JPH01298180A - Plasma treatment equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically select the treatment conditions of a specimen and to surely perform prescribed treatment by automatically recognizing and detecting both the opaque specimen and the transparent specimen and automatically separating the specimens and setting them. CONSTITUTION:A real wafer 9 or a dummy wafer 10 sent from a load cassette 1 is carried into a treatment chamber 5 via a load chamber 3 and prescribed plasma treatment is performed respectively and thereafter these are recovered in an unload cassette 2 via unload chamber 4. In the above-mentioned plasma treatment equipment, both a translucent optical sensor 7 and a noncontact type detector 8 are provided in the load chamber 3. When the opaque real wafer 9 is carried thereinto, it is detected by the translucent optical sensor 7 and treated by plasma under the treatment conditions automatically selected by a host controller 6 in the treatment chamber 5. Further in the case of the transparent dummy wafer 10, it is detected by the noncontact type detector 8 and plasma cleaning or running in discharge is automatically performed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a plasma processing corporation, and particularly relates to plasma processing in which plasma cleaning and break-in discharge are performed.

[Conventional technology]

Etching processes are changing as semiconductor devices become smaller. That is, in order to perform anisotropic etching under low ion energy, a process in which a devoting gas is added to form a sidewall protective film is becoming mainstream.

As a result, contamination within the processing chamber becomes severe, and unless frequent plasma cleaning is performed, the number of foreign particles generated must be kept below a predetermined level. What is discharge?
A deposit film that adheres to the inner wall of the processing chamber is gradually formed during etching of an actual sample. Without this discharge, it is difficult to obtain stable etching performance.

In addition, this kind of thing, for example, NIKKgI MIORODgVIiS
, December 1986 issue, page 121.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

The frequency of the above plasma cleaning and break-in discharge is as follows:
Although it varies depending on the sample diameter, ebbing conditions, and ebbing device, it is usually every 50 to 100 sheets processed, and in some cases, it is as high as 10 times per 10 sheets.

When processing like this! To prevent exposure of the pole surface, for example, it is necessary to set a Si dummy sample, but this requires frequent processing (which may lead to errors in setting the dummy sample).

Place J! +! This makes it easy to set data incorrectly, often resulting in wasted actual samples.

The purpose of the present invention is to reliably set a sample that matches the processing content. An object of the present invention is to provide a plasma processing device that can automatically select processing data set as a bait.

[Means to solve the problem]

The above object is achieved by making the dummy sample a transparent sample and by providing a detection means that can distinguish between this sample and an opaque real sample.

[For production]

According to the present invention, when it is desired to perform plasma cleaning or conditioning discharge, only by setting a transparent dummy sample, the above-mentioned processing data can be automatically selected in the apparatus and predetermined processing can be performed.

Similarly, when dealing with samples, appropriate processing data can be selected and processed automatically.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. In this embodiment, a wafer detector, which is a detection means capable of automatically confirming a dummy sample and an actual sample, is provided in the loading chamber.

In FIG. 1, there are actual wafers 9 to be processed inside the load cassette 1, and further inside the load cassette 1? In the upper stage, for example, a dummy wafer 10 such as a transparent quartz dummy wafer is placed.
is set. The discharged real wafer 9 is carried into the load chamber 3. 200-1: The chamber 3 is equipped with a transmission type optical sensor 7 and a non-contact detector 8. Since the actual wafer 9 is opaque, it can be distinguished by the sensor 7.

By transmitting this information to the host controller 6, processing data can be automatically selected and processing can be performed continuously. The actual wafers processed in the processing chamber 5 pass through the unload chamber 4 and are collected into the unload cassette 2.

Next, the dummy wafer 10 set at the top of the load cassette 1 is subsequently discharged, and the detector 8 detects that it is a dummy wafer (411).

After confirmation, processing data for plasma cleaning and break-in discharge is selected and automatically processed.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Since it is possible to reliably set a sample that matches the processing content, there is an advantage that the predetermined processing can be automatically carried out one by one.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a system diagram of main parts of a plasma processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1... Load cassette, 3... Card chamber, 5-... Processing chamber, 6... Host controller, 7... Transmissive optical sensor, 8...Non-contact detector, lO...Dummy wafer 10 10----7 Me wafer

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Detection that allows automatic confirmation of opaque samples and transparent samples in plasma processing equipment that has a processing chamber for processing samples and means for automatically transporting samples into and out of the processing chamber. A plasma processing apparatus comprising means for automatically distinguishing the samples and automatically selecting sample processing conditions.