Fujitsu Corporation

Makoto Kosugi

Koichi Kobayashi

Koichi Hashimoto

Hiroshi Arimoto

Takeshi Kamata

Tokushige Hisatsugu

Tetsuya Ogawa

Hikou Shibayama

A plasma processing system including a signal sampling unit for measuring electric signals reflecting a plasma condition; a model expression memory for storing a model expression for relating values of the electric signals with plasma processing characteristics; a computing unit for substituting the values of the electric signals measured by the signal sampling unit into the model expression read from the model expression memory to computer predicted values of the plasma processing characteristics; and a diagnosing unit for diagnosing a condition of a plasma, based on the predicted values of the plasma processing characteristics. The plasma processing system of this structure permits a condition of a plasma to be estimated by substituting realtime measured electric signals into a model expression, whereby when a change of plasma processing characteristics occurs, the operator can immediately know it. Accordingly, occurrence of a large number of defective wafers can be precluded.

Plasma processing system

In a plasma equipment and a plasma treatment method of a semiconductor device capable of reducing electron shading effect and also suppressing charge damage without affecting various characteristics in plasma process, a distance between a substrate bias electrode and A counter electrode is set less than two times as long as a mean free path of electron. High frequency electric power of 100 kHz to 1 MHz is supplied to the substrate bias electrode, while high frequency electric power of 1 MHz to 100 MHz is supplied to the counter electrode.

Plasma treatment method

The CVD W deposition process is observed while changing the substrate temperature, with IR thermometer measurement. The temperature indicated changes with emissivity depending on the surface morphology and materials. As the response time of this measurement is short, it is possible to perform in situ observation of changing surface morphology. This is a valid method to evaluate the deposition process. On a silicon substrate, the indicated temperature increases rapidly as soon as the gas flow starts, i.e. as soon as tungsten is deposited on the substrate. The indicated temperature increases in two steps. One is for silicon reduction and the other is for hydrogen reduction. Furthermore, it is found that the start of deposition on insulators is delayed. This phenomenon is related to the selective deposition. The thickness of deposited tungsten films can on insulatars be estimated by measuring the delay time and the thickness of tungsten on silicon. The reaction process for silicon and hydrogen reduction is evaluated by this method. We found that within 10 seconds the silicon reduction was finished and the hydrogen reduction started. We also found that optimum silicon reduction enhances the selectivity.

Method of forming conductive material selectively

A method and an apparatus for plasma etching semiconductor materials by providing an intermediate electrode between the electrodes in a parallel state type plasma etching apparatus, moving the intermediate electrode by a drive mechanism, and continuously changing from a condition of high input power and high self-bias voltage to a condition of low input power and low self-bias voltage while varying the distance between the intermediate electrode and the first electrode and the RF power, thereby to remove damage or deposits that may have been formed on the surface when the semiconductor material was being subjected to processing.

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Kawasaki, Japan

Makoto Kosugi