Abstract: A controlled gas environment is provided against a surface area of a semiconductor wafer for performing processes on the area in the fabrication of integrated circuits thereon, including processes of deposition, impurity implantation, etching, ablation, and other radiation induced chemical processes involving the gas atmosphere by maintaining a continuous gas flow over the area and a portion of the surrounding area of the wafer surface covered by an enclosure that is suspended on the surface on a film of the flowing gas, the pressure, temperature and composition of the gas atmosphere against the surface area being controlled to meet the requirements of each processing step and/or to carry away particles while the gas seal is maintained.

Abstract: Intense far-ultraviolet laser radiation is applied to a workpiece in performance of processes in the fabrication of integrated circuits, including processes of ablation, deposition, impurity implantation and radiation induced chemical processes. Other processes where intense far-ultraviolet laser radiation is applied include hardening and annealing a workpiece by exposure to the radiation. Particular embodiments of the invention herein enables selective removal of a polymer film on a semiconductor substrate by ablative photodecomposition (APD) using intense far-ultraviolet, or shorter wave length, radiation from a pulsed laser requires focusing the laser radiation to provide sufficiently high fluence of laser light energy to ablate a selected area of the polymer to a useful depth in a reasonable time, sometimes referred to as the threshold of fluence of the laser pulses required to produce effective APD of the polymer.