Methods and systems for liquid particle prequalification

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10081036-B2
Application number	US-201615269324-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 19, 2016
Priority date	Sep 19, 2016
Publication date	Sep 25, 2018
Grant date	Sep 25, 2018

Abstract

Systems for prequalifying components for a processing chamber are described. The systems may be used to clean particulates from chamber parts and concurrently quantify the cleanliness. The systems may be used to qualify replacement parts before sending to a customer site for installation. The systems have three adjacent compartments separated by impermeable barriers. All three compartments are filled with liquid while cleaning a chamber component. The center compartment contains a submerged component for cleaning and qualifying. Two compartments on either side of the center compartment are configured with submerged ultrasonic transducers to deliver ultrasonic energy to either side of the component being cleaned and prequalified. A liquid pump is connected to the cleaning tub to recirculate water from the cleaning bath and another liquid pump is configured to remove a small amount of the cleaning bath to sample particulates.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system, comprising:
a cleaning tub including a cleaning bath;
a first ultrasonic tub and a second ultrasonic tub, wherein the first ultrasonic tub is disposed on the opposite side of the cleaning tub from the second ultrasonic tub;
a first impermeable barrier disposed between the first ultrasonic tub and the cleaning tub, wherein the first impermeable barrier passes ultrasonic energy from the first ultrasonic tub into the cleaning tub when each of the first ultrasonic tub and the cleaning tub are filled with water;
a second impermeable barrier disposed between the second ultrasonic tub and the cleaning tub, wherein the second impermeable barrier passes ultrasonic energy from the second ultrasonic tub into the cleaning tub when each of the second ultrasonic tub and the cleaning tub are filled with water;
a first ultrasonic transducer and a second ultrasonic transducer, wherein the first ultrasonic transducer is in a first ultrasonic bath and the second ultrasonic transducer is in a second ultrasonic bath, wherein the first and second ultrasonic baths are each separately enclosed such that liquid, ions, or particulates do not flow in or out from the first and second ultrasonic baths to the cleaning bath;
an ultrapure water source delivers ultrapure water into the cleaning bath;
a sampling pump fluidly coupled to the cleaning bath and removes contaminated water from the cleaning bath;
a liquid particle counter fluidly coupled to a dilution unit and measures the particle concentration of the contaminated water using optical scattering;
a recirculation pump fluidly coupled to the cleaning bath;
a large particle filter fluidly coupled to the recirculation pump; and
a small particle filter fluidly coupled to the large particle filter, wherein a recirculation path connects to the cleaning bath at an outlet and an inlet and the recirculation path comprises the recirculation pump, the large particle filter and the small particle filter.

2. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the first ultrasonic transducer is configured to be driven at a first frequency which is greater than 20 kHz to produce cavitation in the cleaning tub.

3. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the first ultrasonic transducer and the second ultrasonic transducer are configured to be driven at a same frequency to concurrently produce cavitation in the cleaning tub.

4. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the first ultrasonic transducer is configured to be driven at a first megasonic frequency to produce cavitation in the cleaning tub.

5. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein a recirculation pumping speed of the recirculation pump is between 10 liters/min and 200 liters/min.

6. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the first ultrasonic tub is configured such that the first ultrasonic transducer is submersible.

7. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the small particle filter is selected to remove particles larger than 10 nm while passing particles smaller than 10 nm.

8. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the large particle filter is selected to remove particles larger than 30 nm while passing particles smaller than 30 nm.

9. The ultrasonic cleaning and sampling system of claim 1 wherein the recirculation path further comprises an ion-exchange filter.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Bhoyar Sankesha
• Arcot Mahesh
• Bagul Nilesh Chimanrao
• Raju Hemantha
• Patil Ravindra

Classifications

• C02F2209/40

  Liquid flow rate · CPC title

• C02F2103/346

  from semiconductor processing, e.g. waste water from polishing of wafers · CPC title

• B08B3/12 Primary

  by sonic or ultrasonic vibrations · CPC title

• G01N15/1436

  the optical arrangement forming an integrated apparatus with the sample container, e.g. a flow cell · CPC title

• C02F1/42

  by ion-exchange (ion-exchange in general B01J) · CPC title