Patent ID: 6254745
Filing Date: 2001-07-03
Classification: C23C,H01J

Abstract:
An ionized physical vapor deposition apparatus comprising:a vacuum chamber having a processing space therein maintained at a vacuum pressure suitable for performing IPVD in the chamber, an axis through the processing space, and a chamber wall having a wall liner inside of the chamber between the processing space and the chamber wall, the wall liner providing an inside surface surrounding the vacuum processing space and the axis;a source of coating material generally centered on the axis at one end of the chamber from which coating material is supplied to the processing space;the source of coating material including:at least one annular sputtering target of coating material having a sputtering surface in communication with the inside of the chamber and a target power supply connected to the target to supply a DC potential to the sputtering surface that is sufficiently electrically negative relative to the plasma to sputter material from the sputtering surface of the target into the processing space, anda magnetron magnet behind the target outside of the chamber effective to confine a sputtering plasma in close proximity to the sputtering surface of the target;a substrate support inside of the chamber generally centered on the axis at the opposite end of the processing space from the source of coating material;an RF energy source;an RF coupling element connected to the RF energy source generally centered on the axis operative to reactively couple energy to form a plasma in the processing space that is sufficiently dense to ionize coating material moving from the source of coating material through the processing space;a magnetic bucket generally centered on the axis and surrounding the axis and the processing space, the magnetic bucket including an array of axially spaced permanent annular ring magnets centered on the axis and encircling the chamber inside of the chamber between the wall liner and the chamber wall, the magnets each having a radially oriented polar axis, the magnets of the array being arranged with alternating polarities and being closely spaced to produce a magnetic field of multiple axially spaced annular cusps extending around the chamber close to the wall liner so as to repel charged particles approaching the wall from the plasma, the magnetic bucket being effective to produce a magnetic field in the processing space at said inside surface having an approximate strength in Gauss of at least 50 Gauss and of at least about 1.3 times the pressure in mTorr within the chamber when said pressure is between about 10 and 100 mtorr; anda non-magnetic electrically highly conductive material between the magnets and the processing space.