Gas cluster ion beam processing equipment

Abstract

Gas cluster ion beams (GCIB) are finding many applications for surface smoothing and etching of a variety of materials including semiconductors. Epion has developed commercial processing equipment, which makes possible practical application of GCIB beams for production processes. This equipment includes automatic recipe setup and tracking. Process uniformity and repeatability has been demonstrated to be better than 1%. Charge control keeps substrate charging to less than ±6 V. Throughputs as high as 10 W/hr are achievable with 200 mm wafers.