SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COMMERCIAL FABRICATION OF PATTERNED MEDIA
A system is provided for etching patterned media disks for hard drive. The modular system may be tailored to perform specific processes sequences so that a patterned media disk is fabricated without removing the disk from vacuum environment. In some sequence the magnetic stack is etched while in other the etch is performed prior to forming the magnetic stack. In a further sequence ion implantation is used without etching steps. For etching a movable non-contact electrode is utilized to perform sputter etch. The cathode moves to near contact distance to, but not contacting, the substrate so as to couple RF energy to the disk. The substrate is held vertically in a carrier and both sides are etched serially. That is, one side is etched in one chamber and then in the next chamber the second side is etched.
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This is a Divisional Application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/375,019, which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/052,131, filed May 9, 2008, and from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/992,972, filed Dec. 6, 2007, the disclosure of both of which is incorporated herein in its entirety.
This application also relates to U.S. application Ser. No. 12/329,447, and U.S. application Ser. No. 12/329,457, both filed on Dec. 5, 2008.
BACKGROUND1. Filed of the Invention
This invention relates to the art of substrates, e.g., disk, micro-fabrication and, more particularly, to patterning of substrates, e.g., the magnetic layers of a hard disk for hard disk drives.
2. Related Arts
Micro-fabrication of substrates is a well know art employed in, for example, fabrication of semiconductors, flat panel displays, light emitting diodes (LED's), hard disks for hard disk drives (HDD), etc. As is well known, fabrication of semiconductors, flat panel displays and LED's involves various steps for patterning the substrate. On the other hand, traditional fabrication of hard disks, generally referred to as longitudinal recording technology, does not involve patterning. Similarly, fabrication of disks for perpendicular recording technology does not involve patterning. Rather uniform layers are deposited and memory cells are generally defined by the alternating change of magnetic flux induced by the recording head, with each recording bit encompassing multiple grains within the un-patterned magnetic layers.
It has been demonstrated that non-patterned disks would fail to satisfy the needs of the market, in terms of area bit density and costs, in order to remain competitive with other forms of storage. Consequently, it has been proposed that next generation disks should be patterned. It is envisioned that the patterning process may utilize photolithography, although currently there is no certainty which lithography technology may be commercialized, and no commercial system is yet available for commercial manufacturing of patterned media. Among contenders for photolithography are interference photolithography, near field lithography and nano-imprint lithography (NIL). Regardless of the lithography technology utilized, once the photoresist is exposed and developed, the disk needs to be etched and fabricated according to the desired pattern. However, to date much of the development efforts has been focused on the patterning step and no technology has been proposed for fabricating a patterned disk in a commercially viable environment.
To be sure, etch, sputtering, and other fabrication technologies are well known and well developed for semiconductor, flat panel display, LED's, etc. However, no system has been proposed for integrating these technology to enable fabrication of disks for HDD. Moreover, unlike HDD disks, in all of these applications only one side of the substrate needs to be etched—allowing a chuck to hold the substrate from the backside during fabrication. On the other hand, HDD disks need to be fabricated on both sides, preventing the use of a chuck. Indeed, in HDD disk fabrication no part of the fabrication system may contact any surface of the disk. Also, while HDD manufactures expect the system to have a throughput on the order of 1000 disks per hour, fabricators of semiconductors employ systems having throughputs of only tens of substrates per hour.
In view of the above, a method and system are required to enable fabrication of hard disks to provide patterned media for HDD.
SUMMARYThe following summary is included in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects and features of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention and as such it is not intended to particularly identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented below.
Methods and systems are provided for integrated fabrication of disks to be used in HDD in a commercially viable manner. Various processing steps are outlined and their sequence is designed to result in a functional patterned media disk. The system may be constructed by modifying a commercial processing system, such as the 200 Lean® available from Intevac, of Santa Clara, Calif.
As noted above, the fabrication of patterned media requires, among others, incorporating etching technology to the disk fabrication. In considering the application of plasma etching technology to hard disks, the subject inventors have recognized that standard plasma etching technology is problematic for etching patterned hard disks. Unlike semiconductors and other applications, the disks need to be etched on both sides. Therefore, conventional systems having plasma etch on only one side are not workable for hard disks. Also, since both sides of the disks are fabricated, no element of the fabrication machine can be allowed to touch either surface of the disk. Therefore, prior art systems utilizing conventional chucks cannot be used for processing hard disks, as they touch the backside. This raises another problem in that, if no chuck can be used to hold the disk, how can a bias potential be applied to cause species of the plasma to impinge on the surface of the disk?
The subject inventors have provided solutions to the above problems and developed a patterned media fabrication system that is commercially viable. The fabrication system includes an etching system and method that enable etching of both sides of the disks, without touching any surface of the disk. Embodiments of the invention also enable applying bias potential to cause the plasma species to impinge the surface of the disk without attaching the disk to a chuck.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, exemplify the embodiments of the present invention and, together with the description, serve to explain and illustrate principles of the invention. The drawings are intended to illustrate major features of the exemplary embodiments in a diagrammatic manner. The drawings are not intended to depict every feature of actual embodiments nor relative dimensions of the depicted elements, and are not drawn to scale.
According to embodiments of the invention, system and methods are provided for fabricating patterned media disks.
In the patterning system 18 various processing are performed, which may include de-scum, resist trim, hard mask deposition and etch, resist strip, metal etching, planarization (which may include carbon or metal or oxide refill and etch-back). These processes are performed in a plurality of chambers, each having an independent vacuum environment; however, once the disk enters system 18 it never leaves the vacuum environment until processing is completed. The details about these processes and the various system elements used to perform them will be described below. Once processing in the patterning system 18 is completed, the disks are moved to modules 20 and 22, which are not relevant to the subject disclosure.
In 240 the COC layer has been etched so as to be used as a hard mask. That is, once the COC layer has been etched, the photoresist may be removed and the COC layer would maintain the desired pattern. Then at 250 the magnetic layer is etched using the COC layer as the hard mask. Each of these two etch steps may be performed as sequential steps, i.e., etching one side of the disk at a time. This would be explained more completely below. In 260 a carbon refill layer is deposited to fill the patterned magnetic layer, and then the carbon refill layer is etched back to form a relatively flat top surface. At 170 a thin protective coat of diamond-like carbon layer (generally referred to as NCT carbon) is formed.
General System ArchitectureIn the example of
Since in most applications the thickness of the photoresist would exceed that of the COC layer, it is likely that some photoresist would remain after completing the COC etch. Therefore, a step of reductive strip of resist may also be performed in chambers 2 and 3, or in subsequent chambers (not shown). This may be also performed using soft plasma using H2/O2 source gas. Since this process may also use oxygen, it is critical to avoid oxygen poisoning of the magnetic layer. This may be done by timely stopping flow of oxygen or by forming a passivation layer (e.g., Pt, Ta, Cr) over the magnetic layer before performing the strip resist step.
Chambers 4-9 are used to alternatingly etch the magnetic layer on one side of the disk and cool the disk after an etch process. In this example, no cooling chamber is provided between chambers 8 and 9, as in this example cooling between these two etch processes is done in elevator 304. Of course, if necessary, another cooling chamber may be added between these two chambers. In this example the magnetic layer is etched using ion beam etch (IBE), which requires biasing the disk. Therefore, each chamber is structured to etch only one side of the disk. If a reactive ion etch (RIE) is used, each chamber may be configured to etch both sides simultaneously. The magnetic layer etch is performed using an innovative etch chamber that will be described in details in the section under the heading Etch Chamber.
The magnetic layer etch process should be designed so as to avoid puncturing the carbon hard mask, so here selectivity is more important. Total etch depth of this step is about 100-1000 A. It is desired to leave some thickness of the COC layer on top of the un-etched islands, which also helps preventing damage to the magnetic layer.
Chamber 10 is used for forming a carbon refill layer to fill the etched regions. This may be done by sputtering carbon, e.g., NCT or sputtered carbon, filling with SiO2, or other materials. The thickness of the refill should be sufficient to allow follow-on planarization. In the example of
In the examples of fabricating patterned media disks discussed so far an etch step is required to etch the magnetic layer. In the following, a novel movable non-contact electrode is described for performing sputter etch which is particularly beneficial for sputtering of hard disks used in hard disk drives (HDD). The electrode moves to near contact distance to, but not contacting, the substrate so as to couple RF energy to the disk. The material to be etched may be metal, e.g., Co/Pt/Cr or similar metals. No surface contact is allowed by any part of the system. The substrate is held vertically in a carrier and both sides must be etched. In one embodiment, one side is etched in one chamber and then the second side is etched in the next chamber. An isolation valve is disposed between the two chambers and the disk carrier moves the disks between the chambers. The carrier may be a linear drive carrier, using, e.g., magnetized wheels and linear motors.
In one embodiment the chamber has a showerhead on one side and a movable electrode on the other side. The showerhead may be grounded or biased, and has provisions for delivering gas into the chamber, e.g., argon, and/or reactive gases, such as CxFy, Cl2, Br2, etc. The chamber also has guides or rails for the linear drive disk carrier. When the disk carrier assumes processing position, the electrode is moved close to the disk, but not touching it. An RF power, e.g., 13.56 MHz is coupled to the electrode, which is capacitively coupled to the disk. A plasma is then ignited in the void between the disk and the showerhead, to thereby sputter material from the face of the disk. In the next chamber, the exact arrangement is provided, except in the opposite facing order, so that the opposing face of the disk is etched. A cooling chamber may be interposed between the two chambers, or after the two chambers.
An embodiment of the inventive etch chamber will now be described with reference to the drawings.
For illustration purposes, in the example of
RF energy coupling is done capacitively from a conductive electrode to the disk and thence to the plasma. The electrode assembly comprises an electrode 544 made of conductive material and shaped to complement the surface of the disk. An electrode cover 543 is provided about the electrode, and extends beyond the electrode 544 so that when the electrode is in its proximal, energized position, the electrode cover 543 covers the edges of the disk. In this position the electrode cover 543 prevents plasma species from attacking the sides of the disk and prevents plasma from reaching the backside surface of the disk, i.e., prevents plasma from excaping the space between the surface facing the electrode and the electrode.
For non-reactive etch, the precursor gas may be, for example, argon. Since the magnetic metals generally utilized for magnetic disks may be physically etched, i.e., by sputtering, argon is a suitable precursor gas. During processing the chamber may be maintained at reduced pressure, e.g., 10-80 millitorr (mT), although certain processes may be performed at pressures of 1 mT to 10 torr. The RF energy may be set to, e.g., 100-3000 watts, at frequency of, e.g., 13.56 MHz. In the example of
In order to effectively couple the RF energy to the disk, the electrode 544 must be place very close to the disk. In the embodiments illustrated the distance between the disk and the electrode may be set to between 0.02″ to 0.75″. In these examples the placement may be done to an accuracy of ±0.005″. In one example, the placement accuracy is enabled by using a proximity sensor, such as, e.g., one or more optical sensors. As shown in
In one example, both the electrode and the showerhead are made of hard anodized aluminum. Notably, unlike conventional etch chambers, here the conductive surface of the electrode is exposed and is not covered with an insulator. As in other examples, the showerhead is grounded and is fixed, i.e., not movable. Insulating parts may be made of alumina (where exposure to plasma may occur) or Ultem. With the embodiments as described, etch rates higher than 10 nm per second may be achieved.
It should be appreciated that the processes and systems described herein enable commercial fabrication of patterned media disks for hard drives. Fast production and high yield are enabled by the system wherein after the formation of the photo-resist pattern the disk in moved into vacuum environment in the system and the entire patterning fabrication is performed without removing the disk from the vacuum environment.
It should be understood that processes and techniques described herein are not inherently related to any particular apparatus and may be implemented by any suitable combination of components. Further, various types of general purpose devices may be used in accordance with the teachings described herein. It may also prove advantageous to construct specialized apparatus to perform the method steps described herein. The present invention has been described in relation to particular examples, which are intended in all respects to be illustrative rather than restrictive. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many different combinations of hardware, software, and firmware will be suitable for practicing the present invention. Moreover, other implementations of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. Various aspects and/or components of the described embodiments may be used singly or in any combination in the server arts. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.
Claims
1. A system for fabricating patterned media disks, comprising:
- a plurality of processing chambers, each having an independent vacuum environment;
- a plurality of valves, each positioned between two processing chambers;
- a transport system for transporting a disk carrier from one chamber to directly the next through the valves;
- wherein the plurality of processing chambers comprises: at least one etching chamber; at least one refill sputtering chamber; and, at least one etch back chamber.
2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a cooling chamber positioned following the etch chamber.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the etch chamber comprises:
- a main chamber body having a first side and a second side opposite the first side;
- a precursor gas delivery assembly coupled to the first side;
- a movable cathode assembly coupled to the second side.
4. The system of claim 3, wherein the movable cathode assumes a retractable position during disk transport and assumes an extended position during etch process.
5. The system of claim 3, wherein the transport system comprises tracks positioned within the main chamber body and configured for supporting the disk carrier, such that a disk held by the disk carrier is positioned between the precursor gas delivery assembly and the movable cathode assembly.
6. The system of claim 5, wherein the tracks are positioned such that during etching the movable cathode assembly is moved close to the disk, but does not touch it.
7. The system of claim 6, wherein the tracks are configured to transport a disk carrier such that the disk is held in a vertical orientation during transport and during processing.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of processing chambers comprise at least a first and a second etch chambers, wherein:
- the first etch chamber comprises: a first main chamber body having a first side and a second side opposite the first side; a first precursor gas delivery assembly coupled to the first side; a first movable cathode assembly coupled to the second side; and,
- the second etch chamber follows the first etch chamber and comprises: a second main chamber body having a third side and a fourth side, the third side being opposite the second side and the fourth side being opposite the first side; a second precursor gas delivery assembly coupled to the fourth side; a second movable cathode assembly coupled on the third side.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein the transport system is configured to transport the disk carrier such that the disk is held in a vertical orientation during transport and during processing, wherein one surface of the disk is etched in the first etch chamber and the opposite surface of the disk is etched in the second etch chamber.
10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a cooling chamber positioned between the first and the second etch chambers.
11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a second cooling chamber positioned after the second etch chamber.
12. The system of claim 9, further comprising a cooling chamber positioned after the second etch chambers.
13. The system of claim 1, further comprising a hard mask sputtering chamber.
14. The system of claim 1, further comprising a hard mask etching chamber.
15. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one cooling chamber.
16. The system of claim 1, wherein the etching chamber is configured for magnetic layer etching to thereby form patterned magnetic layer, the refill sputtering chamber is configured for depositing carbon refill layer to fill the patterned magnetic layer, and the etch back chamber is configured for etching back the carbon refill layer to form a relatively flat top surface.
17. The system of claim 1, further comprising a sputtering chamber configured for forming a hard protective layer over the flat top surface.
18. The system of claim 17, wherein the sputtering chamber is configured for forming a hard protective layer by depositing a carbon overcoat.
19. The system of claim 16, further comprising a hard mask etching chamber positioned ahead of the etching chamber and configured for etching a hard mask.
20. The system of claim 19, further comprising a resist trim chamber positioned ahead of the hard mask etching chamber.
Type: Application
Filed: Dec 27, 2011
Publication Date: Apr 19, 2012
Applicant: INTEVAC, INC. (Santa Clara, CA)
Inventors: Kevin P. Fairbairn (Los Gatos, CA), Michael S. Barnes (San Ramon, CA), Terry Bluck (Santa Clara, CA), Ren Xu (San Jose, CA), Charles Liu (Los Altos, CA), Ralph Kerns (San Carlos, CA)
Application Number: 13/338,182
International Classification: C23C 14/34 (20060101);