Systems and methods for real-time control of temperature within a plasma chamber are described. One of the methods includes sensing a voltage in real time of a rail that is coupled to a voltage source. The voltage source supplies a voltage to multiple heater elements of the plasma chamber. The voltage that is sensed is used to adjust one or more duty cycles of corresponding one or more of the heater elements. The adjusted one or more duty cycles facilitate achieving and maintaining a temperature value within the plasma chamber over time.

A substrate processing system includes a coating apparatus configured to coat a photoresist film on a semiconductor substrate, an exposure apparatus configured to irradiate light onto the photoresist film to form a photoresist pattern region, a developing system configured to remove an unnecessary region from the photoresist film except for the photoresist pattern region to form a photoresist pattern, the developing system including a wet developing apparatus and a dry developing apparatus, the wet developing apparatus configured to remove the unnecessary region using a developing solution, the dry developing apparatus configured to remove the unnecessary region using a developing gas, a cleaning apparatus including a cleaning chamber and configured to remove an edge bead of the photoresist film or the photoresist pattern on an edge region of the semiconductor substrate, and a heating apparatus configured to heat the photoresist film or the photoresist pattern.

A method for processing a substrate includes receiving the substrate on a substrate holder disposed in a processing chamber, the substrate including a layer to be processed and a patterned mask disposed over the layer to be processed. The method further includes flowing a processing gas into the processing chamber, and replacing a material of the patterned mask with a metal of the processing gas to form a metal patterned mask occupying a same location as the patterned mask. And the method further includes etching, using the metal patterned mask as an etch mask, the layer to be processed to form a patterned layer, the patterned layer including feature openings.

An etch chamber includes a substrate support assembly for holding a base structure, and a showerhead comprising a plurality of gas delivery holes for delivering thionyl chloride. The etch chamber is configured to dry etch a target layer of the base structure at a sub-zero degree Celsius temperature using the thionyl chloride delivered by the showerhead in order to obtain a processed base structure. The processed base structure includes a plurality of features and a plurality of openings defined by an etch mask disposed on the target layer.

A substrate processing apparatus cleans a substrate. The substrate processing apparatus includes a processing container, a stage, a top board, a lifting/lowering mechanism, and a guide mechanism. The stage is located inside the processing container and configured to support the substrate. The top board faces the stage. The lifting/lowering mechanism is configured to lift and lower the substrate. The guide mechanism is located on the top board and configured to bring the substrate into contact therewith.

An etching method includes: etching a silicon oxide film by supplying a halogen-containing gas, an ammonia gas, and an amine gas as etching gases to a substrate including the silicon oxide film formed on a surface of the substrate.

An etching method includes: supplying each of a first etching gas and a second etching gas that includes at least one selected from the group of an ammonia gas and an amine gas from a gas supply source to a gas supply path; storing the first etching gas and the second etching gas in a reservoir provided in the gas supply path to increase an internal pressure of the reservoir; and supplying the first etching gas and the second etching gas, stored in the reservoir, to a processing container in which a substrate is accommodated by opening a valve provided downstream of the reservoir in the gas supply path, thus etching a first film formed on the substrate.

Systems and methods for reverse pulsing are described. One of the methods includes receiving a digital signal having a first state and a second state. The method further includes generating a transformer coupled plasma (TCP) radio frequency (RF) pulsed signal having a high state when the digital signal is in the first state and having a low state when the digital signal is in the second state. The method includes providing the TCP RF pulsed signal to one or more coils of a plasma chamber, generating a bias RF pulsed signal having a low state when the digital signal is in the first state and having a high state when the digital signal is in the second state, and providing the bias RF pulsed signal to a chuck of the plasma chamber.

A workpiece processing system with an ion source that includes two or more extraction apertures, each producing two beamlets at different extraction angles, is disclosed. The ion source includes blockers disposed within the ion source that manipulate the plasma sheath to allow extraction of ions at different extraction angles. The ion source may include at least two blockers, each proximate to a respective extraction aperture. These blockers may be different sizes or have different offsets relative to their respective extraction aperture. These differences result in ion beamlets of different extraction angles being extracted through the different extraction apertures. In another embodiment, the heights of the extraction apertures may differ. The blockers associated with these different sized extraction apertures may be identical, or may differ. Further, in some embodiments, the blockers may be electrically biased at different voltages to produce ion beamlets of different extraction angles.

A semiconductor vapor etching device is disclosed. The device can include an intermediate chamber between a vapor source and a reaction chamber. Etch reactant vapor can be pulsed from the intermediate chamber to the reaction chamber to etch a substrate.