Although plasmas are used throughout the microelectronics industry for
etching, deposition, and cleaning of thin films, control of plasma pr
ocesses has been a long-standing problem. Because of the nonlinear pro
perties of plasmas, such as the coupling between wave propagation, den
sity profile, and power absorption, plasma reactors are prone to unsta
ble operation, multiple steady states, and hysteresis. We report obser
vation and suppression of an abrupt transition in the operating mode o
f an electron cyclotron resonance reactor that alters the ion flux to
device wafers by more than twofold. While the origin of this mode chan
ge is not well understood, we show here that it is strongly correlated
with the neutral gas density, which slowly decreases as the reactor t
emperature increases during a process or from run to run. By measuring
the quartz liner temperature and adjusting the pressure to maintain a
n approximately constant neutral gas density, the mode change can be a
voided indefinitely. In a simulated manufacturing process, where the p
lasma is pulsed on and off, a mode change occurs after several cycles
unless the neutral density, instead of the pressure, is controlled.