US 9,685,297 B2Granted

Systems and methods for monitoring faults, anomalies, and other characteristics of a switched mode ion energy distribution system

AssigneeAdvanced Energy Industries, Inc.

InventorsDaniel Carter, Victor Brouk, Daniel J. Hoffman

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Systems, methods and apparatus for regulating ion energies in a plasma chamber and chucking a substrate to a substrate support are disclosed. An exemplary method includes placing a substrate in a plasma chamber, forming a plasma in the plasma chamber, controllably switching power to the substrate so as to apply a periodic voltage function (or a modified periodic voltage function) to the substrate, and modulating, over multiple cycles of the periodic voltage function, the periodic voltage function responsive to a defined distribution of energies of ions at the surface of the substrate so as to effectuate the defined distribution of ion energies on a time-averaged basis.

Claims19

Dependent claims

A system for monitoring a plasma processing chamber, the system comprising:

a power supply configured to provide a periodic voltage function to an output that is configured to couple to the plasma processing chamber, the periodic voltage function having pulses and a portion between the pulses;
an ion current compensation component configured to provide ion current compensation, Ic, to the output to modify a slope, dV0/dt, of the portion between the pulses to form a modified periodic voltage function;
a memory to store an effective capacitance value, C1, of at least a substrate support of the plasma processing chamber;
and
a controller in communication with the power supply, the ion current compensation component, a non-transitory tangible computer readable medium, and the memory, wherein the non-transitory tangible computer readable medium is encoded with instructions, and wherein the controller is configured to execute the instructions, the instructions comprising:
determining the slope, dV0/dt, of the portion between the pulses of the modified periodic voltage function;
adjusting a magnitude of the ion current compensation, IC, until
ⅆ
V
0
ⅆ
t
-
I
C
C
1
=
0
;
and
monitoring changes of compensation current, IC, over time to monitor a condition of the processing chamber.

19 more elements

A system for monitoring a plasma processing chamber, the system comprising:

a DC power supply that provides a DC voltage that is fixed at a magnitude responsive to an ion-energy setting, wherein the ion-energy setting is indicative of a monoenergetic distribution of ion energy at the surface of a substrate within the plasma processing chamber;
an output disposed to couple to a substrate support;
two switching components including a first switching component coupled to the DC power supply and a second switching component couple to a ground terminal, the two switching components configured to generate a periodic voltage function at the output by alternately coupling the DC voltage and the ground terminal to the output, the periodic voltage function having pulses and a portion between the pulses;
and
an ion current compensation component coupled to the output, the ion current compensation component including:
a controllable DC current source, separate from the DC power supply, that is consistently coupled to the output;
and
a current controller configured to monitor a rate of change of a voltage of the portion between the pulses and maintain an uninterrupted ion current compensation current, IC, which is fixed in magnitude, to maintain a fixed rate of change of the voltage;
and
a controller configured to monitor changes of Ic over time to monitor a condition of the processing chamber.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/597,093Filed 28 Aug 2012
Published: US 2014/0062495 A16 Mar 2014
Granted: 20 Jun 2017
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

H01J 37/08
Arrangements of electrodes and associated parts for generating or controlling the discharge, e.g. electron-optical arrangement or ion-optical…:…
G01N 27/06
By investigating resistance: of a liquid
H01J 37/32944
Monitoring and controlling tubes by information coming from the object and/or discharge: arc detection
H01J 37/3299
Plasma diagnostics: feedback systems