Patent ID: 8496756

Claim:
A method of processing substrates in a twin chamber processing system having a first process chamber, a second process chamber, and shared processing resources, comprising: flowing a process gas from a shared gas panel of a twin chamber processing system to a first processing volume of the first process chamber having a first substrate disposed in the first processing volume and to a second processing volume of the second process chamber having a second substrate disposed in the second processing volume; forming a first plasma from the process gas in the first processing volume to process the first substrate by providing RF power from a first RF power source coupled to the first process chamber and a second plasma from the process gas in the second processing volume to process the second substrate by providing RF power from a second RF power source coupled to the second process chamber; monitoring the first processing volume with a first endpoint detection system and the second processing volume with a second endpoint detection system to determine if a process endpoint is reached in either volume; and terminating the first and second plasma simultaneously when a first endpoint is reached in the first processing volume for processing the first substrate.