Carrier rings with radially-varied plasma impedance are provided herein. In some embodiments, a carrier ring may include an outer ring that holds a removable inner ring. The outer ring may be formed of a dielectric material such as ceramic. The inner ring may be formed of a metal such as aluminum to provide a desired impedance. In some other embodiments, a carrier ring is formed from a single piece with radially-varying impedances.

Methods for filling gaps with dielectric material involve deposition using an atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique to fill a gap followed by deposition of a cap layer on the filled gap by a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. The ALD deposition may be a plasma-enhanced ALD (PEALD) or thermal ALD (tALD) deposition. The CVD deposition may be plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) or thermal CVD (tCVD) deposition. In some embodiments, the CVD deposition is performed in the same chamber as the ALD deposition without intervening process operations. This in-situ deposition of the cap layer results in a high throughput process with high uniformity. After the process, the wafer is ready for chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP) in some embodiments.

A film forming method includes: preparing a substrate that includes a base substrate and a first conductive film that is formed on the base substrate; forming, on the first conductive film, a composite layer that includes layers of graphene and includes, as dopant atoms, a transition metal from 4th period to 6th period in a periodic table, excluding lanthanoids, between the layers of graphene; and forming, on the composite layer, a second conductive film which is electrically connected to the first conductive film via the composite layer.

A vacuum processing apparatus that can excellently perform uniform processing and can efficiently perform regular maintenance and occasional maintenance even in the case where the diameter of a workpiece is increased. A vacuum processing apparatus having a vacuum transport chamber includes: a lower container in a cylindrical shape; a sample stage unit including a sample stage and a ring-shaped sample stage base having a support beam disposed in axial symmetry with respect to the center axis of the sample stage; an upper container in a cylindrical shape; and a moving unit that is fixed to the sample stage base and moves the sample stage unit in the vertical direction and in the horizontal direction.

Techniques described herein relate to methods, apparatus, and systems for promoting adhesion between a substrate and a metal-containing photoresist. For instance, the method may include receiving the substrate in a reaction chamber, the substrate having a first material exposed on its surface, the first material including a silicon-based material and/or a carbon-based material; generating a plasma from a plasma generation gas source that is substantially free of silicon, where the plasma includes chemical functional groups; exposing the substrate to the plasma to modify the surface of the substrate by forming bonds between the first material and chemical functional groups from the plasma; and depositing the metal-containing photoresist on the modified surface of the substrate, where the bonds between the first material and the chemical functional groups promote adhesion between the substrate and the metal-containing photoresist.

A semiconductor machine system comprises a plurality of working chambers, wherein the working chambers process materials separately; a control host coupled to the plurality of working chambers, comprising: a main control module coupled to the plurality of working chambers; an analog control module coupled to the plurality of working chambers, and the analog control module is detachably coupled to one or more external devices by serial interface coupling; a digital control module coupled to the plurality of working chambers, and the main control module, the analog control module and the digital control module are coupled to each other; and a plurality of operating units coupled to at least one of the main control module, the analog control module and the digital control module, respectively, to control the plurality of working chambers for processing the materials by the main control module, the analog control module and the digital control module.

In one example, a flow module. The flow module has an inner wall and an outer wall equal-distant from the central axis. The flow module has radial walls connected between the outer wall and the inner wall, wherein the outer wall, inner wall and two or more pairs of radial walls define evacuation channels and a center portion. The center portion and evacuation channels are fluidly isolated from each other in the flow module. Two or more through holes are formed through the outer wall and fluidly coupled to the center portion. At least two of the two or more through holes are 180 degrees apart and linearly aligned through the central axis.

A method of patterning a substrate. The method may include providing a cavity in a layer, disposed on the substrate, the cavity having a first length along a first direction and a first width along a second direction, perpendicular to the first direction, and wherein the layer has a first height along a third direction, perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction. The method may include depositing a sacrificial layer over the cavity in a first deposition procedure; and directing angled ions to the cavity in a first exposure, wherein the cavity is etched, and wherein after the first exposure, the cavity has a second length along the first direction, greater than the first length, and wherein the cavity has a second width along the second direction, no greater than the first width.

Various embodiments include apparatuses, systems, and methods for using a remote-plasma cleaning system with a directional-flow device for concurrently cleaning multiple processing stations in a processing tool used in the semiconductor and allied fields. In one example, an apparatus used to perform a remote-plasma clean (RPC) in a multi-station process chamber is disclosed and includes an RPC directional-flow device that is to be coupled between an RPC reactor and the process chamber. The RPC directional-flow device includes a number of ramped gas-diversion areas to direct at least a radical species generated by the RPC reactor to a separate one of the processing stations. An incoming cleaning-gas diversion hub is to receive the radical species and distribute at least the species substantially-uniformly to each of the of the ramped gas-diversion areas. Other apparatuses, systems, and methods are disclosed.

Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to a system and, more specifically, a substrate processing system. The substrate processing system includes one or more cooling systems. The cooling systems are configured to lower and/or control the temperature of a body of the substrate processing system. The cooling systems include features to cool the body disposed in the substrate processing system using gas and/or liquid cooling systems. The cooling systems disclosed herein can be used when the body is disposed at any height.