Abstract
A virtual metrology technique based on plasma harmonics is developed for predicting semiconductor processes. From a plasma process performed by 300 mm photoresist stripper equipment, a strong correlation is found between optical plasma harmonics intensities and the process results, such as the photoresist strip rate and strip non-uniformity. Based on this finding, a general process prediction model is developed. The developed virtual metrology model shows that the R-squared (R2) values between the measured and predicted process results are 95% and 64% for the photoresist strip rate and photoresist strip non-uniformity, respectively. This is the first research on process prediction based on optical plasma harmonics analysis, and the results can be applied to semiconductor processes such as dry etching and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition.
Highlights
Semiconductor process inspection has become an increasingly important issue with the development of 10 nm semiconductor manufacturing process technology
A virtual metrology technique based on plasma harmonics is developed to predict the photoresist strip process
The analytical results confirm that there is a strong correlation between the measured photoresist strip rate and optical harmonics intensities
Summary
Semiconductor process inspection has become an increasingly important issue with the development of 10 nm semiconductor manufacturing process technology. For the past few decades, these types of inspection techniques have been successfully applied to semiconductor processes, becoming essential tools for measuring the critical dimensions of semiconductor devices. As recent developments call for semiconductor devices with sizes less than 10 nm, new technologies are being developed to complement inspection tools such as SEM and TEM, and process virtual metrology is emerging as one of the most promising techniques. Process virtual metrology[1,2,3,4] is a means for predicting process results and device yield using the sensor data from the process equipment and is appropriate for maintaining mass production lines. Mass production process has been maintained using equipment sensor values, and wafer process results were not directly calculated by the process monitoring data from the plasma reactor. A study was conducted to enhance virtual metrology using the electron energy distribution function in the dry etch plasma reactor.[11]
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