Abstract
Development of large-area high-density plasma sources with a scale length of meters is strongly desired for a variety of plasma processes, especially the flat panel display fabrications. Considering design issues for plasma production with high-frequency power sources to satisfy the requirements for enlargement of source-size exceeding a meter, the power deposition profile and hence the plasma distribution become inherently non-uniform, largely due to standing wave effects, which cannot be avoided with increasing source size when the source employs power-coupling devices (inductive antennas or capacitive electrodes) with a scale-length equivalent to or as long as the 1/4 wavelength of the HF-power transmission. In this article, these constraints associated with large-area sources are reviewed, and an inductively coupled RF plasma source with multiple low-inductance antenna (LIA) units is presented as a promising candidate to avoid the problems with conventional sources.
