| 摘要 |
A method for purging a vacuum chamber suitable for use in the production of integrated circuit structures on semiconductor wafers. The method comprises providing the chamber to be purged and flowing a heated, non-reactive gas, such as argon gas, through the chamber. The non-reactive gas is heated to a temperature of at least 90 DEG C. Further, the chamber is heated to maintain it at a temperature of at least 90 DEG C. while flowing the gas therethrough. Flowing the heated non-reactive gas through the chamber causes released impurities or contaminants to be efficiently swept from the chamber in the non-reactive gas flow. After flowing the heated gas through the heated chamber, the flow of gas is interrupted and the chamber, while still hot, is pumped down to a vacuum of about 5x10-7 to determine whether or not the chamber has a leakage problem. The presence of a leakage problem may be determined by comparing the pumping to past pumping of similar sized chambers, or by measuring the partial pressure of common gases such as nitrogen and/or oxygen. If the partial pressure of oxygen is higher than about 5x10-8 and the partial pressure of nitrogen is higher than 2x10-7, the vacuum chamber can be considered to have a leakage problem. Pumping times may, therefore, be shortened by the use of such screening for leakage problems while the vacuum chamber is still hot.
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