Sumco Corporation

Sumco Phoenix Corporation

Sumitomo Metal Industries, Inc.

Sumitomo Mitsubishi Silicon Corporation

Keiichi Takanashi

Ken Hamada

Benno Orschel

Joel Kearns

Volker Todt

Shinichi Ogata

Tokuji Maeda

Yasunobu Shimizu

Andrzej Buczkowski

Ippei Shimozaki

Mami Kubota

Yasuhito Narushima

Kazushige Takaishi

Masanori Fukui

Eriko Kitahara

Takeshi Fujita

Nobumitsu Takase

Ryuichi Tanimoto

Shunsuke Mikuriya

Takahiro Nagasawa

Kengo Hayashi

Tetsurou Taniguchi

Toshihiko Uchida

Kazuo Hiramoto

Ikuhiro Nakamura

A crystal puller apparatus comprises a pulling assembly to pull a crystal from a silicon melt at a pull speed; a crucible that contains the silicon melt; a heat shield above a surface of the silicon melt; a lifter to change a gap between the heat shield and the surface of the silicon melt; and one or more computing devices to determine an adjustment to the gap using a Pv-Pi margin, at a given length of the crystal, in response to a change in the pull speed. The computer-implemented method by a computing device comprises determining a pull-speed command signal to control a diameter of the crystal; determining a lifter command signal to control a gap between a heat shield and a surface of a silicon melt from which the crystal is grown; and determining an adjustment to the gap, in response to a different pull-speed, using a Pv-Pi margin.

Method and apparatus for manufacturing defect-free monocrystalline silicon crystal

Provided is a double-side polishing apparatus and a double-side polishing method for a work which make it possible to terminate double-side polishing with timing allowing a work having been polished to have a target shape. A computing unit performs a step of grouping the data of thicknesses on a work basis; a step of extracting shape components of each work; a step of identifying a position of each of the shape components in the work radial direction; a step of computing a shape distribution of the work; a step of obtaining a shape index of the work; and a step of determining timing at which the obtained shape index becomes a set value of the shape index, determined based on a difference between a target value and an actual value of the shape index in the previous batch, as timing of termination of the double-side polishing.

Apparatus and method for double-side polishing work

Provided is a double-side polishing apparatus and a double-side polishing method which make it possible to terminate double-side polishing with timing allowing a work having been polished to have a target shape. A computing unitperforms a step of grouping the data of thicknesses measured using work thickness measuring deviceson a work basis; a step of extracting shape components of each work from the thickness data; a step of identifying a position of each of the shape components in the work radial direction; a step of computing a shape distribution of the work from the identified position ; a step of obtaining a shape index of the work from the computed shape distribution; and a step of determining timing of termination of the double-side polishing based on the obtained shape index, thus timing of termination of the double-side polishing is determined.

A measurement method and a measurement apparatus are capable of measuring the transmittance of a quartz crucible accurately. A measurement method includes: emitting a parallel light from a light source disposed on a side of one wall surface of a quartz crucible toward a predetermined measurement point of the quartz crucible; measuring reception levels of light transmitted through the quartz crucible at a plurality of positions by disposing a detector at the plurality of positions on a circle centered around an exit point of the parallel light on the other wall surface of the quartz crucible; and calculating a transmittance of the quartz crucible at the predetermined measurement point based on a plurality of the reception levels of the transmitted light measured at the plurality of positions.

Method and apparatus for measuring transmittance of quartz crucible

Provided is an evaluation method capable of easily evaluating the inner circumference of a quartz crucible in a short time. The method of evaluating an inner circumference of a quartz crucible includes: a first step of imaging the inner circumference of the quartz crucible, thereby obtaining an image of the inner circumference; a second step of performing image processing on the image to obtain an edge image in which boundaries between cristobalite and glass are defined; a third step of extracting closed regions; a fourth step of performing arithmetic calculations on coordinate information of the boundaries, thereby obtaining calculated values; a fifth step of determining whether the closed regions are the cristobalite or the glass based on the calculated values; and a sixth step of compositing images in which closed regions are determined to be the cristobalite are overlaid, thereby obtaining a full image.

Method of evaluating inner circumference of quartz crucible and quartz crucible inner circumference evaluation apparatus

Provided is a semiconductor wafer placement position determination method making it possible to measure a position deviation at a placement position of a semiconductor wafer when using a susceptor that is N-fold symmetric with respect to the center of the susceptor as a rotation axis. In this method, an opening edge of a counterbore portion of the susceptor is N-fold symmetric with respect to the center of the susceptor as a rotation axis (N&#x2265;2). This method includes: a measurement step of measuring, while rotating the susceptor on which the semiconductor wafer is placed, a gap distance between a periphery of the semiconductor wafer and the opening edge; a first calculation step of performing, based on variation of the gap distance, period regression analysis; and a second calculation step of determining the position deviation based on an amplitude of a trigonometric function obtained by the first calculation step.

Semiconductor wafer placement position determination method and semiconductor epitaxial wafer production method

A silicon single crystal manufacturing method in which the distance between the heat shield and the melt level of the melt can be regulated in a high precision. The real image includes at least the circular opening of the heat shield provided in such a way that the heat shield covers a part of the melt level of the silicon melt. The mirror image is a reflected image of the heat shield on the surface of the silicon melt. Based on the distance between the obtained real image and the mirror image, the melt level position of the silicon melt is computed, and the distance between the heat shield and the melt level position is regulated.

Silicon single crystal manufacturing method

The method of setting the evaluation standard of a semiconductor wafer includes setting the A and B on the basis of an abnormal substances overlooking rate 'a' specific to the light-scattering type surface inspection apparatus specified by an apparatus-induced abnormal substances overlooking rate &#x3a6; due to the light-scattering type surface inspection apparatus and a probabilistic abnormal substances overlooking rate, in which A is the number of times of inspection, B is an abnormal substances detection threshold, the apparatus-induced abnormal substances overlooking rate &#x3a6; is higher as the target abnormal substances size to be detected is smaller, and the probabilistic abnormal substances overlooking rate is lower as the number of times of inspection increases.

Semiconductor wafer evaluation standard setting method, semiconductor wafer evaluation method, semiconductor wafer manufacturing process evaluation method, and semiconductor wafer manufacturing method

A manufacturing method of single crystal is provided with a melting process for dissolving raw material in a crucible and a pulling-up process of a single crystal from a melt by the Czochralski method. The pulling-up process includes detecting an edge line of a fusion ring, determining an approximated curve of the edge line by approximating the edge line of the fusion ring by an even function, eliminating constituent pixels of the fusion ring from the image of the fusion ring as noise, the constituent pixels being positioned on the side of the melt relative to the approximated curve and the constituent pixels of the fusion ring and a deviation between the constituent pixels and the approximated curve being a predetermined number of pixels, and calculating the center position of the single crystal from the edge line of the fusion ring from which the noise has been eliminated.

Method of manufacturing single crystal

In a polishing method of the present invention, the temperature of a carrier plate is measured, and the amount of polishing removal of a workpiece (workpiece) is accurately controlled based on change in the measured temperature of the carrier plate.

Method and apparatus for polishing workpiece

A method of producing a silicon single crystal is provided. The method may include taking a real image of a heat shield including a circular opening and a mirror image of the heat shield reflected on a surface of the silicon melt, measuring a spacing between the real image and the mirror image, calculating a position of the surface of the silicon melt, taking an image of a bright zone that appears in a vicinity of an interface between the silicon melt and the silicon single crystal, calculating a position of the surface of the silicon melt based on a center position of the silicon single crystal determined from the image of the bright zone, and controlling the position of the surface of the silicon melt during a pulling of the silicon single crystal while referring to data of the calculated positions of the surface of the silicon melt.

Method of producing silicon single crystal

The distance between the heat shield and the melt level of the melt can be regulated in a high precision. The real image includes at least the circular opening of the heat shield provided in such a way that the heat shield covers a part of the melt level of the silicon melt. The mirror image is a reflected image of the heat shield on the surface of the silicon melt. Based on the distance between the obtained real image and the mirror image, the melt level position of the silicon melt is computed, and the distance between the heat shield and the melt level position is regulated.

Silicon single crystal manufacturing apparatus and silicon single crystal manufacturing method

The method for polishing work, in which work in a retaining opening provided in a carrier plate, the center of the retaining opening being positioned apart from the center of the carrier plate, is sandwiched between an upper plate and a lower plate provided with polishing pads; the carrier plate is rotated by a drive mechanism; and the upper plate and the lower plate are also rotated, so that the distance changes periodically with the rotation of the carrier plate, and both surfaces of the work are simultaneously polished, includes the steps of: measuring at least one of torque of the drive mechanism, the upper plate, and the lower plate; and controlling an amount of polishing removal of the work based on the fluctuation of the torque component due to the periodic change in the distance.

Method and apparatus for polishing work

An apparatus of producing a silicon single crystal including: an imaging device; a heat shield that has a circular opening; a first operation unit that operates the imaging device and takes a real image of the heat shield and a mirror image of the heat shield reflected on a surface of the silicon melt, measures a spacing between the real image and the mirror image, and calculates a position of a melt-surface; a second operating unit that operates the imaging device and takes an image of a bright-zone in the vicinity of the solid-liquid interface, and calculates a position of the melt-surface based on the image of the bright zone; and a controlling unit that refers a data of the position of the silicon melt obtained by the first operation unit and the second operation unit, and controls the position of the silicon melt.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Keiichi Takanashi