Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

Shigeru Nakamoto

Satomi Inoue

Tatehito Usui

Kousuke Fukuchi

Seiichi Watanabe

Kosa Hirota

Soichiro Eto

Kouji Nishihata

Daisuke Shiraishi

Akira Kagoshima

Shoji Ikuhara

Masahito Togami

Tsubasa Okamoto

Yohei Kawaguchi

Masahiro Sumiya

Atsushi Sekiguchi

Juntaro Arima

Shoji Okiguchi

Toshihiro Morisawa

Hideaki Kondo

Nanako Tamari

Kousa Hirota

Tooru Ueno

Hideki Yamasaki

Ryoji Asakura

Koichi Nakaune

Hiroyuki Kobayashi

Ken Yoshioka

Kazue Takahashi

Tetsunori Kaji

Kazunori Shinoda

Yusuke Yoshida

Nobuya Miyoshi

Miyako Matsui

Mitsuru Nagasawa

Hao Xu

Hiroshige Uchida

Naohiro Kawamoto

Kosuke Fukuchi

A process of detecting a thickness of a film layer to be processed or a depth of etching by using a result of detection of a signal indicating intensity of interference light having a plurality of wavelengths formed by being reflected on a surface of a wafer at a plurality of time instants from when plasma is formed to when the etching is completed. A start time instant is detected by using an amount of change in the intensity of the interference light. Then, a remaining film thickness or the etching amount at an arbitrary time instant is detected from a result of comparing actual data indicating the intensity of the interference light at the arbitrary time instant during the processing after the start time instant with a plurality of pieces of data for detection of the intensity of the interference light obtained in advance and associated with values of the film thicknesses or the depths of etching.

Plasma processing method and plasma processing apparatus

An object of the present invention is to provide a plasma processing method capable of removing complex depositions of metal and non-metal deposited in a processing chamber by etching processing of a wafer to reduce generation of particle due to the depositions, in a plasma processing method for plasma-etching the wafer such as a semiconductor substrate. According to the present invention, there is provided a plasma processing method for plasma-etching a sample in a processing chamber and plasma-cleaning the inside of the processing chamber, the method comprising: an etching step for plasma-etching a predetermined number of the samples; a metal removing step of removing a deposited film containing a metal element by using a plasma after the etching step; and a non-metal removing step of removing the deposited film containing the non-metal element by using a plasma different from the plasma in the metal removing step, in which the metal removing step and the non-metal removing step are repeated twice or more.

Plasma processing method

A plasma processing method to detect and process a thickness of the processing target film with high accuracy when a fine shape of the semiconductor wafer surface varies, including detecting a state of a processing target film of a processing target material that is processed inside a vacuum processing chamber; detecting light emission of the plasma; obtaining a differential waveform data of the light emission of the plasma; storing a plurality of pieces of differential waveform pattern data in advance; calculating an estimated value of the film thickness of the processing target film processed on the processing target material by weighting based on differences between the differential waveform data obtained and the plurality of pieces of differential waveform pattern data stored; and determining an end point of processing using the plasma based on the estimated value of the film thickness of the processing target film calculated.

Plasma processing apparatus and plasma processing method

A vacuum processing apparatus includes a processing unit comprising a processing chamber disposed in a vacuum container, a detector detecting a thickness of the target film on a wafer or an end point during the processing of the wafer using a light from the wafer, the detector being functioned to detect the thickness or the end point by comparing a data pattern of obtained in advance indicating light intensities of a plurality of wavelengths related to the film thickness using the wavelength as a parameter and a real data pattern indicating the light intensities of the plurality of wavelengths obtained at a particular time during the processing, and the data pattern being obtained by dividing differential coefficient value of time-series data of the light intensities of the plurality of wavelengths by time-series data indicating values of the light intensities of the plurality of wavelengths.

Vacuum processing apparatus and vacuum processing method

This invention provides a wafer processing method comprising a process of irradiating a wafer to be processed placed on the upper surface of a sample table arranged in a processing chamber with light or electromagnetic waves to heat and remove a compound layer of a film layer that is preliminarily formed on the upper surface of the film layer of the upper surface of the wafer, wherein in the process, by receiving the light or electromagnetic waves reflected by the upper surface of the wafer, a signal indicating a temporal change in intensity using the wavelength of the light or electromagnetic waves as a parameter is corrected using information of the intensity of the light or electromagnetic waves detected by receiving the light or electromagnetic waves at a position on the circumferential side of the upper surface of the sample table.

Wafer processing method and plasma processing apparatus

A plasma processing apparatusthat performs, on a waferin which a multilayer film in which an insulating film and a film to be processed containing a metal are alternately laminated is formed on a substrate, plasma etching of the film to be processed, includes: a processing chamberwhich is disposed inside a vacuum container; a sample stagewhich is disposed inside the processing chamber and on which the wafer is placed; a detection unitwhich detects reflected light obtained by the wafer reflecting light emitted to the wafer; a control unitwhich controls plasma processing on the wafer; and an end point determination unitwhich determines an etching end point of the film to be processed based on a change in an amplitude of vibration in a wavelength direction of a light spectrum of the reflected light, and the control unit receives determination of the end point made by the end point determination unit and stops the plasma processing on the wafer.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a plasma processing apparatus includes: a processing chamber in which plasma processing is performed to a sample; a radio frequency power source that supplies radio frequency power for generating plasma in the processing chamber; and a data processing apparatus that performs processing to light emission data of the plasma. The data processing apparatus performs the processing to the light emission by using an adaptive double exponential smoothing method for varying a smoothing parameter based on an error between input data and a predicted value of smoothed data. A response coefficient of the smoothing parameter is derived by a probability density function including the error as a parameter.

Plasma processing apparatus, data processing apparatus and data processing method

To provide a wavelength selection method or a plasma processing method to achieve accurate detection of residual thickness or etching amount, there is provided a plasma processing method, in which a processing object wafer is disposed within a processing chamber in the inside of a vacuum container, and plasma is generated by supplying a processing gas into the processing chamber and used to process a processing-object film layer beforehand formed on a surface of the wafer, and at least two wavelengths are selected from among wavelengths with large mutual information in emission of a plurality of wavelengths of plasma generated during processing of the processing-object film layer, and a temporal change in the emission of at least the two wavelengths is detected, and an endpoint of the processing of the film layer is determined based on a result of the detection.

Plasma processing method and wavelength selection method used in plasma processing

A plasma processing apparatus including a processing state detection unit having: a light emission detection unit to detect light emission of the plasma; a calculation unit to obtain a differential waveform data of the light emission of the plasma; a database unit that stores a plurality of pieces of differential waveform pattern data in advance; a film thickness calculation unit to calculate an estimated value of the film thickness of the processing target film processed on the processing target material by weighting based on differences between the differential waveform data obtained by the calculation unit and the plurality of pieces of differential waveform pattern data stored in the database unit; and an end point determination unit to determine an end point of processing using the plasma based on the estimated value of the film thickness of the processing target film calculated by the film thickness calculation unit.

A plasma processing apparatus includes: a detector configured to detect a change in an intensity of light emission from plasma formed inside a processing chamber; and a unit configured to adjust conditions for forming the plasma or processing a wafer arranged inside the processing chamber using an output from the detector, wherein the detector detects a signal of the intensity of light emission at plural time instants before an arbitrary time instant during processing, and wherein the adjusting unit removes the component of a temporal change of a long cycle of the intensity of light emission from this detected signal and detects the component of a short temporal change of the intensity of light emission, and adjusts the conditions for forming the plasma or processing a wafer arranged inside the processing chamber based on the short temporal change of the detected intensity of light emission.

Plasma processing apparatus and operational method thereof

The present invention is a data processing apparatus including a data input/output device for receiving data, a storage for storing the data received by the data input/output device, a data processing program storage for storing a data processing program that includes the steps of calculating, using a double exponential smoothing method, a first predicted value that is a predicted value of smoothed data and a second predicted value that is a predicted value of the gradient of the smoothed data, and calculating, using a double exponential smoothing method in which the second predicted value is set as input data, a third predicted value that is a predicted value of smoothed data and a fourth predicted value that is a predicted value of the gradient of the smoothed data, and a data calculation processing apparatus for performing the data processing under the data processing program.

Data processing method, data processing apparatus and processing apparatus

A plasma processing apparatus includes: a processing chamber in which a sample is subjected to plasma treatment; a radio frequency power supply configured to supply radio frequency power that generates plasma; a sample stage on which the sample is placed; and an ultraviolet light source configured to apply an ultraviolet ray. The apparatus further includes a controller configured to control the ultraviolet light source such that before the radio frequency power is supplied into the processing chamber, a pulse-modulated ultraviolet ray is applied into the processing chamber.

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Tokyo, Japan

Shigeru Nakamoto