The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 18, 2003
Filed:
Jul. 23, 1996
Applicant:
Inventors:
Melisa J. Buie, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Leonid Poslavsky, Belmont, CA (US);
Jennifer Lewis, Littleton, CO (US);
Assignee:
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01L 1/102 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G01L 1/102 ;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for performing in situ measurement of etch uniformity within a semiconductor wafer processing system. Specifically, the apparatus and concomitant method analyzes optical emission spectroscopy (OES) data produced by an OES system. The analysis computes the first derivative of the OES data as the data is acquired. When the data meets a particular trigger criterion, the value of the first derivative is correlated with a particular uniformity value. As such, the system produces a uniformity value for a semiconductor wafer using an in situ measurement technique.