Background technology
Along with the development of microelectric technique, the semiconductor chip process technology is strict day by day, and technology node is from 180nm to 65nm, even below the 45nm, the size of silicon chip also is increased to 300mm from 200mm, and is therefore, more and more stricter for the technological requirement of silicon chip.Etching technics is as one of complicated procedures of forming the most in the semiconductor machining, and the state of etching process ionic medium body, every parameters of technique process etc. are directly relevant with the etching result.
In plasma etching machine structure, should have identical etch rate with a kind of silicon chip of technical process etching same kind, etch period should be identical.But in the technology etching process of reality, even also can there be the random fluctuation of etch rate in stable system when the different silicon chip of etching, so just caused the uniformity of etching between sheet and the sheet can't reach requirement, and can cause useless sheet, therefore utilize the real-time monitoring of dynamic etching terminal to be very important.
Prior art generally estimates the general etching terminal time from experience, and it is bigger influenced by artificial subjective factor, can not be accurate, quantitative etching terminal is made prediction.Obtaining the etching terminal time on the experience, to carry out the maintenance period deviation bigger, and the variation of conditions such as the process of carrying out along with technology, ageing equipment simultaneously and drifting about if drift has taken place empirical data, can make technical process and result drift about.For example the fluctuation of etch rate exists
Arrive
Between, the thickness of every silicon chip is
Then two used times of silicon chip of etching will be from 1 minute to 52.5 seconds, big appointment etching in the 7.5s of difference
So just caused the uniformity of etching between sheet and the sheet can't reach requirement, caused useless sheet through regular meeting.This shows that utilizing the time to finish etching process can cause bigger influence to the etching result.
Excessive maintenance period makes the variation of state of the art cause that process results changes, and causes silicon chip crudy variation, the rate of finished products step-down simultaneously; Too small maintenance period makes plant maintenance too frequent, has influenced normal silicon chip working process, loses time, and lowers efficiency.
It is optical emission spectroscopy that prior art also has a kind of method, optical emission spectroscopy then is when etching into the material of different layers in the monitoring etching process, the spectral line of emission intensity level of reactant or product is judged etching terminal with this, and the method is a most frequently used and accurate method in the end point determination.Comprise that mainly CCD (CCD) composes spectrometer and data processing software entirely, the full spectrometer of CCD is gathered the spectrum of etching cavity ionic medium body emission, after in spectrometer, passing through entrance slit and optics spectro-grating, beam split is the full spectrum of 200nm to the 800nm wavelength, the illumination of different wave length is mapped to the diverse location of CCD, CCD is converted into the signal of telecommunication with light signal, through hardware signal treatment circuit spectrometer output digital signal, directly sends the end point determination data processing software to.
Though the method can grasp the terminal point of etching technics more accurately, its checkout equipment cost is very high and need independent data processing software, and software is integrated and development difficulty is bigger; Owing to the limitation on the CCD photoelectric characteristic, there is deficiency in CCD at aspects such as stability, signal noise and sensitivity simultaneously.
Summary of the invention
At the technological deficiency that exists in the prior art scheme, the etching terminal checkout gear that the purpose of this invention is to provide a kind of plasma etching equipment, can calculate to a nicety relatively the etching terminal time, avoided spectral signal to grab etching terminal, reached accurate control technology because of disturbing the excessive mistake that causes.Guarantee silicon chip crudy and normal silicon chip working process, enhance productivity.
The objective of the invention is to be achieved through the following technical solutions:
A kind of etching terminal checkout gear of plasma etching equipment comprises,
Spectrometer with the light signal of detected plasma etching equipment inside, is converted to analog electrical signal output;
Simulation amplification filtering circuit, with the high-frequency noise interference signal filtering in the analog electrical signal, the analog electrical signal of high-frequency noise interference signal is eliminated in output;
Analog-to-digital converting module is converted to digital electric signal with the analog electrical signal of eliminating the high-frequency noise interference signal and exports digital signal processing module to;
Digital signal processing module, improve signal to noise ratio, removal system's natural noise of the digital electric signal of input and carry out Filtering Processing removal low frequency and random noise, obtain the terminal point Control Parameter, and determine according to described terminal point Control Parameter whether plasma etching equipment reaches etching terminal.
Described device also comprises,
Numeral, the terminal point Control Parameter that digital signal processing module is exported is converted to analog control signal;
The spectrometer control circuit is adjusted the output of spectrometer by amplitude limiter circuit according to analog control signal, regulates the scope of spectral signal, reaches the state matches of each chamber.
Described spectrometer is a photomultiplier PMT formula spectrometer, and PMT receives the spectrum of plasma emission in the plasma etching equipment, and converts light signal to analog electrical signal.
Described digital signal processing module comprises,
The integral measurement module is repeatedly gathered the digital electric signal of input, adds up and averages as the sampled result in a sampling period, improves the signal to noise ratio of digital electric signal;
System's natural noise is removed module, when not carrying out technical process, plasma etching equipment detects the light signal of plasma etching equipment inside, be converted to the natural noise of digital signal as system, and from the digital signal of supplied with digital signal processing module, deduct system's natural noise, to remove system's natural noise;
Digital filtering module adopts median average filter method to remove the digital signal medium and low frequency noise and the random noise of input; The terminal point control module according to through the digital signal behind integral measurement method, removal system's natural noise and the digital filtering, obtains the terminal point control signal by the terminal point control and treatment, is used for determining whether plasma etching equipment reaches etching terminal.
As seen from the above technical solution provided by the invention, the etching terminal checkout gear of a kind of plasma etching equipment of the present invention, comprise spectrometer, simulation amplification filtering circuit, analog-to-digital converting module and digital signal processing module, the etching terminal checkout gear of the plasma etching equipment that the present invention sets up, reactant or product amount change in the monitoring etching process, and the variable quantity of reactant or product is corresponding one by one with the situation of change of its intensity of emission spectra, thereby we as long as the trend of real-time detecting reactant or product spectral line can determine the etching terminal time and accurately control technical process.So can calculate to a nicety relatively the etching terminal time by this device, avoided spectral signal to grab etching terminal because of disturbing the excessive mistake that causes, reach accurate control technology.Guarantee silicon chip crudy and normal silicon chip working process, enhance productivity.
Embodiment
The etching terminal checkout gear of a kind of plasma etching equipment of the present invention, its embodiment comprise as shown in Figure 1, spectrometer, simulation amplification filtering circuit, analog-to-digital converting module and digital signal processing module, wherein,
Spectrometer with the light signal of detected plasma etching equipment inside, is converted to analog electrical signal output; Described spectrometer is a photomultiplier PMT formula spectrometer, and PMT receives the spectrum of plasma emission in the plasma etching equipment, and converts light signal to analog electrical signal.Be specially, in etching process, the spectrum of the plasma emission in the plasma etching equipment reaction chamber is received by the photomultiplier of PMT formula spectrometer, the light intensity variation of the spectral signal in the reaction chamber is converted to the signal of telecommunication by photomultiplier, output analog DC signal has been realized converting corresponding light signal to the signal of telecommunication behind the internal circuit of PMT formula spectrometer.
Simulation amplification filtering circuit, with the high-frequency noise interference signal filtering in the analog electrical signal, the analog electrical signal of high-frequency noise interference signal is eliminated in output; The signal of telecommunication of spectrometer output, through hardware filtering circuit place to go high-frequency interferencing signal, obtaining preferably, analog signal exports analog-to-digital converting module to.PMT formula spectrometer is output as direct current signal, in etching machine system, be subjected to the interference of high-frequency signal, therefore simulate the amplification filtering circuit and adopt low-pass filter circuit and amplitude limiter circuit, direct current signal obtains analog signal preferably through amplification and filter circuit, thereby has realized that elimination high-frequency noise and variation of output signals scope and analog-to-digital converting module are complementary.
Analog-to-digital converting module is converted to digital electric signal with the analog electrical signal of eliminating the high-frequency noise interference signal and exports digital signal processing module to;
Digital signal processing module, improve signal to noise ratio, removal system's natural noise of the digital electric signal of input and carry out Filtering Processing removal low frequency and random noise, obtain the terminal point Control Parameter, and determine according to described terminal point Control Parameter whether plasma etching equipment reaches etching terminal.Concrete by low frequency, random noise in the method removal system of Digital Signal Processing, improve precision, the stability of system signal noise ratio and digital signal.Exist multiple noise in end-point detecting system, comprise fluctuation, the burr of random noise and output signal in the background noise, data acquisition of PMT detector itself, the signal to noise ratio that these all directly influence system has reduced the precision that Back end data is handled.As shown in Figure 2, described digital signal processing module comprises integral measurement module, system natural noise removal module, digital filtering module and terminal point control module, wherein,
The integral measurement module is repeatedly gathered the digital electric signal of input, adds up and averages as the sampled result in a sampling period, improves the signal to noise ratio of digital electric signal; Specifically utilize integration method to improve system signal noise ratio, the intensity of the plasma spectrometry in the etching process is relatively low, the signal of telecommunication that obtains also a little less than.When small-signal was handled, it was very important restraining noise raising signal to noise ratio, otherwise noise can flood useful signal, causes and measures failure.The distribution of noise is symmetrical, and its assembly average is zero, and causes that the factor of noise is a lot, and each factor is not a deciding factor, and the size of noise then meets Gaussian Profile.
Output signal Vo can be decomposed into useful signal Vs and noise signal Vn, Vo=Vs+Vn, and corresponding signal to noise ratio is:
SNR=Vs/Vn。
If N signal of continuous acquisition under same incident light condition then has:
Voi=Vsi+Vni,i=1,2,…,N。
N output signal addition on average got:
Because input signal is constant, that is:
Vs1=Vs2=...=Vsn=Vs, and noise signal Vni Gaussian distributed has:
This moment, signal to noise ratio was:
This shows, repeatedly gather again on average for same signal, signal to noise ratio can be improved
Doubly, in low-intensity and low signal-to-noise ratio system, the integral measurement method is simple and effective.Based on above theory, native system improves the data acquisition number of times of analog-to-digital converting module (A/D transition card just), gather 50 original point in sampling period, the sampled result of averaging that adds up then as a sampling period, then the signal to noise ratio of system improves 7 times.Gather the spectrum dark noise data that unprocessed and integration method is handled in experiment respectively, undressed dark noise signal strength signal intensity is about about 100, and the signal of handling through integration method is reduced to about 10.Spectrometer dark noise contrast signal as shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4.
System's natural noise is removed module, when not carrying out technical process, plasma etching equipment detects the light signal of plasma etching equipment inside, be converted to the natural noise of digital signal as system, and from the digital signal of supplied with digital signal processing module, deduct system's natural noise, to remove system's natural noise; Here the system background noise that said system natural noise is just often said, the electrical noise of various noises and circuit is formed the background signal of system in the spectrometer, dark current as the PMT detector, the broadband noise of grating quality, preamplifier and drift, fluctuation of output signal etc. is relevant in the light and shade of bias light and the circuit.In order to improve system signal noise ratio, must this part background noise of deduction.Under the more stable situation of background, the spectral signal in the airtight chamber when at first detecting no technology makes detector only receive background signal, and being kept in the special array after reading A/D (analog/digital) conversion is background noise Ai; And spectral signal in the chamber during normal process, the signal that detector receives comprises background and useful spectrum, through read with the A/D conversion after save as Bi, when data processing, carry out background deduction to handle promptly real spectral signal Ci=Bi-Ai.
Digital filtering module adopts median average filter method to remove the digital electric signal medium and low frequency noise and the random noise of input.Adopt integration method and background deduction to handle the signal to noise ratio that has improved system greatly by the front, and at some low frequencies, at random noise, adopt digital filtering method that data are carried out reprocessing and can further improve signal quality, adopt median average filter method in the native system, i.e. middle position value filtering method and arithmetic average filter method.The method merges the advantage of middle position value filtering and two kinds of filter methods of arithmetic average filtering, eliminates owing to the caused sampled value deviate of impulse disturbances by middle position value filtering, and arithmetic average filtering simultaneously weakens the signal of random disturbances, reduces random noise.In actual process, we have gathered before the filtering respectively and filtered signal, and the signal of process median average filter obviously makes moderate progress, and the random noise size reduces about 10 by 30, and contrast as shown in Figure 5 before and after the signal filtering.
The terminal point control module according to through the digital signal behind integral measurement method, removal system's natural noise and the digital filtering, obtains the terminal point control signal by the terminal point control and treatment again, is used for determining whether plasma etching equipment reaches etching terminal.
The etching terminal checkout gear of a kind of plasma etching equipment of the present invention is through above-mentioned signal processing, and end-point detecting system is set up in the variation of the spectrum that utilizes reactant in the monitoring etching process or product amount to change to produce.System by hardware circuit signal processing and software in adopt effective spectral signal processing method, level of integrated system height not only, and drop to system noise minimum and the raising signal quality, realize accurately quoting terminal time, thereby control technical process accurately.The present invention has avoided the terminal time inaccurate process shifts that cause of time method because of estimating, and avoids the software integrated level of CCD formula spectroscopic system low, realizes reducing cost greatly.
The etching terminal checkout gear of the plasma etching equipment that the present invention sets up, reactant or product amount change in the monitoring etching process, and the variable quantity of reactant or product is corresponding one by one with the situation of change of its intensity of emission spectra, thereby we as long as the trend of real-time detecting reactant or product spectral line can determine the etching terminal time and accurately control technical process.
In addition, as shown in Figure 6, the etching terminal checkout gear of a kind of plasma etching equipment of the present invention also comprises numeral and spectrometer control circuit, wherein,
Numeral, the terminal point Control Parameter that digital signal processing module is exported is converted to analog control signal;
The spectrometer control circuit is adjusted spectrometer by amplitude limiter circuit according to analog control signal, guarantees spectral signal in the reasonable scope, and reaches the state matches of each chamber.
The above; only for the preferable embodiment of the present invention, but protection scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and anyly is familiar with those skilled in the art in the technical scope that the present invention discloses; the variation that can expect easily or replacement all should be encompassed within protection scope of the present invention.Therefore, protection scope of the present invention should be as the criterion with the protection range of claim.