Patent · US Expired

Plasma processing system and method

US5518572A · kind A · utility

64Cited by
5References
13Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 18, 1995
Grant dateMay 21, 1996
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 18, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH01J2237/334
  • WIPO fieldElectrical machinery, apparatus, energy
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An etching system contains a plasma chamber, a charge exchange chamber and a processing chamber. The charge exchange chamber and the processing chamber are partitioned with a porous plate provided with a number of fine linear microchannel holes. Positive ions generated by the plasma chamber are accelerated by an accelerating electrode in the charge exchange chamber, charge-exchanged and introduced as neutral particles through the microchannel holes into the processing chamber. Neutral particles are vertically entered into an object to be processed as neutral particle beams that are completely aligned by the microchannel holes. An object with a large surface area can be etched with high accuracy by making the porous plate a size which corresponds to the object. Thus, plasma processing with only neutral particles is carried out with high accuracy even when the surface area of the object is large.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.