Abstract: An improved process for supplying to a processing apparatus a gas containing at least one impurity that reacts and/or nucleates to form contaminating particles suspended in the gas is disclosed. The improvement includes sampling a flow of the gas upstream of the processing apparatus with a particle counter and/or particle capture filter to detect an amount of the contaminating particles in the flow of the gas, and generating a signal when the amount of particles is in excess of a predetermined amount. An apparatus for performing the process includes: a supply source; at least one processing tool; a particle counter upstream of the processing tool and downstream of the supply source; a microprocessor in electrical communication with at least the particle counter; and optionally a particle capture filter in parallel with the particle counter. The process and apparatus are useful in the manufacture of integrated circuits.

Abstract: A process for removing organic electroluminescent residues from a substrate is described herein. The process includes the steps of providing a process gas comprising a fluorine-containing gas, optionally an oxygen-containing gas, and optionally an additive gas; activating the process gas in a remote chamber using at least one energy source to provide reactive species; and contacting the surface of the substrate with the reactive species to volatilize and remove the organic electroluminescent residue from the surface.

Abstract: A process for removing carbon-containing residues from a substrate is described herein. In one aspect, there is provided a process for removing carbon-containing residue from at least a portion of a surface of a substrate comprising: providing a process gas comprising an oxygen source, a fluorine source, an and optionally additive gas wherein the molar ratio of oxygen to fluorine contained within the process gas ranges from about 1 to about 10; activating the process gas using at least one energy source to provide reactive species; and contacting the surface of the substrate with the reactive species to volatilize and remove the carbon-containing residue from the surface.

Abstract: This invention relates to an improvement in in-situ cleaning of deposition byproducts in low temperature Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) chambers and hardware therein where process thermal budgets require minimization of the susceptor temperature rise. In the basic in situ PECVD process, a cleaning gas is introduced to the chamber for a time and temperature sufficient to remove films of the deposition byproducts and then the cleaning gas containing deposition byproducts removed from said PECVD chamber. The improvement for minimizing the susceptor temperature rise in a low temperature PECVD chamber during cleaning comprises: employing a cleaning gas consisting essentially of NF3 for cleaning and diluted with a sufficient amount of helium to carry away the heat developed during cleaning of the Plasma Enhanced Low Temperature Chemical Vapor Deposition chamber. The susceptor is maintained at 150° C. or below.