Plasma processing system control based on RF voltage

• US 8,501,631 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2010
• Issued: 08/06/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lam Research Corporation
• Original Assignee: Lam Research Corporation
• Inventors: Valcore, John C. Jr., Povolny, Henry S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ahmadi, Mohsen
• Application Number:
  US12/962,524
• Publication Number:
  US 20110137446A1
• Time in Patent Office: 973 Days
• Field of Search: 257/E21.143, 257/E21.218, 257/E21.311, 118/723.E
• US Class Current: 438/729
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/418 Total factory control, i.e. centrally controlling a plurality of machines, e.g. direct or distributed numerical control [DNC], flexible manufacturing systems [FMS], integrated manufacturing systems [IMS] or computer integrated manufacturing [CIM]
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/45031 Manufacturing semiconductor wafers
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/32082 Radio frequency generated discharge H01J37/32357, H01J37/32366, H01J37/32394 and H01J37/32403 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/32137 controlling of the discharge by modulation of energy
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/32174 Circuits specially adapted for controlling the RF discharge
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/32183 Matching circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/32917 Plasma diagnostics
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/32926 Software, data control or modelling
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/3299 Feedback systems

Abstract

A method for controlling a plasma processing system using wafer bias information derived from RF voltage information is proposed. The RF voltage is processed via an analog or digital methodology to obtain peak voltage information at least for each of the fundamental frequencies and the broadband frequency. The peak voltage information is then employed to derive the wafer bias information to serve as a feedback or control signal to hardware/software of the plasma processing system.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a plasma processing system including a plasma processing chamber, comprising:

receiving an RE signal from at least one component of said plasma processing chamber;

processing said RE signal in a digital domain to obtain peak voltage information for each fundamental frequency and a broadband frequency of said RE signal; and

deriving wafer bias information from said peak voltage information, wherein said wafer bias information is employed as one of a feedback and a control signal for said controlling said plasma processing system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said processing of said RF signal obtains a plurality of signals, said plurality of signals including at least individual signals corresponding to individual ones of multiple RF frequencies.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said RF signal is inputted into a transfer function, and providing an output of said transfer function as a control signal to control a subsystem of said plasma processing system.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein said transfer function represents a linear transfer function.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein said linear transfer function is obtained using multi-variable analysis.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said transfer function represents a non-linear transfer function.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein said RF signal is filtered using an anti-aliasing filter.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein said filtered RF of signal from said anti-aliasing filter is split into two channels to feed into a dual-channel analog/digital converter.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said processing in the digital domain is performed by a field programmable gate array (FPGA).

11. The method of claim 1 wherein said deriving includes using at least one plasma processing chamber parameter.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said at least one plasma processing chamber parameter includes chamber pressure, chamber gap distance between electrodes, RF delivered power, RF frequency, RF generator impedance matching network tap positions having capacitor positions of variable LC network, chamber Chemistry, chamber topology including a around area ratio, wafer type, and water resistivity.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said chamber pressure is taken into account for providing enhanced accurate on-the-fly determination of wafer bias voltage.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein said control signal controls an RF generator.

2. A method for controlling a plasma processing system including a plasma processing chamber, comprising:

receiving an RE signal from at least one component of said plasma processing chamber;

processing said RE signal to obtain peak voltage information for each fundamental frequency and a broadband frequency of said RE signal; and

deriving wafer bias information from said peak voltage information, wherein said deriving includes using at least one plasma processing chamber parameter in said deriving and wherein said wafer bias information is employed as one of a feedback and a control signal for said controlling said plasma processing system.

15. The method of claim 2 wherein said at least one plasma processing chamber parameter includes chamber pressure, chamber gap distance between electrodes, RF delivered power, RF frequency, RF generator impedance matching network tap positions having capacitor positions of variable LC network, chamber chemistry, chamber topology including a ground area ratio, wafer type, and wafer resistivity.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein said chamber pressure is taken into account for providing enhanced accurate on-the-fly determination of wafer bias voltage.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein said control signal controls an RF generator.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said processing of said RF signal obtains a plurality of signals, said plurality of signals including at least individual signals corresponding to individual ones of multiple RF frequencies.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein said RF signal is inputted into a transfer function, and providing an output of said transfer function as a control signal to control a subsystem of said plasma processing system.

20. The method of claim 19 Wherein said RF signal is filtered using an anti-aliasing filter.