LAM 716-443090-002 Upper Gas Inlet Ring

1. Product Description

716-443090-002 is an original OEM chamber component manufactured exclusively for Lam Research semiconductor etch and thin-film deposition processing tools, named Upper Gas Inlet Ring. It is a core gas distribution hardware installed inside the process vacuum chamber, responsible for uniform delivery of process, purge and carrier gases across the wafer surface during plasma etching and deposition cycles.

• Precision machined metal alloy ring with micro-sized gas injection orifice arrays distributed in concentric circular patterns to achieve homogeneous gas flow distribution on 200mm / 300mm silicon wafers.
• Surface treated with anti-corrosion and plasma-resistant coating to resist erosion from fluorine, chlorine and other reactive etching chemistries under high-energy plasma environments.
• Integrated sealing grooves and locating alignment notches for precise mechanical positioning and vacuum tight sealing when assembled to upper chamber gas manifold assemblies.
• Conforms to strict semiconductor cleanroom cleanliness standards, precision dimensional tolerances to eliminate gas flow skew that causes uneven wafer etching rate.
• Customized LAM part revision optimized for high-power RF plasma chambers, compatible with LAM Rainbow, Exelan and Versys series processing platforms.

• Designed for controlled thermal cycling inside vacuum chambers, maintains stable dimensional stability under repeated heating and cooling process cycles.

  
  

2. Core Product Functions

• Uniform Process Gas Dispersion: Distribute reactive etchant gases, inert purge gases and dilution carrier gases evenly across the entire wafer plane via precision micro-orifices, ensuring consistent etching depth and film thickness uniformity across wafer surface.
• Vacuum Chamber Sealing & Gas Isolation: Forms a sealed interface between upper gas supply manifold and plasma reaction cavity, preventing gas leakage and cross-contamination of different process chemistries inside vacuum chamber.
• Plasma Stability Control: Regulates gas injection velocity and spatial distribution to stabilize plasma density distribution, eliminating process defects such as micro-loading, etch skew and edge-to-center wafer profile deviation.
• Thermal Buffer for Chamber Environment: Acts as a heat transfer buffer between heated gas delivery lines and cool chamber walls, avoiding premature gas condensation and particle generation inside process cavity.
• Process Repeatability Assurance: Fixed orifice layout and flow impedance design guarantee identical gas flow profiles batch-to-batch, maintaining consistent semiconductor process recipe performance for mass wafer production.
• Particle Reduction: Smooth plasma-resistant coating minimizes sputtering and material shedding during long plasma exposure, reducing wafer defect counts induced by chamber particle contamination.

3. Typical Application Scenarios

• Lam Research inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etch chambers for logic, memory and power semiconductor wafer manufacturing.
• High aspect ratio dielectric and conductor etching processes for advanced node semiconductor devices.
• Wafer thin-film deposition pre-treatment and surface passivation process chambers requiring precise gas distribution control.
• 200mm / 300mm cleanroom production fabs with continuous batch wafer processing under high RF plasma power operating conditions.
• Semiconductor fab chamber preventive maintenance (PM) spare parts replacement to restore chamber gas flow uniformity after long-term plasma erosion.

4. Common Issues & Troubleshooting