# US 12,183,600 B2 · Method of determination of pretreatment conditions of heat treatment furnace, method of pretreatment of heat treatment furnace, heat treatment device, and manufacturing method and manufacturing device of heat-treated semiconductor wafer > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 12,183,600 B2 - Document ID: US12183600B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 17/418,534 - Filed: 2019-12-06 - Published: 2022-04-21 - Granted: 2024-12-31 - Earliest claimed: 2018-12-27 - Assignees: Sumco Corporation - Applicants: Sumco Corporation - Inventors: Yoshihiro Kuwano - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US12183600B2 ## CPC - H10P 72/0432: {mainly by conduction} - C23C 16/4401: {Means for minimising impurities, e.g. dust, moisture or residual gas, in the reaction chamber} - H10P 14/60: of insulating materials - H10P 72/0602: {Temperature monitoring} - H10P 95/90: Thermal treatments, e.g. annealing or sintering - H10P: GENERIC PROCESSES OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OR TREATMENT OF DEVICES COVERED BY CLASS H10 - C23C: COATING METALLIC MATERIAL; COATING MATERIAL WITH METALLIC MATERIAL; SURFACE TREATMENT OF METALLIC MATERIAL BY DIFFUSION INTO THE SURFACE, BY CHEMICAL CONVERSION OR SUBSTITUTION; COATING BY VACUUM EVAPORATION, BY SPUTTERING, BY ION IMPLANTATION OR BY CHEMICAL VAPOUR DEPOSITION, IN GENERAL (making metal-coated products by extrusion B21C23/22; covering with metal by connecting pre-existing layers to articles, see the relevant places, e.g. B21D39/00, B23K; metallising of glass C03C; metallising mortars, concrete, artificial stone, ceramics or natural stone C04B41/00; enamelling of, or applying a vitreous layer to, metals C23D; treating metal surfaces or coating of metals by electrolysis or electrophoresis C25D; single-crystal film growth C30B; by metallising textiles D06M11/83; decorating textiles by locally metallising D06Q1/04) ## Abstract Provided is a method of determination of pretreatment conditions of a heat treatment furnace, wherein the pretreatment is heating a furnace interior of the heat treatment furnace while supplying a gas thereinto, the method including setting a plurality of candidates of a combination of a type of a supply gas and a heating temperature; assigning to each candidate of the combination a score determined according to a type of a target metal identified as an object to be removed in the pretreatment; and determining, from the plurality of candidates, the combination of the type of the supply gas and the heating temperature to be adopted as the pretreatment conditions, with the assigned score serving as an indicator. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A method of determination of pretreatment conditions of a heat treatment furnace, wherein the pretreatment is heating a furnace interior of the heat treatment furnace while supplying a gas thereinto, the method comprising: setting a plurality of candidates of a combination of a type of a supply gas and a heating temperature; calculating, for each candidate of the combination, a score determined according to a type of a target metal identified as an object to be removed in the pretreatment; determining, from the plurality of candidates, the combination of the type of the supply gas and the heating temperature to be adopted as the pretreatment conditions with the calculated score serving as an indicator; pretreating the heat treatment furnace under the determined pretreatment conditions; and manufacturing a heat-treated semiconductor wafer by heat treating a semiconductor wafer in the pretreated heat treatment furnace; wherein the determined pretreated conditions comprises a multi-component thermodynamics equilibrium calculation according to the type of the target metal and includes calculating, based on the target metal, an equilibrium volatilization gas partial pressure, a total sum of equilibrium substance amounts, a free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of a volatilization reaction, and a free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of a contamination reaction. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The method of determination of pretreatment conditions of the heat treatment furnace according to claim 1, wherein the score is a score determined by the multi-component thermodynamics equilibrium calculation based on the type of the target metal. ### Claim 3 (depends on 2) The method of determination of pretreatment conditions of the heat treatment furnace according to claim 2, wherein the multicomponent thermodynamics equilibrium calculation comprises an element of the target metal and an element included in the supply gas of the candidate. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The method of determination of pretreatment conditions of the heat treatment furnace according to claim 3, wherein the total sum of the equilibrium substance amounts comprises amounts of the target metal in a solid compound comprising the target metal, and determining the score with results thus determined serving as an indicator. ### Claim 5 (depends on 4) The method of determination of pretreatment conditions of the heat treatment furnace according to claim 4, wherein the score is a multiplier of: a score determined with the equilibrium volatilization gas partial pressure of the gas that comprises the target metal serving as an indicator, a score determined with the total sum of the equilibrium substance amounts of the target metal in the solid compound that comprises the target metal serving as an indicator, a score determined with the free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of the volatilization reaction that involves the target metal serving as an indicator, and a score determined with the free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of the contamination reaction that involves the target metal serving as an indicator. ### Claim 6 A heat treatment device, comprising: a heat treatment furnace; at least one computer comprising a heat treatment furnace control process; and the at least one computer configured to implement: a pretreatment conditions determination process that determines pretreatment conditions of pretreating the heat treatment furnace, wherein the pretreatment is heating a furnace interior of the heat treatment furnace while supplying a gas thereinto, the pretreatment conditions determination process comprises: a candidate recording process that records a plurality of candidates of a combination of a type of the supply gas and a heating temperature; and an analysis process that includes calculating information recording, a score calculation process and a combination determination process comprising: recording the calculating information for calculating a score of the candidate recorded in the candidate recording process, determining the calculating information by a multi-component thermodynamics equilibrium calculation according to a type of a target metal identified as an object to be removed in the pretreatment, wherein the multi-component thermodynamics equilibrium calculation includes calculating, based on the target metal, an equilibrium volatilization gas partial pressure, a total sum of equilibrium substance amounts, a free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of a volatilization reaction, and a free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of a contamination reaction, calculating the score of the candidate recorded in the candidate recording process from the calculating information, determining, from the plurality of candidates, a combination of the type of the supply gas and the heating temperature to be adopted as pretreatment conditions of the heat treatment furnace, with the calculated score serving as an indicator; the heat treatment furnace control process receives information of the combination of the type of the supply gas and the heating temperature determined by the combination determination process, and transmits pretreatment execution information causing the heat treatment furnace to execute pretreatment according to the received information; and the heat treatment furnace receives the pretreatment execution information and executes pretreatment according to the pretreatment execution information to manufacture a heat-treated semiconductor wafer by heat treating a semiconductor wafer in the pretreated heat treatment furnace. ### Claim 7 (depends on 6) The heat treatment device according to claim 6, wherein the is multicomponent thermodynamics equilibrium calculation comprises an element of the target metal and an element included in the supply gas of the candidate. ### Claim 8 (depends on 7) The heat treatment device according to claim 7, wherein the the total sum of equilibrium substance amounts comprises amounts of the target metal in a solid compound. ### Claim 9 (depends on 8) The heat treatment device according to claim 8, wherein the score is a multiplier of: a score determined with the equilibrium volatilization gas partial pressure of the gas, that comprises the target metal, serving as an indicator, a score determined with the total sum of the equilibrium substance amounts of the target metal in the solid compound, that comprises the target metal, serving as an indicator, a score determined with the free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of the volatilization reaction, that involves the target metal, serving as an indicator, and a score determined with the free energy ΔG0 of Gibbs of the contamination reaction, that involves the target metal, serving as an indicator. ### Claim 10 (depends on 6) The heat treatment device according to claim 6, which further comprises a correction process which provides correction information to one or more of the calculating information recording process, the score calculation process, and the combination determination process. ### Claim 11 (depends on 6) A manufacturing device of a heat-treated semiconductor wafer, comprising the heat treatment device according to claim 6.