Gasonics Aura 3010 Plasma Asher

The Gasonics Aura 3010 is a single-wafer Photoresist Asher designed for ashing and cleaning semiconductor wafers of five-, six-, and eight-inch diameters. It does this by creating a low-pressure, low-temperature glow discharge which chemically reacts with the surface of the wafer.

Gasonics Aura 3010 Features

• Up to fifty wafers per hour throughput
• Downstream plasma ashing ensures low wafer damage from highenergy ions
• Computer control with hard disk storage of recipes and parameters
• 1.0 to 3.0 micron per minute ash rates

Gasonics Aura 3010 Physical Description

The Gasonics Aura 3010 system is composed of three main components:
• The reactor center which includes the system controller, the display, the wafer handling robot, the microwave generator, and the gas box.
• The power enclosure wall box. 
• The vacuum pump.
The Gasonics Aura 3010  is available in free-standing and through-the-wall configurations. The system consists of the system cabinet and the A-Box. The front of the system contains the System Control Panel, with its electro-luminescent display screen, and the stationary cassette station, onto which the cassettes of wafers are placed for processing.  Connections for process gases, vacuum, water, cabinet exhaust, and pneumatic power gas are made at the rear of the cabinet. The vacuum pump is normally located in an adjacent equipment room separate from the main system and should be kept running continuously.

Gasonics Aura 3010 Basic Process Flow

The Gasonics Aura 3010 processes wafers by taking each wafer from the cassette, placing it in the process chamber, executing a selected recipe to remove the photoresist, placing the wafer on the cooling station (if required), and then returning it to the cassette. The cooling station can be bypassed for higher throughput if heat-resistant teflon cassettes are used. Wafer movement is accomplished by a wafer-handling robot having three axes of motion. The robot arm end-effector is supplied with vacuum to hold the wafer in place as it is moved. When the wafer is placed in the process chamber, it rests on three sapphire rods which support the wafer at its edge. The chamber is heated by twelve heater cartridges embedded in the chamber wall. When the wafer is placed in the chamber for processing, it is heated to process temperature by eight halogen lamps under the chamber. Oxygen and a small quantity of Nitrogen are mixed and delivered to a quartz plasma tube in the waveguide assembly. Microwave energy, generated by the magnetron, excites the gas mixture to form a plasma, in which the molecular Oxygen and Nitrogen gases are dissociated into atomic Oxygen and Nitrogen. The active species are carried downstream out of the source region through a gas distribution plenum. The high-energy reactive species, which can cause damage to the wafer, are destroyed by 3-body gas-phase recombination in the source and by surface recombination in the plenum. The lower-energy free radicals and neutrals, which are responsible for the photoresist oxidation, are carried to the wafer surface where the photoresist removal takes place. The end of the removal process can be determined by detecting, and measuring the rate of change in the light emitted by the gas plasma itself as the photoresist removal progresses. At the end of the removal process, the halogen lamps are turned off, microwave power is turned off (and consequently, the plasma is extinguished), and the process gas flow is turned off. The chamber is then purged with nitrogen before being vented to atmosphere for wafer removal. The wafer is then transferred from the chamber to the cooling station. The cooling station is a water cooled platen. The cool wafer is then transferred back to its original slot in the cassette. 

 

Original Equipment Manufacturer: Gasonics

Condition: Fully Refurbished and Upgraded by Allwin21

Wafer Size: 4″/5″/6″/8″Capability

 Wafer loading: Automatic, Solid Robotic Wafer Transfer-Allwin21 Own Technology

Plasma Power: Microwave

Type: Parallel/Single Wafer Process,Stand Alone

Gas Lines: 1 ~ 3 lines capability with customized MFCs range

 Gasonics Aura 3010 Plasma Asher

All our Gasonics Aura 3010 go through a series of rigorous tests which are documented, standardized, and certified by performance and reliability standards. By strictly following these procedures, the customer receives guaranteed rapid start-up, lifecycle reliability, and proven process performance.