Transfer chamber metrology for improved device yield

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10103288-B2
Application number	US-201514726253-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 29, 2015
Priority date	Sep 14, 2010
Publication date	Oct 16, 2018
Grant date	Oct 16, 2018

Abstract

Apparatus and method for control of epitaxial growth parameters, for example during manufacture of light emitting diodes (LEDs). Embodiments include PL measurement of a group III-V film following growth while a substrate at an elevated temperature is in a transfer chamber of a multi-chamber cluster tool. In other embodiments, a film thickness measurement, a contactless resistivity measurement, and a particle and/or roughness measure is performed while the substrate is disposed in the transfer chamber. One or more of the measurements performed in the transfer chamber are temperature corrected to room temperature by estimating the elevated temperature based on emission from a GaN base layer disposed below the group III-V film. In other embodiments, temperature correction is based on an absorbance band edge of the GaN base layer determined from collected white light reflectance spectra. Temperature corrected metrology is then used to control growth processes.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for epitaxially growing a group III-V film on a substrate, comprising:
growing the group III-V film on the substrate in a deposition chamber;
displacing the substrate from the deposition chamber and into a transfer chamber coupled to the deposition chamber;
illuminating an area of the group III-V film with a laser light source and a white light source, both the laser light source and the white light source coupled to the transfer chamber while the substrate is disposed in the transfer chamber at a first temperature that is greater than a room temperature;
collecting an emission spectrum caused by the illumination of the laser light source from the illuminated area with a spectrometer;
collecting, with the spectrometer, a reflectance spectrum caused by the illumination of the white light source, from the illuminated area over a wavelength range including wavelengths absorbed by a semiconductor base layer disposed below the group III-V film;
determining an estimate of the first temperature based on an absorbance edge determined from the reflectance spectrum;
estimating a room temperature band gap energy of the group III-V film based on the emission spectrum and the estimate of the first temperature;
comparing the room temperature band gap energy of the group III-V film with a threshold; and
controlling the deposition chamber based on the comparison to modify a subsequent epitaxial group III-V film growing process.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
collecting light scattered from the illuminated area illuminated by the white light source or the laser light source with an off-axis detector; and
determining a particle or roughness measure based on the collected scattered light.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing, prior to growing the group III-V film, a contactless resistivity measurement of the semiconductor base layer.

4. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause a processing system to perform operations comprising:
growing a group III-V film on a substrate in a deposition chamber;
displacing the substrate from the deposition chamber and into a transfer chamber coupled to the deposition chamber;
illuminating an area of the group III-V film with a laser light source and a white light source, both the laser light source and the white light source coupled to the transfer chamber while the substrate is disposed in the transfer chamber at a first temperature that is greater than a room temperature;
collecting an emission spectrum caused by the illumination of the laser light source from the illuminated area with a spectrometer;
collecting, with the spectrometer, a reflectance spectrum caused by the illumination of the white light source, from the illuminated area over a wavelength range including wavelengths absorbed by a semiconductor base layer disposed below the group III-V film;
determining an estimate of the first temperature based on an absorbance edge determined from the reflectance spectrum;
estimating a room temperature band gap energy of the group III-V film based on the emission spectrum and the estimate of the first temperature;
comparing the room temperature band gap energy of the group III-V film with a threshold; and
controlling the deposition chamber based on the comparison to modify a subsequent epitaxial group III-V film growing process.

5. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 4 , further comprising instructions that cause the processing system to perform operations comprising:
collecting light scattered from the area illuminated by the white light source or the laser light source with an off-axis detector; and
determining a particle or roughness measure based on the collected scattered light.

6. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 4 , further comprising instructions that cause the processing system to perform operations comprising:
performing, prior to growing the group III-V film, a contactless resistivity measurement of the semiconductor base layer.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Bour David P
• Duboust Alain
• Goder Alexey

Classifications

• H10P74/238

  comprising acting in response to an ongoing measurement without interruption of processing, e.g. endpoint detection or in-situ thickness measurement · CPC title

• H10P14/3416

  Nitrides · CPC title

• H10P14/3252

  Alternating layers, e.g. superlattice · CPC title

• H10P14/3216

  Nitrides · CPC title

• H10P14/2921

  being crystalline insulating materials · CPC title