Jf. Daviet et al., ELECTROSTATIC CLAMPING APPLIED TO SEMICONDUCTOR PLASMA PROCESSING .1.THEORETICAL MODELING, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 140(11), 1993, pp. 3245-3256
Semiconductor plasma processing has become an indispensable step in th
e manufacture of very large scale integrated circuits. This technique
is however often limited by the damaging heating of a wafer loosely ly
ing on the susceptor, that may occur even if the susceptor is well coo
led. To overcome this problem, most industrial systems use mechanical
clamping of the wafer against the susceptor with an extra gas back-sid
e pressure. Another way to cool the wafer is based on the use of elect
rostatic forces. This method, known as electrostatic clamping, has not
yet found a wide application field nor has it been thoroughly studied
though it has several inherent interesting features. The aim of this
paper is to describe the theoretical bases for electrostatic clamping
as applied to a microelectronics plasma reactor and to investigate the
ultimate performance that this system can achieve without inducing el
ectrical problems. A particular emphasis is placed on electrical pheno
mena generated by high voltage in the process chamber which can lead t
o severe damage if no precautions are taken.