Patent ID: 6872323

Claim:
A method of operating a deposition process chamber, the method comprising: placing a substrate in said process chamber; depositing a film on said substrate, said depositing leaving a deposition residue on an interior surface of said chamber; and cleaning said deposition residue from said interior surface by creating a fluorine-containing plasma in said chamber, said fluorine-containing plasma leaving a fluorine-containing contaminant on said interior surface; and thereafter removing said fluorine-containing contaminant by supplying an oxygen-containing gas into the process chamber, supplying a hydrogen-containing gas into the process chamber, said hydrogen-containing gas being different from said oxygen-containing gas and being selected from a group consisting of NH 3 and H 2 ; producing a plasma comprising a mixture of the oxygen-containing gas and the hydrogen-containing gas, thereby exothermically producing H 2 O; causing the plasma to react with the fluorine-containing contaminant to farm a fluorine-containing material; and removing the fluorine-containing material from the process chamber.