Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hiroshige Uchida

Daisuke Shiraishi

Akira Kagoshima

Shoji Ikuhara

Yasuhiro Nishimori

Kousa Hirota

The invention provides a method for performing mass production processing of etching a sample capable of maintaining a stable processing profile. The method for performing mass production processing of etching for subjecting a wafer carried into a vacuum processing reactor to plasma processing uses an apparatus comprising a vacuum processing chamber, a gas supply apparatus, a plasma generating means for generating plasma, an emission spectroscope for monitoring the plasma emission, and a device for storing the emission spectrum, wherein a non-operating time of the apparatus (idling SS) occurs in which the mass production processing of the wafer is temporarily stopped, wherein during cleaning steps Sand S' before and after idling SS, emission intensities SiF() and SiF() in the plasma including the information on the state of deposition of reaction products and the temperature on the uppermost surface of the reactor are monitored, and a database Sis referred to based on these emission spectrums, so that the time of the plasma heating step Safter the idling SS is controlled to heat the reactor, and after performing plasma heating S, the next sample is subjected to etching S

Method for etching a sample

A microscopic change in a luminous intensity occurring near an etching endpoint is accurately detected, whereby the endpoint of etching is quickly determined. An etching endpoint determination method for determining an endpoint of etching processing in a plasma etching apparatus that introduces a processing gas into a vacuum chamber, produces plasma by feeding high-frequency energy to a introduced processing gas, and uses the produced plasma to perform plasma processing on a workpiece stored in the chamber includes: a step of sampling light of a pre-set wavelength from light emitted by the plasma produced in the vacuum chamber, acquiring as time-sequential data the luminous intensity of the sampled light of the specific wavelength, and computing a regression line on the basis of the acquired time-sequential data; and a step of computing distances in a time-base direction between the regression line and the time-sequential data which are obtained at the first step. An endpoint of etching processing is determined based in the distances in the time-base direction obtained at the second step.

Growing community of inventors

Kudamatsu, Japan

Hiroshige Uchida