Capacitive sensing data integration for plasma chamber condition monitoring

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2023103165-A1
Application number	US-202218071444-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 29, 2022
Priority date	Mar 6, 2020
Publication date	Mar 30, 2023
Grant date	—

Abstract

Capacitive sensors and capacitive sensing data integration for plasma chamber condition monitoring are described. In an example, a plasma chamber monitoring system includes a plurality of capacitive sensors, a capacitance digital converter, and an applied process server coupled to the capacitance digital converter, the applied process server including a system software. The capacitance digital converter includes an isolation interface coupled to the plurality of capacitive sensors, a power supply coupled to the isolation interface, a field-programmable gate-array firmware coupled to the isolation interface, and an application-specific integrated circuit coupled to the field-programmable gate-array firmware.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An interconnect for a plasma chamber monitoring system, the interconnect comprising:
a first connector for coupling to a capacitance digital converter of a capacitive sensor module; a second connector for coupling to an electronic and an external power supply; a shielded cable coupled to and between the first connector and the second connector, the shielded cable comprising:
a shielding metal for physically connecting the interconnect to a frame of a plasma chamber;
a power supply line housed within the shielding metal;
a ground line housed within the shielding metal; and
one or more communication lines housed within the shielding metal.

2 . The interconnect of claim 1 , wherein the power supply line housed within the shielding metal is a 3-4 Volt power supply line.

3 . The interconnect of claim 1 , wherein each of the one or more communication lines housed within the shielding metal is or includes an inter-integrated circuit bus.

4 . The interconnect of claim 1 , wherein the ground line housed within the shielding metal provides a common ground for the capacitive sensor module and the electronic.

5 . The interconnect of claim 1 , wherein the one or more communication lines housed within the shielding metal synchronize sensor data clocking.

6 . A method of integrating data for plasma chamber condition monitoring, the method comprising:
streaming data from a capacitive sensor module to a data server, the data comprising capacitance data and temperature data; collecting the data on an applied process server; correlating the data to one or more process recipe operations; and synchronizing the capacitive sensor module with the one or more process recipe operations.

7 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
subsequent to collecting the data on the applied process server and prior to correlating the data to one or more process recipe operations, performing data processing and parametric extraction.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein performing the data processing comprises filtering the data and denoising the data.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein filtering the data and denoising the data comprises using a moving average approach.

10 . The method of claim 7 , wherein performing the data processing and the parametric extraction comprises regression modeling of the data.

11 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
monitoring one or more parameters of the one or more process recipe operations with the capacitive sensor module.

12 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
determining a clean/dirty status for a plasma chamber based on the monitoring of the one or more parameters of the one or more process recipe operations with the capacitive sensor module.

13 . A system, comprising:
a plasma chamber; and a plasma chamber monitoring system coupled to the plasma chamber, the plasma chamber monitoring system comprising an interconnect, the interconnect comprising:
a first connector for coupling to a capacitance digital converter of a capacitive sensor module;
a second connector for coupling to an electronic and an external power supply; and
a shielded cable coupled to and between the first connector and the second connector, the shielded cable comprising:
a shielding metal for physically connecting the interconnect to a frame of a plasma chamber;
a power supply line housed within the shielding metal;
a ground line housed within the shielding metal; and
one or more communication lines housed within the shielding metal.

14 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the power supply line housed within the shielding metal is a 3-4 Volt power supply line.

15 . The system of claim 13 , wherein each of the one or more communication lines housed within the shielding metal is or includes an inter-integrated circuit bus.

16 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the ground line housed within the shielding metal provides a common ground for the capacitive sensor module and the electronic.

17 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the one or more communication lines housed within the shielding metal synchronize sensor data clocking.

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Pan Yaoling
• Tae Patrick John
• Willwerth Michael D
• Tedeschi Leonard
• Shang Kiyki-Shiy N
• Taraboukhine Mikhail V
• Hardy Charles R
• Nagarajan Sivasankar

Classifications

• H01J2237/24592

  Inspection and quality control of devices · CPC title

• H01J2237/24564

  Measurements of electric or magnetic variables, e.g. voltage, current, frequency · CPC title

• H01J37/32935 Primary

  Monitoring and controlling tubes by information coming from the object and/or discharge · CPC title

• H01J2237/31705

  Impurity or contaminant control · CPC title

• G01N27/228

  Circuits therefor (measuring capacitance per se G01R27/26) · CPC title