US 12,224,192 B2
Bowed substrate clamping method, apparatus, and system
Arvinder S. Chadha, San Jose, CA (US); and Kartik Ramaswamy, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to APPLIED MATERIALS, INC., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed by Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed on Nov. 10, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/984,357.
Prior Publication US 2024/0162066 A1, May 16, 2024
Int. Cl. H01L 21/67 (2006.01); H01J 37/32 (2006.01); H01L 21/683 (2006.01)
CPC H01L 21/67288 (2013.01) [H01L 21/6831 (2013.01); H01J 37/32715 (2013.01); H01J 2237/2007 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for clamping a substrate, comprising,
i. placing a substrate on a clamping surface of a substrate support having a plurality of electrodes spaced from one another including a first electrode and a second electrode;
ii. measuring substrate bow of the substrate;
iii. determining, based on the measured substrate bow, a first voltage to be applied to the first electrode and a second voltage to be applied to the second electrode, wherein the first voltage is an AC voltage and the second voltage is an AC or a DC voltage;
iv. applying the first voltage to the first electrode and the second voltage to the second electrode to clamp the substrate to the substrate support; and
repeating ii, iii, and iv until substrate bow of the substrate is determined to be optimized,
wherein the substrate bow of the substrate is determined to be optimized when at least one of variation in clamp pressure or heat transfer flux are minimized.