Paper PS-ThP4
Analysis of Plasma Electrical Characteristics during Arcing and the Development of Arcing Detector in rf Discharges

Thursday, October 18, 2007, 5:30 pm, Room 4C

Arcing phenomena have become a fatal problem in TFT-LCD fabrication, semiconductor manufacturing, PECVD, and many other processes using plasma. But it has been unknown how arcing affects electrical characteristics of plasma. We investigated the sudden-electrical perturbation of plasma by arcing. The RF electrode was dc grounded to increase plasma potential and generate arcing. We measured floating potential, RF voltage and current to analysis the plasma-electrical variation by arcing. Experimental results show that the arcing in RF discharges change suddenly electrical characteristics of plasma and that especially amplitudes of both RF voltage and current decrease during arcing. And we described experimental results (plasma-electrical variation by arcing) analytically. Finally, using the arcing variation, we developed the equipment which can detect plasma arcing by non-perturbed method. This equipment was tested in real processing reactor like as semi-conductor etcher and showed the ability of sensitive arcing-detection.