Process chamber purge module for semiconductor processing equipment

Abstract

Abstract A process chamber purge module (56) is provided, including a stack module (60) and a process chamber liner (62). The stack module comprises a plurality of quartz plates (100, 110, and 116) having flow apertures to permit radial and axial flow of a purge gas to the backside of a semiconductor wafer (18). The process chamber liner (62) isolates the process chamber walls from the process chamber process environment by flowing between the liner and the walls a portion of the purge gas. Process chamber liner (62) comprises a quartz cylindrical collar that operates to decouple the process chamber (16) process environment (20) from the process chamber collar walls (42). The stack module (60) decouples the process chamber optical/vacuum quartz window (64) from the semiconductor wafer (18) during a heated semiconductor wafer fabrication process. By flowing purge gas to the backside of the semiconductor wafer (18), the present invention prevents reactive process gas interaction with the semiconductor wafer backside.

Inventors

• 👤 Mehrdad M. Moslehi

Bibliographic Details