Paper PS-ThP22
New Solutions for Magnetron Sputtering Technology

Thursday, October 21, 2010, 6:00 pm, Room Southwest Exhibit Hall

Traditionally, DC-pulsed units are advised to number of applications like: AZO, reactive sputtering with SN target, etc. This recommendation is based on the assumption that a DC-pulsed unit is enough to match process requirements.

Typical recommendations for usage of DC-pulsed units are as follows:

- high ARC rate,

- reactive process (reactive gas in the chamber),

The aim of this article is to introduce DC-non pulsed and High-Power (HIPIMS) units as more interesting alternative for expensive DC-pulsed units.

1. DC no-pulsed units

Advanced, powerful functions implemented into DC-non pulsed units, gives beneficial solution for processes affected by highly arcing materials like AZO. Ability to stable operation with extremely highly arcing frequency is one of most interesting features of DC power supplies developed by Huettinger Electronic. Mentioned units are able capably to work with 8000 ARCs/sec with 60kW output power.

Fig. 1. Behavior of AZO - extremely high arcing rates-70.000 arcs/s.

2. HIPIMS units

The other potentially interesting technique is HIPIMS coating. Looking for DC pulsed or DC non-pulsed processes, HIPIMS is going to serve fully dense, defect free films. Additionally, HIPIMS process leaves substrate temperature at lower level, compared to DC units. This gives a possibility for usage of completely new materials to be coated, like polymeric, foil or rubber. Moreover, power supplies for HIPIMS applications are equipped with CompensateLine (cable length compensation circuit), this allows to reduce arc energy to 0,3mJ.

Fig. 2. Behaviour of HIPIMS unit with arc during a HIPIMS pulse.

DC non-pulsed units can be used for advanced reactive processes, efficiently competing with DC pulsed units. The HIPIMS gives new possibilities for fully dense films on material required substrate temperatures.