A substrate treatment apparatus including a chamber; a lower electrode in the chamber, wherein the substrate is on the lower electrode; an upper electrode in the chamber, and above the lower electrode; a pulse signal generator configured to generate a pulse signal; and a bias power supply configured to generate bias power having a pulsed non-sinusoidal waveform using the pulse signal, and supply the generated bias power to the lower electrode, wherein the bias power supply includes a DC power generator configured to receive the pulse signal and generate a direct-current (DC) voltage subjected to feedforward compensation based on the pulse signal; and a modulator configured to generate a power signal having a non-sinusoidal waveform using the DC voltage, and filter the power signal using the pulse signal to generate the bias power having the pulsed non-sinusoidal waveform.

Embodiments herein provide plasma processing chambers and methods configured for fine-tuning and control over a plasma sheath formed during the plasma-assisted processing of a semiconductor substrate. Embodiments include a sheath tuning scheme, including plasma processing chambers and methods, which can be used to tailor one or more characteristics of a plasma sheath formed between a bulk plasma and a substrate surface. Generally, the sheath tuning scheme provides differently configured pulsed voltage (PV) waveforms to a plurality of bias electrodes embedded beneath the surface of a substrate support in an arrangement where each of the electrodes can be used to differentially bias a surface region of a substrate positioned on the support. The sheath tuning scheme disclosed herein can thus be used to adjust and/or control the directionality, and energy and angular distributions of ions that bombard a substrate surface during a plasma-assisted etch process.

A control method of a plasma processing apparatus including a first electrode that places a workpiece thereon includes supplying a bias power to the first electrode, and supplying a source power having a frequency higher than that of the bias power into a plasma processing space. The source power has a first state and a second state. The control method further includes a first control process of alternately applying the first state and the second state of the source power in synchronization with a signal synchronized with a cycle of a radio frequency of the bias power, or a phase within one cycle of a reference electrical state that represents any one of a voltage, current, and electromagnetic field measured in a power feeding system of the bias power.

Power supply devices for generating at least one electric high-frequency power signal for a plasma having at least a first plasma state and a second plasma state are provided. The power supply devices are configured to determine a first variable that characterizes a power reflected by the plasma in the first plasma state, determine a second variable that characterizes a power reflected by the plasma in the second plasma state, generate a third variable based on the first variable and the second variable, and control at least one of a frequency or a power of the high-frequency power signal based on the third variable.

Some embodiments include a high voltage pulsing power supply. A high voltage pulsing power supply may include: a high voltage pulser having an output that provides pulses with an amplitude greater than about 1 kV, a pulse width greater than about 1 μs, and a pulse repetition frequency greater than about 20 kHz; a plasma chamber; and an electrode disposed within the plasma chamber that is electrically coupled with the output of the high voltage pulser to produce a pulsing an electric field within the chamber.

Disclosed herein is a system for pulsed DC biasing and clamping a substrate. The system can include a plasma chamber having an ESC for supporting a substrate. An electrode is embedded in the ESC and is electrically coupled to a biasing and clamping circuit. The biasing and clamping circuit includes at least a shaped DC pulse voltage source and a clamping network. The clamping network includes a DC voltage source and a diode, and a resistor. The shaped DC pulse voltage source and the clamping network are connected in parallel. The biasing and clamping network automatically maintains a substantially constant clamping voltage, which is a voltage drop across the electrode and the substrate when the substrate is biased with pulsed DC voltage, leading to improved clamping of the substrate.

Systems and methods for increasing peak ion energy with a low angular spread of ions are described. In one of the systems, multiple radio frequency (RF) generators that are coupled to an upper electrode associated with a plasma chamber are operated in two different states, such as two different frequency levels, for pulsing of the RF generators. The pulsing of the RF generators facilitates a transfer of ion energy during one of the states to another one of the states for increasing ion energy during the other state to further increase a rate of processing a 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 high-frequency power supply device, which outputs high-frequency pulses to a target device on the basis of a synchronous pulse and a clock pulse, and the output control method therefor are such that a period reference signal is generated from output timing information pertaining to the synchronous pulse, an output level signal is generated from output level information, an output stop time is timed on the basis of the period reference signal and an output stop signal is generated, and, when the period reference signal, the output level signal, and the clock pulse are received and a high-frequency pulse is formed on the basis of these signals, transmission of the output level signal is stopped while the output stop signal is being received.

A method for plasma processing includes: sustaining a plasma in a plasma processing chamber, the plasma processing chamber including a first radio frequency (RF) electrode and a second RF electrode, where sustaining the plasma includes: coupling an RF source signal to the first RF electrode; and coupling a bias signal between the first RF electrode and the second RF electrode, the bias signal having a bipolar DC (B-DC) waveform including a plurality of B-DC pulses, each of the B-DC pulses including: a negative bias duration during which the pulse has negative polarity relative to a reference potential, a positive bias duration during which the pulse has positive polarity relative to the reference potential, and a neutral bias duration during which the pulse has neutral polarity relative to the reference potential.