Patent Application
20230422348
This application is based on and claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2022-101428 filed on Jun. 23, 2022 with the Japan Patent Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
The present disclosure relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2021-044282 discloses a substrate processing apparatus including a reaction tube, a heater cylinder provided with a heater for each of a plurality of zones, and a plurality of heater temperature sensors that measure the temperature of the heater corresponding to each zone, and a temperature adjuster that adjusts the temperature for each zone by controlling power supplied to each heater based on temperature measurement data.
According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a substrate processing apparatus includes a processing container in which a plurality of substrates are processed; a plurality of heaters configured to control a temperature of the plurality of substrates accommodated in the processing container for each of a plurality of zones; and a controller configured to control an operation of the plurality of heaters. The controller is configured to control the plurality of heaters to a set temperature set in advance for each of the plurality of zones, thereby performing a processing on the plurality of substrates accommodated in the processing container, determine whether an abnormality determination condition is satisfied, including that an output value of at least one heater of the plurality of heaters is equal to or less than a heater control resolution, and issue a warning for the set temperature for each of the plurality of zones based on a result of the determining.
The foregoing summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. In addition to the illustrative aspects, embodiments, and features described above, further aspects, embodiments, and features will become apparent by reference to the drawings and the following detailed description.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawing, which form a part hereof. The illustrative embodiments described in the detailed description, drawing, and claims are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter presented here.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the drawings. In the respective drawings, the same components may be denoted by the same reference numerals, and overlapping descriptions thereof may be omitted.
[Substrate Processing Apparatus]
Referring to
The inner cylinder 6 and the outer cylinder 8 are held at the lower end portions thereof by a manifold 10 made of, for example, stainless steel. The manifold 10 is fixed to, for example, a base plate (not illustrated). Since the manifold 10 forms a substantially cylindrical internal space together with the inner cylinder 6 and the outer cylinder 8, it is assumed that the manifold 10 forms a part of the processing container 4.
That is, the processing container 4 includes the inner cylinder 6 and the outer cylinder 8 made of a heat-resistant material (e.g., quartz), and a manifold 10 made of, for example, stainless steel. The manifold 10 is provided in the lower portion of the lateral surface of the processing container 4 to hold the inner cylinder 6 and the outer cylinder 8 from the lower side.
The manifold 10 is provided with a gas introduction portion 20 to introduce a processing gas used for a substrate processing, into the processing container 4. Although
The gas introduction portion 20 is connected with an introduction pipe 22 to introduce the processing gas into the processing container 4. The introduction pipe 22 includes, for example, a flow rate adjuster 24 (e.g., a mass flow controller) for adjusting the gas flow rate and a valve (not illustrated).
Further, the manifold 10 is provided with a gas exhaust portion 30 to exhaust the atmosphere inside the processing container 4. The gas exhaust portion 30 is connected with an exhaust pipe 36 including a vacuum pump 32 and an opening variable valve 34, which are capable of controllably decompressing the inside of the processing container 4. A furnace opening 40 is formed in the lower end portion of the manifold 10, and the furnace opening 40 is provided with a disk-like lid 42 made of, for example, stainless steel. The lid 42 is provided to be elevatable by, for example, an elevating mechanism 44 that functions as a boat elevator, and is configured to hermetically seal the furnace opening 40.
A heat reserving tube 46 made of, for example, quartz is provided on the lid 42. A wafer boat 48 made of, for example, quartz is placed on the heat reserving tube 46 to hold, for example, a plurality of (e.g., about 50 to 200) wafers W in a horizontal state at predetermined intervals in multi-tiers. The substrate W may be, for example, a wafer having a diameter of 200 mm to 300 mm. The plurality of wafers W placed on the wafer boat 48 constitute one batch, and various substrate processings are performed by one batch.
The wafer boat 48 is loaded (carried in) to the inside of the processing container 4 by moving up the lid 42 using the elevating mechanism 44, and various film forming processes are performed on the wafers W held in the wafer boat 48. After various substrate processings are performed, the wafer boat 48 is unloaded (carried out) from the inside of the processing container 4 to the lower loading region by moving down the lid 42 using the elevating mechanism 44. The wafer boat 48 is an example of a boat configured to accommodate a plurality of substrates vertically within the processing container 4.
For example, a cylindrical heater 60, which is capable of controllably heating the processing container 4 to a predetermined temperature, is provided on the outer peripheral side of the processing container 4. The heater 60 has a plurality of heaters to 60g for controlling the temperature of the plurality of substrates W accommodated inside the processing container 4 for each of a plurality of zones.
The heater 60 is provided with heaters 60a to 60g from the upper side to the lower side in the vertical direction. The heaters 60a to 60g are configured such that their output values (power, calorific value) are able to be independently controlled by power controllers 62a to 62g, respectively. Further, temperature sensors 65a to 65g are installed inside the inner cylinder 6, corresponding to the heaters 60a to 60g. As the temperature sensors 65a to 65g, for example, thermocouples or temperature measuring resistors may be used. The temperature sensors 65a to 65g are also collectively referred to as a temperature sensor 65.
The heaters 60a to 60g are provided for each zone, corresponding to each zone when the substrate accommodating region of the wafer boat 48 is divided into a plurality of zones. In the substrate processing apparatus 1 of the present disclosure, as an example, the wafer boat 48 is divided into seven zones. The seven zones are called “BTM,” “CTR-1,” “CTR-2,” “CTR-3,” “CTR-4,” “CTR-5,” and “TOP” in order from the bottom.
The heater 60a heats a plurality of substrates in the “TOP” zone. The temperature sensor 65a measures the temperature of the “TOP” zone inside the inner cylinder 6. Hereinafter, the temperature of each zone within the inner cylinder 6 is also simply referred to as the temperature of the zone. The heater 60b heats a plurality of substrates in the “CTR-5” zone. The temperature sensor 65b measures the temperature of the “CTR-5” zone. The heater 60c heats a plurality of substrates in the “CTR-4” zone. The temperature sensor 65c measures the temperature of the “CTR-4” zone. The heater 60d heats a plurality of substrates in the “CTR-3” zone. The temperature sensor 65d measures the temperature of the “CTR-3” zone. The heater 60e heats a plurality of substrates in the “CTR-2” zone. The temperature sensor 65e measures the temperature of the “CTR-2” zone. The heater 60f heats a plurality of substrates in the “CTR-1” zone. The temperature sensor 65f measures the temperature of the “CTR-1” zone. The heater heats a plurality of substrates in the “BTM” zone. The temperature sensor 65g measures the temperature of the “BTM” zone.
The control device 100 controls the overall operation of the processing apparatus 1. The control device 100 includes a CPU 101 and a memory 102. The CPU 101 is a computer for controlling the overall operation of the substrate processing apparatus 1.
The memory 102 stores a control program for implementing various processings performed in the substrate processing apparatus 1 by the control of the control device 100, and recipe in which a substrate processing procedure is set for each step. Further, the memory 102 stores various programs for causing each part of the substrate processing apparatus 1 to perform the substrate processing according to the film formation condition (film formation step) set in the recipe. The various programs may be stored in a storage medium and then stored in the memory 102. The storage medium may be a hard disk or a semiconductor memory, or may be a portable medium such as a CD-ROM, a DVD, or a flash memory. Further, the programs, parameters, and various data may be appropriately transmitted from another device or host computer to the memory 102 by wired or wireless communication units. The control device 100 may be provided separately from the substrate processing apparatus 1. Further, the memory 102 may be a storage device provided separately from the substrate processing apparatus 1.
Detection signals from the temperature sensors 65a to 65g are transmitted to the control device 100. The control device 100 calculates set values for power controllers 62a to 62g based on the detection signals from the temperature sensors 65a to and outputs the calculated set values to power controllers 62a to 62g, respectively. Thus, the output value (Power) of each of the heaters 60a to 60g is controlled independently.
[Example of Temperature Control Results]
In the apparatuses a to c used to obtain the results of
Set (° C.) is set to a temperature at which the film thickness of the substrate W is checked for each zone when the substrate processing apparatus 1 (apparatus a in
The set temperature for each zone may have a temperature gradient (tilt) in order to obtain constant process performance. For example, the set temperature of each zone indicated by Set (° C.) in
The output of each heater corresponding to each zone was controlled to achieve the set temperature of each zone. As a result, in the apparatus a, as illustrated in the graph of
Meanwhile, in the apparatuses b and c, as illustrated in the tables of
That is, in the two apparatuses b and c used in
One of the reasons why the heater output value (Power) became 0% in the “CTR1” zone and the temperature control by the heater 60 became impossible is that when controlling to different set temperatures in adjacent zones, a temperature interference occurs, which makes temperature control difficult.
The vertical axis of
The horizontal axes in
As a result, in the case of the set temperatures of Patterns 1 and 2, the output value of the heater could be controlled, and the temperature of each zone could be controlled with high accuracy. Meanwhile, in the case of the set temperature of Pattern 3, the output value of the heater 60 for the “CTR-1” zone was 0%, so that the heater becomes uncontrollable (PB: Power CTR-1).
That is, at the set temperature having the temperature gradient of Pattern 3, as illustrated in
Meanwhile, in the case of the set temperature having the temperature gradient of Pattern 2, or in the case of the set temperature having the gentle temperature gradient as illustrated in
As described above, in the substrate processing method of the present disclosure, it is determined whether the heater 60 is controllable or not, and a warning is issued as necessary. Further, the substrate processing method of the present disclosure automatically calculates and displays a set temperature having an appropriate temperature gradient. Hereinafter, the substrate processing method of the present disclosure will be described with reference to
In the present process, step S1 is executed when a recipe is created, and steps S3 to S9 are executed after the substrate processing. The substrate processing is, for example, a film formation processing. Hereinafter, descriptions will be made on an example of causing each part of the substrate processing apparatus 1 to perform the substrate processing in accordance with film formation conditions (film formation steps) set in the recipe.
In step S1, the control device 100 specifies (sets) the set temperature for each zone of the film formation step of the recipe. The control device 100 may set the set temperature for each zone in the recipe for each film formation step according to the user's (operator's) operation. A set temperature for each zone, which is a result of automatically calculating a set temperature having an appropriate temperature gradient to be described later, may be automatically set in the recipe for each film formation step.
When the film formation step starts, as shown in step S2, the plurality of heaters are controlled such that the temperature of each zone becomes the set temperature for each of the plurality of zones set in the recipe, thereby performing the plurality of film formations accommodated.
After the substrate processing (the film formation), in step S3, the control device 100 determines whether there is a step where the output value (Power) of at least one of the plurality of heaters 60 is 0% for Tsec or more. When it is determined in step S3 that there is no step where the heater output value is 0% for Tsec or more, the process proceeds to step S5. Then, the control device 100 determines that the set temperature for each zone set in the recipe is normal, and the heater 60 is controllable, and the process ends.
Meanwhile, when it is determined in step S3 that there is a step where the heater output value is 0% for Tsec or more, the process proceeds to step S7. In step S7, the control device 100 determines that the set temperature for each zone set in the recipe is abnormal, and the heater is uncontrollable. Then, the control device 100 issues an alarm.
Next, in step S9, the control device 100 automatically calculates the optimal set temperature for each zone, displays the calculated optimal set temperature for each zone, and terminates this process. For example,
Referring to
[Abnormal Determination Condition]
The determination condition illustrated in step S3 of
Further, “T” in the determination condition may be the continuous time during which the output value of the heater is 0% or the total time within the time of the film formation step, or may be A ratio of the time during which the output value of the heater is 0% to the time of the film formation step.
Further, the abnormality determination condition is not limited to the determination condition that “out of the plurality of heaters 60, the state where the output value (Power) is 0% is Tsec or more.” For example, when the output value of the heater in each zone is 0.2% or less, it may be determined that, as a result of controlling the heater 60 such that each zone reaches the set temperature, the output value of the heater 60 is almost not output (close to 0%), and the heater 60 is uncontrollable. That is, in order to be able to control the heater 60 such that each zone is at the set temperature, the output power of each zone may be defined as “exceeding at least 0.2%.” That is, as an example of the abnormality determination condition, it is not limited to the time when the output value of the heater is 0%, but it is also possible to use a determination condition that “a state where the output value (Power) of any one of the heaters 60 is 0.2% or less is equal to or greater than Tsec.”
However, the numerical value of the output power explained above is an example, and the resolution of control changes as appropriate depending on the configuration of the substrate processing apparatus 1 and the like. For this reason, as an example of the abnormality determination condition, the determination criterion is not limited to whether or not the output value of the heater is 0.2% or less, but it is also possible to use the determination condition that “a state where the output value of any one of the heaters 60 among the plurality of heaters 60 is equal to or less than the control resolution of the heater is equal to or greater than Tsec.” For example, the heater control resolution may be 0.1.
According to the substrate processing method and the substrate processing apparatus 1 described above, it is possible to determine and notify the quality of heater control based on the set temperature for each of a plurality of zones for temperature control of a plurality of substrates.
According to the substrate processing method and the substrate processing apparatus 1 described above, it is possible to determine the quality of heater control based on the set temperature for each of a plurality of zones for temperature control of a plurality of substrates.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that various embodiments of the present disclosure have been described herein for purposes of illustration, and that various modifications may be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the various embodiments disclosed herein are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-101428 | Jun 2022 | JP | national |
