Hybrid clean for applied materials 200mm centura reduced pressure EPI application

A new approach for post deposition in situ HCL cleaning the Applied Materials 200mm Reduced Pressure Epitaxy chamber was tested on a tool in a production environment within a joint CIP between Infineon Technology, Dresden and Applied Materials. This Hybrid Clean method utilizes three recent introduced hardware upgrades for the RP Epi Centura chamber. The items had been upgraded to enable Hybrid Clean: Vita controller to replace the SBC (single board computing), Motorized Wafer Lift to replace the Pneumatic Lift and Fast PCV (pressure control valve) to replace the conventional PCV. Hybrid clean method proved to be able to increase the throughput by shorten the clean recipe time after each wafer and reduces the cost of consumables by reducing the amount of HCL (hydrogen chloride) clean gas to be used. Long term stability of Hybrid Clean was demonstrated during a 1000 wafer marathon.