Patent Grant
9752226
The present invention relates to a manufacturing apparatus, and particularly relates to a manufacturing apparatus of a multi-layered thin film which is preferable for a manufacturing process of a device applying a multi-layered thin film, such as a magnetic reproducing head of a magnetic disk drive apparatus, a storage element of a magnetic random access memory, a magneto-resistance element used for a magnetic sensor, a storage element of a semiconductor memory or the like.
A conventional film-forming apparatus of a multi-layered thin film has a configuration in which one sputtering deposition chamber includes sputtering cathodes in a number equal to or more than the number of film types in a multi-layered thin film (refer to Patent Literature 1), or a configuration of a so-called cluster system including plural sputtering deposition chambers each including plural sputtering cathodes (refer to Patent Literature 2).
In another configuration, a cluster system includes sputtering deposition chambers each including one sputtering cathode, at least in a number equal to the number of film types in a multi-layered thin film (refer to Patent Literature 3).
Further, as still another configuration, there is disclosed a sputtering apparatus for depositing a multi-layered film including a magneto-resistance element over a substrate, using a sputtering apparatus including a first vacuum chamber 110 having one target 116a installed therein, a second vacuum chamber 112 having four targets 116b, 116c, 116d and 116e installed therein, and a transfer chamber 114 coupling these two vacuum chambers 110 and 112, as shown in
Further, as still another configuration, there will be explained a sputtering system 600 which is disclosed in Patent Literature 5, by the use of
First, by the use of
Next, by the use of the sputtering system 600 described in
PTL 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-167661
PTL 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H08-239765
PTL 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-311461
PTL 4: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-269568
PTL 5: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-158313
In a recent multi-layered thin film application device, in addition to increase in the number of stacked layers, there is a trend of using film thicknesses different in an order of magnitude among films forming a multi-layered thin film, and combining a metal film, an insulating film, and a semiconductor film.
In a case of forming such a multi-layered thin film by a cluster-type manufacturing apparatus which includes plural sputtering deposition chambers each including plural sputtering cathodes (Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2), a time for sputter-forming a film having a thickness thicker in a different order of magnitude or for an oxide film having a sputtering rate lower in a different order of magnitude in the multi-layered thin film becomes longer than a time for forming another thin film, and this has been a cause of limiting throughput of a manufacturing apparatus. In particular, when forming a film including a single element, there has been a problem also in a footprint because only one of plural sputtering cathodes functions.
Further, for a case of a multi-layered thin film formed by combining a metal film, an insulating film, and a semiconductor film using the manufacturing apparatus described in Patent Literature 1 or Patent Literature 2, there has been a problem of so-called interlayer cross contamination that device characteristics are degraded considerably when the metal film is mixed into the insulating film or the semiconductor film.
On the other side, in the cluster-type manufacturing apparatus including the sputtering deposition chambers each including one sputtering cathode, at least in a number equal to the number of film types in a multi-layered thin film (Patent Literature 3), the interlayer cross contamination can be avoided. However, since the number of sputtering deposition chambers needs to be increased, the size of a manufacturing apparatus is increased, and therefore there has been a problem of cost increase, footprint increase, and energy consumption increase. Further, in the manufacturing apparatus described in Patent Literature 3, there has been a problem that a film containing plural elements cannot be formed.
Moreover, in the sputtering apparatus described in Patent Literature 4, when one multi-layered thin film includes plural layers of the same film type, a substrate is transferred twice to the same process chamber in a series of film deposition processes because a sputtering target is not provided for each layer. That is, when a magneto-resistance effect film including Ta/NiFe/CoFeB/Cu/CoFeB/PdPtMn/Ta is formed by the use of the sputtering apparatus which is described in Patent Literature 4 and shown in
Further, in the sputtering system 600 of Patent Literature 5 shown in
In the sputtering system 600 of Patent Literature 5, however, film depositions from the anti-ferromagnetism pinning layer 308 (Pt—Mn film) to the cap layer 322 (Al (Al—O) film) in the spin valve sensor 300 are performed in the multi-target DC sputtering module 606.
Typically, in the spin valve sensor 300, the film thickness (10 to 20 nm) of the anti-ferromagnetic pinning layer 308 (Pt—Mn film) is one order larger than the film thicknesses of other layers, for example, the Co—Fe film 318 (1 to 5 nm). Accordingly, a film deposition time (also called “takt time”) in the multi-target DC sputtering module 606 is considerably long compared to film deposition times in the first single-target DC magnetron sputtering module 604, the second single-target DC magnetron sputtering module 610, and the multi-target ion-beam sputtering module 608. Throughput is determined by a substrate work quantity which can be processed in a unit time (takt time). Accordingly, even when the takt time is short in each of the first single-target DC magnetron sputtering module 604, the second single-target DC magnetron sputtering module 610, and the multi-target ion-beam sputtering module 608, the throughput is determined by the takt time of the multi-target DC sputtering module 606 if the takt time of the multi-target DC sputtering module 606 is longer. As a result, the sputtering system 600 of Patent Literature 5 still has a problem in the throughput.
The present invention aims at providing a manufacturing apparatus which can realize so-called sequential substrate transfer and improve throughput even when one multi-layered thin film includes plural layers of the same film type.
For achieving such a purpose, one aspect of the present invention is a manufacturing apparatus that grows a multi-layered film over a substrate, and includes: a transfer chamber including a substrate transfer mechanism; a first sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode; a second sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode; a third sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode; a fourth sputtering deposition chamber including two or more sputtering cathodes; a fifth sputtering deposition chamber including two or more sputtering cathodes; and a process chamber for performing a process other than sputtering, wherein the first sputtering deposition chamber, the second sputtering deposition chamber, the third sputtering deposition chamber, the fourth sputtering deposition chamber, the fifth sputtering deposition chamber, and the process chamber are arranged around the transfer chamber so that each is able to perform delivery and receipt of the substrate with the transfer chamber.
According to the present invention, the first sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode, the second sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode, the third sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode, the fourth sputtering deposition chamber including two or more sputtering cathodes, the fifth sputtering deposition chamber including two or more sputtering cathodes, and the process chamber for performing a process other than sputtering are arranged around the transfer chamber. Accordingly, even when one multi-layered thin film includes plural layers of the same film type, it is possible to realize so-called sequential substrate transfer and to improve throughput.
There will be explained a multi-layered film manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention by the use of the drawings.
A feature of the manufacturing apparatus of the present invention is that a process chamber for performing a process other than sputtering (etching chamber 14), a first sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode (sputtering deposition chamber 13A), a second sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode (sputtering deposition chamber 13C), a third sputtering deposition chamber including one sputtering cathode (sputtering deposition chamber 13E), a fourth sputtering deposition chamber including two or more sputtering cathodes (sputtering deposition chamber 13B), and a fifth sputtering deposition chamber including two or more sputtering cathodes (sputtering deposition chamber 13D) are arranged around a transfer chamber including a substrate transfer mechanism. Here, in
In
Each of all the above chambers and the load lock chambers 15A and 15B preferably has a vacuum pump for exhausting the chamber into vacuum, and the chambers other than the load lock chambers 15A and 15B are always maintained in vacuum. Here, in all the embodiments to be described below, all the chambers and the load lock chambers are assumed to have vacuum pumps.
The load lock chambers 15A and 15B are maintained to have the same pressure as an atmospheric pressure when the substrate 25 is brought in from atmospheric air before process and when the substrate 25 is taken out to atmospheric air after the process. On the other side, the load lock chambers 15A and 15B are exhausted into vacuum when the substrates 25 disposed in the load lock chambers 15A and 15B are transferred into the transfer chamber 12 which is exhausted into vacuum and when the substrate 25 is retrieved from the transfer chamber 12 after the process. The number of load lock chambers 15A and 15B may not necessarily be two and may be one.
Gate valves 16 are provided between each of the sputtering deposition chamber 13A, the sputtering deposition chamber 13B, the sputtering deposition chamber 13C, the sputtering deposition chamber 13D, the sputtering deposition chamber 13E, and the process chamber 14, and each of the load lock chambers 15a and 15B. Each of the gate valves 16 is closed except when the substrate 25 is transferred. The substrate transfer robot 11 is configured to take out the substrate 25 from the load lock chamber 15A or 15B and transfer the substrate 25 into a desired chamber by an instruction from computer program.
In the sputtering deposition chamber 13B and the sputtering deposition chamber 13D each including the plural sputtering cathodes 31, the plural sputtering cathodes 31 are disposed in each upper part of the sputtering deposition chambers 13B and 13D as shown in
When a thin film is formed in this deposition chamber, DC or RF power is applied to a desired sputtering cathode 31 preferably while the substrate stage 33 is being rotated, and the power is shut down when a desired film thickness is reached. A shutter may be disposed between the substrate 25 and the sputtering target 32, and the film thickness may be controlled by open and close of the shutter while the power is being applied. When a multi-layered thin film is formed, the above film forming operation may be performed sequentially while the substrate is placed on the rotating substrate stage 33. Here, in
In the sputtering deposition chambers 13A, 13C and 13E each including one sputtering cathode 31, as shown in
The process chamber 14 which performs a process other than sputtering deposition is connected to the transfer chamber 12. As the process chamber 14, there can be employed a process chamber for removing a thin film formed on or over the substrate, with plasma, an ion beam, an atom beam, a molecular beam, and a gas Cluster beam. For other examples, as the process chamber 14, there may be employed a process chamber for forming a thin film on the thin film formed on or over the substrate, by a chemical vapor deposition method, a process chamber for causing the thin film formed on or over the substrate to chemically react in gas, neutral active species, ions, or a mixed atmosphere thereof, or a process chamber for heating, cooling, or heating and cooling the substrate.
An internal structure of the process chamber 14 is shown in
As a representative example of processing operation in the above process chamber 14, Ar gas of 0.075 Pa is introduced into the inside of the vacuum chamber 21, RF power of 15 W (0.029 W/cm2 for a unit area) is applied to the lower electrode 23 to generate the plasma 26, and plasma processing is further performed under a condition that a substrate bias voltage (Vdc) is a voltage included in a range smaller than 0 V and not smaller than −300 V. The upper limit value of the substrate bias voltage is preferably −2 to −3 V, and the most preferable voltage is a voltage included in a range from −15 V to the upper limit value of the substrate bias voltage. This voltage is a voltage capable of generating plasma. For the process gas to be introduced into the vacuum chamber 21, inert gas such as Kr, Xe, Ne or similar gas can be used instead of Ar. Process gas pressure in the process chamber 14 is set to be a low pressure in a range of 0.01 to 100 Pa.
Next, there will be explained embodiments of the present invention by the use of the drawings.
(First Embodiment)
As described above, in
When the tunnel magneto-resistance element (magneto-resistance multi-layered film) described in
The reason why the sputtering target 32 is disposed for each layer although one multi-layered thin film includes plural layers of the same film type is to realize so-called sequential substrate transfer in which the substrate 25 is not transferred twice to the same process chamber in a series of the film deposition processes. That is, when plural layers of the same type are formed in different thicknesses, thinner one is formed by at least one of the three sputtering deposition chambers each including one sputtering cathode and thicker one is formed by another deposition chamber of the three sputtering deposition chambers. Accordingly, layers which are the same type but have different thicknesses can be formed without the substrate being transferred twice to the same sputtering deposition chamber. When such sequential substrate 25 transfer is realized, process time bars of respective substrates 25 can be overlapped in a process time bar graph for continuous processing of the plural substrates 25 and therefore throughput is improved greatly. The gate valves 16 are provided between each of the sputtering deposition chamber 13A to the sputtering deposition chamber 13E, and the etching chamber 14, and each of the load lock chambers 15A and 15B. Here, reference numeral 35 indicates a placement stage for placing the substrate 25 temporarily when the two substrate transfer robots 11A and 11B receive and deliver the substrate 25, and a position alignment mechanism of the substrate 25 and a notch alignment mechanism of the substrate 25 may be provided separately.
Following Table 1 shows a process time table in the apparatus configuration of
Along the process time table of Table 1, there will be explained a film forming sequence of the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
As shown in the process time table of
As described above, each of the sputtering deposition chamber 13B and the sputtering deposition chamber 13D has the sputtering cathode 31 for backup, and, therefore, targets of PtMn and Ru can be attached to the cathodes 31 of the chambers 13B and 13D, respectively, and a co-sputtering method of discharging the two sputtering cathodes 31 at the same time can be utilized. Thereby, a film deposition rate is increased twice and it is possible to reduce deposition time to one half for PtMn in process 6 of Table 1 and for Ru in process 10 of Table 1.
The process time table in this case is specified by process 6 and process 10 of above Table 2, and the takt time for the sputtering deposition chamber 13B is reduced from 180 seconds to 140 seconds and the takt time for the sputtering deposition chamber 13D is reduced from 145 seconds to 110 seconds, although the sputtering deposition chamber 13B still limits the takt times. Accordingly, the throughput is improved to 25.7 wafers/hour.
As a comparative example, Table 3 shows a time table when the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
As shown in above Table 3, the takt time for the sputtering deposition chamber C is 295 seconds and the throughput is 12.2. Note that, also when the position of the process chamber is switched in the apparatus configuration diagram 1, the throughputs shown in Table 1 and Table 2 are maintained only if the sputtering targets are disposed so as to realize the sequential substrate 25 transfer.
(Second Embodiment)
The same effect can be obtained also when the sputtering deposition chamber for MgO film deposition in the first embodiment is replaced by a deposition chamber using a chemical vapor deposition method.
(Third Embodiment)
A Ta target is attached to the sputtering deposition chamber 13A, a PtMn target is attached to the sputtering deposition chamber 13B, and a CoFe target, a Ru target, and two CoFeM targets 31 are attached to the sputtering deposition chamber 13C and the remaining one cathode is left vacant for backup. The two CoFeB targets 31 are used for the co-sputtering. An MgO target is attached to the sputtering deposition chamber 13D, a CoFeB target and a Ta target are attached to the sputtering deposition chamber 13E, and one Ta target is attached to each of the sputtering deposition chambers 13F and 13G.
A process time table in the present embodiment is shown in Table 4.
Along the process time table of above Table 4, there will be explained a film forming sequence of the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
Next, the substrate 25 is transferred into the sputtering deposition chamber 13D by the substrate transfer robot 11C (process 9 of Table 4), and an MGO layer 46 of oxide is deposited over the substrate 25 in 1.2 nm by a sputtering method (process 10 of Table 4). Next, the substrate 25 is transferred into the sputtering deposition chamber 13E by the substrate transfer robot 11C (process 11 of Table 4), and a CoFeB layer 47 of ferromagnetic material is deposited again in 3 nm and a very thin Ta layer 48 is deposited thereover in 1.5 nm (process 12 of Table 4). Next, the substrate 25 is transferred into the sputtering deposition chamber 13F by the substrate transfer robot 11B (process 13 of Table 4), and a Ru layer 49 is deposited in 10 nm (process 14 of Table 4). Next, the substrate 25 is transferred into the sputtering deposition chamber 13G by the substrate transfer robot 11B (process 15 of Table 4), and a Ta layer 50 is deposited in 50 nm (process 16 of Table 4). Next, the substrate 25 is transferred into the load lock chamber 15B by the transfer robot 11A (process 17 of Table 4).
When the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
As a first comparative example, there will be shown a time table in Table 5 when the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
Originally, in the sputtering deposition chamber described in Patent Literature 4, only one target material (Ta) is disposed in the first vacuum chamber 110. Accordingly, when the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
As a second comparative example, there will be shown a process time table in Table 6 when the tunnel magneto-resistance element described in
A process time table for the sputtering apparatus described in Patent Literature 5 is shown in Table 6.
Originally, the sputtering system 600 disclosed in Patent Literature 5 does not include a process chamber which performs a process other than sputtering, and therefore cannot perform oxidation process. Further, for realizing so-called sequential substrate transfer by the use of the sputtering system 600 disclosed in Patent Literature 5, all the film depositions of MgO to CoFeM, Ta, and Ru in above Table 6 need to be performed by the multi-target ion-beam sputtering module 608. In this case, in addition to the MgO film deposition which requires long time because of a low sputtering rate, three metal layers are deposited in the same chamber, and therefore the takt time becomes 445.0 seconds and the throughput becomes 8.1 wafers/hour. Further, deposition of oxide and metal in the same chamber causes oxygen contamination in the metal layer and causes a so-called cross contamination problem which degrades film characteristics. Accordingly, also by the use of the sputtering system 600 disclosed in Patent Literature 5, it is not possible to realize so-called sequential substrate transfer and to improve throughput.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-293522 | Dec 2010 | JP | national |
This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/488,907, filed Sep. 17, 2014, which is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/919,067 filed Jun. 17, 2013, which is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/JP2011/006757, filed Dec. 2, 2011, which claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-293522, filed Dec. 28, 2010. The contents of the aforementioned applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 14488907 | Sep 2014 | US |
| Child | 15389259 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13919067 | Jun 2013 | US |
| Child | 14488907 | US | |
| Parent | PCT/JP2011/006757 | Dec 2011 | US |
| Child | 13919067 | US |
