Applied Materials, Inc.

Sathyendra Ghantasala

Hyun-Ho Doh

Vijayakumar C Venugopal

Rajinder Dhindsa

Leonid Dorf

Andreas Schmid

Denis M Koosau

Evgeny Kamenetskiy

Peter Muraoka

Dermot Cantwell

Eda Tuncel

Liming Zhang

Subrahmanyam Venkata Rama Kommisetti

Ryan James Patz

Shayne Smith

Disclosed herein is a method and apparatus for controlling surface characteristics by measuring capacitance of a process kit ring. The method includes interfacing a ring with a jig assembly for measuring capacitance in at least a first location of the ring. The ring has that includes a top surface, a bottom surface, and an inner surface opposite an outer surface. At least the bottom surface has an external coating placed thereon. The method further includes contacting a measuring device to the first location on the outer surface proximate the bottom surface. The measuring device contacts an opening in the external coating to the body. The measuring device contacts a first conductive member that is electrically coupled to the ring. A capacitance is measured on the measuring device. The capacitance across the top surface is measured.

Apparatus and method for controlling edge ring variation

A system for verifying the operation of RF generators and resulting pulse waveforms in semiconductor processes includes a process chamber, a profile sensor, an optical sensor and a controller. A process implemented by the controller of the system for verifying the operation of RF generators and resulting pulse waveforms in semiconductor processes includes generating a pulse profile of a pulse shape of an RF generator under test, selecting a stored, representative profile of an RF generator known to be operating correctly to compare to the profile generated for the RF generator for a same pulse mode, defining a quantitative metric/control limit to identify similarities and/or differences between pulses of same pulse modes between the generated profile of the RF generator and the stored profile, comparing the generated profile and the selected stored profile, and determining if the RF generator under test is operating properly based on the comparison.

Pulse system verification

A method for detecting an endpoint of a seasoning process in a process chamber includes obtaining seasoning progress data indicating a progress of the seasoning process for each substrate of a first plurality of substrates, and collecting historical parameter values from a plurality of sensors disposed in the process chamber. The historical parameter values for each substrate of the first plurality of substrates are normalized with respect to a plurality of parameter values for a particular substrate in the first plurality of substrates. An MVA model is generated by applying a set of coefficients to the normalized parameter values for each substrate of the first plurality of substrates, and the set of coefficients are regressed based on the seasoning progress data. An end point of the seasoning process is determined using the MVA model with a plurality of substantially real-time parameter values measured when performing a seasoning process over each substrate of a second plurality of substrates.

Methods and apparatus for detecting an endpoint of a seasoning process

Methods of operating and assembling a plasma chamber are disclosed. An operating method includes tuning a match network of a plasma chamber while running a non-plasma discharge recipe. A hardware impedance of the plasma chamber is calculated from the match network settings from the tuning. A match loss for the plasma chamber is also calculated according to match network settings. A radio frequency (RF) power setting for the first plasma chamber is set according to the calculated hardware impedance and the calculated match loss. Such methods can be utilized to provide chamber-to-chamber performance matching across different plasma chambers. Certain disclosed methods of operating the plasma chamber can be utilized to identify hardware faults during operation and/or assembly processes.

Methods and apparatuses for plasma chamber matching and fault identification

A method of assigning faults to a processing chamber is described. Some embodiments include applying a radio frequency (RF) signal to a processing chamber to stimulate resonance in the chamber, measuring resonances of the applied RF signal in the chamber, extracting a fingerprint from the measured resonances, comparing the extracted fingerprint to a library of fingerprints, assigning a similarity index to combinations of the extracted fingerprint with at least one fingerprint in the fingerprint library, comparing each similarity index to a threshold, and if the similarity is greater than a threshold, then assigning a fault to the processing chamber using the library fingerprint.

Processing chamber hardware fault detection using spectral radio frequency analysis

A method for wafer point by point analysis includes receiving first recipe parameters for a first process recipe, second recipe parameters for a second process recipe, a first plurality of measurements of a plurality of locations on a first wafer processed using the first process recipe, and a second plurality of measurements of the plurality of locations on a second wafer processed using the second process recipe. A plurality of sensitivity values are calculated using the first and second values for the plurality of recipe parameters and the first and second plurality of measurements, each of the plurality of sensitivity values corresponding to one of the plurality of locations and representing a sensitivity to one of the plurality of recipe parameters. A graphical representation of a wafer is then provided that shows at least a subset of the first plurality of sensitivity values for the plurality of locations.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Sathyendra Ghantasala