Monopole antenna array source for semiconductor process equipment

[0042] The processing of workpieces, such as semiconductor wafers, can be performed in a plasma reactor. For example, electromagnetic energy, such as RF power or microwave (MW) power, may be employed to generate a plasma in a chamber to perform plasma-based processing (eg, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) or plasma Volume Enhanced Reactive Ion Etching (PERIE)). Some processes (eg, deposition of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films) require high plasma ion density and low plasma ion energy. Higher plasma densities require higher source powers and generally result in shorter deposition times.

[0043] The advantage of a microwave source is that it can generate very high plasma ion densities with less plasma ion energy than other sources (for example, inductively coupled RF plasma sources or capacitively coupled RF plasma sources). plasma source). Another advantage of microwave plasma sources is the ability to generate plasma over a wide range of chamber pressures, ty