Three different driving schemes are tested for a plasma reactor designed to abate the greenhouse gases emitted by the semiconductor industry. The reactor and electrodes all have a concentric annular shape, which allows them to be easily connected to pre-existing pipelines without any disturbance to the exhaust stream. The destruction and removal efficiencies are measured for CF4 by varying the O2/CF4 ratio and pressure. The influences of adding O2 and H2O to the byproducts of the CHF3 abatement process are investigated by analyzing the spectra resulting from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements. Based on the experimental results we suggest an appropriate combination of driving scheme and reactant gas species for efficient and economical abatement of a mixture of CHF3 and CF4. Then, the optimal flow rate of the reactant gas is presented. Finally, the reduction rates for global warming emissions are estimated to demonstrate the feasibility of using our device for abatement of greenhouse gases emitted by the semiconductor industry.
Dust particles are considered as an important source of device contamination in the semiconductor industry. Deposition process is followed by cleaning process, when dust particles are changed into volatile gaseous species that are exhausted from a processing chamber. Cleaning process, however, can't completely remove dust particles so that large amounts of residual particles still head downstream of the processing chamber. These byproduct particles are accumulated on internal components of a vacuum pump, which results in a decrease in vacuum pump durability. A plasma reactor placed before a vacuum pump is proposed for reducing the size of byproduct particles, thereby for increasing the vacuum pump lifetime. The sizes of byproduct particles for plasma on and off are compared using the scanning electron microscope. The influence of the plasma reactor on the byproduct gases is investigated by analyzing the spectra resulting from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements. Finally, the applicability of lowpressure plasmas to the extension of vacuum pump lifetime is discussed based on the experimental results.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.