Improving Ion Implanter Productivity with In-situ Cleaning

Ion source lifetime is generally a critical factor in overall implanter productivity. However, extended ion source life only provides value in a manufacturing environment if the ion beam remains stable. As an ion source ages, apertures and insulators become coated with conductive dopant residues which cause beam instabilities, resulting in implant stoppages. These stoppages create failures and/or assists which are logged in the implanter's data files. Analog Devices has recently evaluated in-situ ion source cleaning based on use of xenon difluoride chemistry. The paper will describe how the in-situ cleaning decreased logged failures/assists, resulting in increased implanter productivity.