Precision screen printing with sub-micron uniformity of metallization materials on green sheet ceramic

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10410900-B2
Application number	US-201715667281-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 2, 2017
Priority date	Aug 5, 2016
Publication date	Sep 10, 2019
Grant date	Sep 10, 2019

Abstract

Precision screen printing is described that is capable of sub-micron uniformity of the metallization materials that are printed on green sheet ceramic. In some examples, puck is formed with electrical traces by screen printing a paste that contains metal on a ceramic green sheet in a pattern of electrical traces and processing the printed green sheet to form a puck of a workpiece carrier. In some example, the printing includes applying a squeegee of a screen printer to the printed green sheet in a squeegeeing direction while the green sheet is on a printer bed of the screen printer. The method further includes mapping the printer bed at multiple locations along the squeegeeing direction, identifying non-uniformities in the printer bed mapping, and modifying a printer controller of the screen printer to compensate for mapped non-uniformities in the printer bed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of forming a puck of a workpiece carrier with electrical traces comprising:
screen printing a paste that contains metal on a first ceramic green sheet in a pattern of electrical traces, further comprising applying a squeegee of a screen printer to the first ceramic green sheet in a squeegeeing direction while the first ceramic green sheet is on a printer bed of the screen printer;
mapping the printer bed at multiple locations along the squeegeeing direction;
applying a statistical spline curve to the printer bed mapping for a left and a right side of the squeegee;
identifying non-uniformities in the printer bed mapping;
using the spline curve to actively drive squeegee gaps in the printing direction with smoothed conformal squeegee pressure;
screen printing the paste on additional ceramic green sheets using the actively driven squeegee gaps;
forming the first ceramic green sheet and the additional ceramic green sheets into carrier pucks;
measuring a resistance of the carrier pucks; and
modifying a printer controller of the screen printer to compensate for mapped non-uniformities in the printer bed by adjusting the squeegee gap based on the measured resistance; and
using the modified printer controller of the screen printer, screen printing a paste that contains metal on a second ceramic green sheet in the pattern of electrical traces; and
processing the printed second ceramic green sheet to form the puck of the workpiece carrier.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising drying the paste and wherein processing the printed second ceramic green sheet comprises compacting the printed second ceramic green sheet with a plurality of green sheets to form the puck.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein processing further comprises sintering the compacted second ceramic green sheet and plurality of green sheets and polishing the sintered second ceramic green sheet and plurality of green sheets.

4. The method of claim 1 , the method further comprising:
using an auto-zero feature of the screen printer to record motor encoder values in a memory when printing; and
adjusting the squeegee mounting of the printer to compensate for variations as detected by the auto-zero feature.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein screen printing the paste on additional ceramic green sheets comprises printing with multiple print screens and wherein measuring the resistance comprises measuring the resistance corresponding to the multiple print screens, the method further comprising generating a print screen with parameters selected based on the measured resistance.

6. A method of forming a puck of a workpiece carrier comprising:
generating a screen mask for use with a screen printer;
trial screen printing metallization materials onto a plurality of ceramic green sheets with different screen masks with different squeegee settings of a screen printer to form trial green sheets;
converting the trial green sheets into pucks;
measuring the resistivity of the pucks;
correlating the resistivity to the different screen masks; and
generating a screen mask for use with the screen printer based on the correlation;
screen printing the metallization materials on a first ceramic green sheet using the screen mask that is based on the correlation; and
processing the printed ceramic green sheet to form the puck of the workpiece carrier.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein correlating the resistivity comprises correlating the resistivity to a print thickness parameter of each different screen mask.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Huang Shih-Ying
• Babayan Steven E
• Criminale Phillip
• Prouty Stephen
• Huang Anthony

Classifications

• H10P72/7624

  characterised by the mechanical construction of the susceptor, stage or support · CPC title

• H10P72/0432 Primary

  mainly by conduction · CPC title

• H10P72/72 Primary

  using electrostatic chucks · CPC title

• H10P72/722 Primary

  Details of electrostatic chucks · CPC title

• H05K1/167

  incorporating printed resistors · CPC title