A Study on Energy Recovery Circuit in Sputtering Plasma Power supply for arc Discharge Prevention

Recently, in the field of renewable energy such as solar cells including the semiconductor and display industries, thin film deposition process is being diversified. Furthermore, to deal with trend of making high-quality and fast, the high-capacity and output plasma power supply which can control high density plasma is required. The biggest problem is arc discharge caused by using high voltage power supply. Thus, the key function of plasma power supply is to prevent arc discharge and there is a need to maintain the possible minimum arc energy. In DC sputtering power supply, on a periodic basis (-)voltage powering up is able to significantly reduce arcing, as well as arc discharge prevention, and maintaining uniform charge density. This conventional method for powering up (-)voltage requires heavy mutual inductance of the transformer to avoid distortion problem of the output voltage. This study is about energy recovery circuit for arc discharge prevention in sputtering plasma power supply. By using energy recovery circuit, it is possible to reduce the mutual inductance and size of the transformer dramatically, prevent distortion of the output voltage and has a stable output waveform. This work was proved through simulation and experimental study.

스퍼터용 플라즈마 전원장치의 아크방지를 위한 에너지 회생회로에 대한 연구