Reduction of pumping time for a sputtering system by glow discharge cleaning

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Abstract
Sputtering systems for semiconductormanufacturing require high‐vacuum conditions. Typically it takes a long time to recover high‐vacuum conditions after a sputtering system is opened to air. To increase the operating efficiency of the system, the recovery time must be reduced. Therefore, in this study, a glow discharge cleaning technique is applied using a glow‐mode plasma source in argon gas. The discharge current distribution inside the sputtering system is measured under various conditions. It was found that nonuniformity was decreased: when the number of electrodes was increased from one to two; when the pressure during the discharge was decreased to 3×10−3 Torr; and when the anode current or anode voltage was increased. By applying these results, a drastic reduction in pumping time is achieved. The pumping time to attain a pressure of 1.5×10−6 Torr is reduced from 17 to 6 h with concurrent use of 3.5 h of discharge cleaning.

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