Novel Plasma-Enhanced CVD Reactors

Current commercial plasma-enhanced CVD reactors operate with only two physical concepts. In one case, we have the inductively-excited discharge in a tube, which is used for plasma ashing of resist. The other is the parallel plate arrangement using high-frequency RF power to create a low-pressure glow discharge, where the wafers to be coated sit on one of the electrodes. 

In reality, these are only two of many arrangements that could be devised to create and deliver to a substrate large quantities of reactive species using a plasma. Since there are many shortcomings to existing commercial plasma-enhanced CVD reactors, it will be useful to explore other reactor concepts that are under development, but have yet to be widely developed commercially. Whether or not they will lead to practical production systems remains to be seen. 

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