Claims
- 1. A method for controlling the application of thin coatings applied to a substrate in a vacuum sputtering system, comprising:
measuring an electrical parameter and a pressure parameter of the sputtering system during a sputtering run and producing measurement signals indicative of the parameters; producing control signals responsive to said measurement signals based on a rule set; and using said control signals to adjust in real time at least one process gas flow rate while sputtering.
- 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the electrical parameter measured is a cathode voltage and the pressure parameter measured is total system pressure.
- 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the sputtering performed is reactive sputtering and the process gas flow rates that are controlled are a reactive gas flow rate and a non-reactive gas flow rate.
- 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the control signals are determined by a fuzzy-logic computation employing the electrical parameter and the pressure parameter as inputs.
- 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the control signals are determined from a computerized look-up table based on the electrical parameter and the pressure parameter as inputs.
- 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the look-up table employs the following rule base:
- 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the look-up table employs a decision structure for adjusting the at least one process gas flow rate based on a categorization of the electrical parameter and a categorization of the pressure parameter.
- 8. The method of claim 6, wherein the non-reactive gas is argon and the reactive gas is oxygen.
- 9. A method for controlling the application of a coating to a substrate in a coating system, comprising:
measuring a first system parameter and a second system parameter of the coating system during a coating run and producing measurement signals indicative of the system parameters; producing control signals responsive to said measurement signals based on a fuzzy-logic rule set; and using said control signals to control in real time at least one process variable of the coating system while applying a coating.
- 10. The method of claim 9, wherein applying the coating comprises sputtering, wherein the first system parameter measured is a cathode voltage of a sputtering source, and wherein the second system parameter measured is a gas pressure.
- 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one process variable comprises a flow rate of a first gas and a flow rate of a second gas.
- 12. The method of claim 9, wherein the control signals are determined by a fuzzy-logic computation based upon the first system parameter and the second system parameter as inputs.
- 13. The method of claim 9, wherein the control signals are determined from a computerized look-up table based on the first system parameter and the second system parameter as inputs.
- 14. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one process variable comprises a gas partial pressure.
- 15. A control system for controlling the application of a coating to a substrate in a coating system, comprising:
a fuzzy-logic controller; and an interface coupled to the fuzzy-logic controller, wherein the interface is configured to receive first and second measurement signals corresponding to first and second measured system parameters, respectively, of a coating system during a coating run, wherein the fuzzy-logic controller is configured to receive the first and second measurement signals from the interface and to produce control signals responsive to said first and second measurement signals based on a fuzzy-logic rule set, and wherein the interface is configured to provide the control signals produced by the fuzzy-logic controller to the coating system to control at least one process variable of the coating system during application of a coating.
- 16. The control system of claim 15, wherein the fuzzy-logic controller is configured to produce the control signals using a cathode voltage of a sputtering source as the first measured system parameter and using a total system pressure as the second measured system parameter.
- 17. The control system of claim 16, wherein the at least one process variable comprises a flow rate of a first gas and a flow rate of a second gas.
- 18. The control system of claim 15, wherein the fuzzy-logic controller is configured to produce the control signals using a fuzzy-logic computation based upon the first measurement signal corresponding to the first measured system parameter and the second measurement signal corresponding to the second measured system parameter as inputs.
- 19. The control system of claim 15, wherein the fuzzy-logic controller is configured to produce the control signals using a computerized look-up table based on the first measurement signal corresponding to the first measured system parameter and the second measurement signal corresponding to the second measured system parameter as inputs.
- 20. The control system of claim 15, wherein the at least one process variable comprises a gas partial pressure.
Parent Case Info
[0001] This application is a divisional of copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/605,401, “Multi-Anode Device and Methods for Sputter Deposition”, filed on Jun. 28, 2000.
Divisions (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09605401 |
Jun 2000 |
US |
Child |
10199086 |
Jul 2002 |
US |