A film forming method includes: preparing a substrate having a recess within a processing container; forming a silicon-containing film on the substrate by activating a silicon-containing gas with plasma and supplying the activated silicon-containing gas to the substrate; partially modifying the silicon-containing film after the silicon-containing film closes an opening of the recess; and selectively etching the modified silicon-containing film.

The present invention relates to a coating device comprising a vacuum coating chamber for conducting vacuum coating processes, said vacuum coating chamber comprising: —one or more cooled chamber walls 1 having an inner side 1 b and a cooled side 1 a, —protection shields being arranged in the interior of the chamber as one or more removable shielding plates 2, which cover at least part of the surface of the inner side 1 b of the one or more cooled chamber walls 1, wherein at least one removable shielding plate 2 is placed forming a gap 8 in relation to the surface of the inner side 1 b of the cooled chamber wall 1 that is covered by said removable shielding plate 2, wherein: —thermal conductive means 9 are arranged filling the gap 8 in an extension corresponding to at least a portion of the total surface of the inner side 1 b of the cooled chamber wall 1 that is covered by said removable shielding plate 2, wherein the thermal conductive means 9 enable conductive heat transfer between said removable shielding plate 2 and the respectively covered cooled chamber wall 1.

Exemplary semiconductor processing chambers may include a chamber body including sidewalls and a base. The chambers may include a substrate support extending through the base of the chamber body. The substrate support may include a support platen configured to support a semiconductor substrate. The substrate support may include a shaft coupled with the support platen. The substrate support may include a shield coupled with the shaft of the substrate support. The shield may include a plurality of apertures defined through the shield. The substrate support may include a block seated in an aperture of the shield.

A deposition chamber includes a vacuum enclosure, an electrostatic chuck having a flat top surface located within a vacuum enclosure, a lift-and-rotation unit extending through or laterally surrounding the electrostatic chuck at a position that is laterally offset from a vertical axis passing through a geometrical center of the electrostatic chuck, a gas supply manifold configured to provide influx of gas into the vacuum enclosure, and a pumping port connected to the vacuum enclosure.

Embodiments of the semiconductor processing methods to form low-κ films on semiconductor substrates are described. The processing methods may include flowing deposition precursors into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. The deposition precursors may include a silicon-containing precursor that has at least one vinyl group. The methods may further include generating a deposition plasma in the substrate processing region from the deposition precursors. A silicon-and-carbon-containing material, characterized by a dielectric constant (κ value) less than or about 3.0, may be deposited on the substrate from plasma effluents of the deposition plasma.

A patterned backside stress compensation film having different stress in different sectors is formed on a backside of a substrate to reduce combination warpage of the substrate. The film can be formed by employing a radio frequency electrode assembly including plurality of conductive plates that are biased with different RF power and cause local variations in the plasma employed to deposit the backside film. Alternatively, the film may be deposited with uniform stress, and some of its sectors are irradiated with ultraviolet radiation to change the stress of these irradiated sectors. Yet alternatively, multiple backside deposition processes may be sequentially employed to deposit different backside films to provide a composite backside film having different stresses in different sectors.

A faceplate for a substrate process chamber comprises a first and second surface. The second surface is shaped such that the second surface includes a peak and a distance between the first and second surface varies across the width of the faceplate. The second surface of the faceplate is exposed to a processing volume of the process chamber. Further, the faceplate may be part of a lid assembly for the process chamber. The lid assembly may include a blocker plate facing the first surface of the faceplate. A distance between the blocker plate and the first surface is constant.

An apparatus for processing a substate includes: a chamber having a gas inlet and a gas outlet; a substrate support disposed in the chamber; a plasma generator; and a controller programmed to: (a) place a substrate on the substrate support, the substrate having a pattern, (b) supply a first reactive species into the chamber to adsorb the first reactive species onto the pattern of the substrate, (c) partially purge the first reactive species from the chamber to adjust an amount of a residual first reactive species in the chamber, (d) supply a second reactive species into the chamber, and (e) expose the substrate to a plasma generated from the residual first reactive species and the second reactive species by the plasma generator to form a film on the pattern of the substrate.

A film having filling capability of a patterned recess on a surface of a substrate is deposited by forming a viscous material in a gas phase by striking a plasma in a chamber filled with a volatile precursor that can be polymerized within certain parameter ranges which include a partial pressure of the precursor during a plasma strike and substrate temperature.

A diffuser includes a front-side gradient surface formed from a diffuser block, a back-side gradient surface formed from the diffuser block, and opening structures formed from the front-side gradient surface to the back-side gradient surface. Each opening structure includes a conical opening having a first end along the front-side gradient surface and a second end corresponding to an apex at a depth within the diffuser block, and a cylindrical opening formed from the depth to the back-side gradient surface. The opening structures are arranged in rows including a first set of rows and a second set of rows alternately positioned along a length of the diffuser block.