AVS 46th International Symposium
    Manufacturing Science and Technology Group Wednesday Sessions
       Session MS-WeM

Paper MS-WeM5
Real Time and Run-to-Run Process Control of Plasma Processes Using Internal Machine and External Sensor Data

Wednesday, October 27, 1999, 9:40 am, Room 611

Session: Metrology I
Presenter: F.H. Bell, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
Authors: F.H. Bell, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
D. Knobloch, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
J. Zimpel, Fraunhofer Institute, Germany
K. Voigtlaender, Fraunhofer Institute, Germany
J. Mathuni, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
P. Hoehmann, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
Correspondent: Click to Email
An automatic extraction of key numbers (per wafer) from internal raw machine data and external sensor data has been established for the supervision of plasma equipment and processes in high volume logic and DRAM fabs. The integration of external in-situ sensors in the fab-network of the different sites is realized using the home-built equipment integration software TICS (Tool Integration Concepts and Systems). One main goal of the external sensor integration is to establish plug-and-play modules, i.e. rapid integration of suitable sensors tackling equipment and process faults. Furthermore, analyses of online data over long time periods give information on tool- and chamber- matching, long term stability, trends over cleaning cycles, influence of recipe / product mix, first wafer / conditioning effects and arcing phenomena. Currently in use are electrical and optical sensors, such as optical emission spectroscopy, interferometry, ion flux probe, plasma impedance monitor. etc.. However, the more useful data is collected the more attention has to be paid on intelligent data treatment. A typical example is the need of data reduction in order to extract only process and equipment relevant key numbers. It will be shown that algorithms, such as principal component analyses, are excellent candidates to simplify the use of process control methods in a manufacturing environment. This talk will analyze the different approaches to control equipment and processes and the challenges that are faced by the semiconductor industry as the automation becomes more and more mandatory in the competition of IC-fabrication. Examples of real time control will also be given to demonstrate the benefit of sensors on manufacturing issues.