Patent ID: 8414790

Claim:
A method of treating a copper film on a bevel edge of a substrate to convert the copper film to a copper compound to be removed by a wet etch, comprising: placing the substrate on a substrate support in the plasma treatment chamber; placing a plasma shield over the substrate, the plasma shield set to a separation of less than 0.6 mm from over the substrate when the substrate is present on the substrate support, a diameter of the plasma shield defining a mechanically controlled distance that leaves an edge of the substrate outside of the plasma shield; flowing a treatment gas through a gas feed that is embedded in a gas distribution plate of the plasma shield; generating a treatment plasma near the bevel edge of the substrate and outside of the plasma shield to convert the copper film on the bevel edge of the substrate to a copper compound, the generated treatment plasma converts the copper film in a region that is equal to or less than about 1 mm from the bevel edge with a variation at about +/−0.1 mm; and placing the substrate in a wet etching apparatus with a wet etching fluid to remove the copper compound on the bevel edge, the wet etching fluid having a wet etch selectivity that is greater than about 20:1 to the copper film away from the bevel edge that has been exposed to the treatment plasma, wherein the copper compound is one of a group consisting of CuO E , CuO X F Y , or CuO C Cl D , and wherein E, X, Y, C and D are numbers.