configured to provide a shared fluid communication path for process gas from each of the chambers to flow from the clean room to a process channel outside of the clean room. There is also a plurality of branch pumpdown channels each configured to connect to a corresponding chamber and a shared pumpdown channel formed from a confluence of the branch pumpdown channels and configured to provide a fluid communication path for fluid to flow from the clean room to a pumpdown channel outside of the clean room during pumpdown of at least one of the vacuum chambers.

A substrate processing method for performing a predetermined process on a substrate includes performing, a plurality of times, a cycle including (a) supplying a first processing gas into a processing container to which an exhaust pipe is connected and which accommodates the substrate and (b) supplying a second processing gas into the processing container, wherein at least one of (a) and (b) includes (c) introducing a ballast gas into the exhaust pipe and forming plasma of the processing gas supplied into the processing container.

A plasma generation apparatus includes a plasma generation unit. The plasma generation unit has a spherical or elliptical cavity. The plasma generation unit receives radio-frequency (RF) power in such a manner that bounce resonance of electrons is performed to generate plasma in the cavity. The cavity has a plasma extraction hole to communicate with an external space.

A measuring device includes a substrate disposed on a substrate support of a plasma processing apparatus, a transmission circuit, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna, a reception demodulation circuit, and a calculator which are provided in the substrate. The transmission circuit generates a microwave. The transmitting antenna transmits the microwave generated by the transmission circuit as a transmission wave. The receiving antenna receives a reflected wave of the transmission wave by plasma above the substrate support as at least one reception wave. The reception demodulation circuit generates a signal that reflects a thickness of a sheath between the substrate and the plasma, from the reception wave. The calculator obtains the thickness of the sheath from the signal generated by the reception demodulation circuit.