A substrate fixing device includes a base plate including therein a gas supply section, and an electrostatic chuck provided on the base plate. The electrostatic chuck includes a base having a mounting surface on which a target to be held by electrostatic attraction is mounted, an insertion hole, penetrating the base, having an inner surface that defines the insertion hole and is threaded to form a female thread, and a screw member, having an outer surface that is threaded to form a male thread, and inserted into the insertion hole to assume a mated state in which the male thread mates with the female thread. A gas from the gas supply section is supplied to the mounting surface via the screw member.

Methods and related systems for topographically depositing a material on a substrate are disclosed. The substrate comprises a proximal surface and a gap feature. The gap feature comprises a sidewall and a distal surface. Exemplary methods comprise, in the given order: a step of positioning the substrate on a substrate support in a reaction chamber; a step of subjecting the substrate to a plasma pre-treatment; and, a step of selectively depositing a material on at least one of the proximal surface and the distal surface with respect to the sidewall. The step of subjecting the substrate to a plasma pre-treatment comprises exposing the substrate to at least one of fluorine-containing molecules, ions, and radicals.

The present disclosure relates generally to ion implantation, and more particularly, to systems and processes for measuring the temperature of a wafer within an ion implantation system. An exemplary ion implantation system may include a robotic arm, one or more load lock chambers, a pre-implantation station, an ion implanter, a post-implantation station, and a controller. The pre-implantation station is configured to heat or cool a wafer prior to the wafer being implanted with ions by the ion implanter. The post-implantation station is configured to heat or cool a wafer after the wafer is implanted with ions by the ion implanter. The pre-implantation station and/or post-implantation station are further configured to measure a current temperature of a wafer. The controller is configured to control the various components and processes described above, and to determine a current temperature of a wafer based on information received from the pre-implantation station and/or post-implantation station.

A plasma processing apparatus may include a lower electrode supporting a wafer; a focus ring surrounding an edge of the lower electrode and having a ring shape; and an edge ring disposed in a position lower than a position of the focus ring. The focus ring may include a lower region and an upper region disposed on the lower region, and the upper region increases in electrical conductivity as the upper region is closer to the lower region.

A method of operating a particle beam device for imaging, analyzing and/or processing an object may be carried out, for example, by a particle beam device. The method may include: identifying at least one region of interest on the object; defining: (i) an analyzing sequence for analyzing the object, (ii) a processing sequence for processing the object by deformation and (iii) an adapting sequence for adapting the at least one region of interest depending on the processing sequence and/or on the analyzing sequence; processing the object by deformation according to the processing sequence and/or analyzing the object according to the analyzing sequence; adapting the at least one region of interest according to the adapting sequence; and after or while adapting the at least one region of interest, imaging and/or analyzing the at least one region of interest using a primary particle beam being generated by a particle beam generator.

A method and apparatus for reducing as-deposited and metastable defects relative to amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin films, its alloys and devices fabricated therefrom that include heating an earth shield positioned around a cathode in a parallel plate plasma chemical vapor deposition chamber to control a temperature of a showerhead in the deposition chamber in the range of 350° C. to 600° C. An anode in the deposition chamber is cooled to maintain a temperature in the range of 50° C. to 450° C. at the substrate that is positioned at the anode. In the apparatus, a heater is embedded within the earth shield and a cooling system is embedded within the anode.

A treatment system and process includes a ribbon beam ion source that is configured to implant ions into a product to modify a portion of the product; multiple means of controlling the temperature of the product; the means including radiative conduction, gas conduction to a heatsink by means of a gas cushion, adjustment of the ion beam density at the product, adjustment of the ion beam intensity at the product and ion beam acceleration parameters, and adjustment of the ion dose to the product b; and a product movement system configured to move the product through the treatment system past the ribbon beam ion source. The treatment system further includes a system controller configured to control at least one the following: the gas cushion system, the ribbon beam ion source, the temperature control system, the heatsink, and the product movement system.

Molybdenum is etched in a highly controllable manner by performing one or more etch cycles, where each cycle involves exposing the substrate having a molybdenum layer to an oxygen-containing reactant to form molybdenum oxide followed by treatment with boron trichloride to convert molybdenum oxide to a volatile molybdenum oxychloride with subsequent treatment of the substrate with a fluorine-containing reactant to remove boron oxide that has formed in a previous reaction, from the surface of the substrate. In some embodiments the method is performed in an absence of plasma and results in a substantially isotropic etching. The method can be used in a variety of applications in semiconductor processing, such as in wordline isolation in 3D NAND fabrication.

Provided herein are methods and apparatus for processing a substrate by exposing the substrate to plasma to simultaneously (i) etch features in an underlying material (e.g., which includes one or more dielectric materials), and (ii) deposit a upper mask protector layer on a mask positioned over the dielectric material, where the upper mask protector layer forms on top of the mask in a selective vertically-oriented directional deposition. Such methods and apparatus may be used to achieve infinite etch selectivity, even when etching high aspect ratio features.

A wafer support device includes a support base having a wafer-facing surface, the support base comprising a heater, and an electrostatic chuck supported by the support base, the electrostatic chuck having an attraction surface configured to attract a wafer for wafer processing. During the wafer processing, the wafer-facing surface and the attraction surface are positioned at respective different positions in a direction perpendicular to the wafer-facing surface so that the attraction surface is separated from the wafer-facing surface by a distance.