The temperature of electrostatic chuck (ESC), a wafer susceptor used in semiconductor etch equipment, must accurately control the temperature of wafers during the etching process to obtain uniform and consistent process results. Failure to control the precise temperature can lead to rejection from the high-volume semiconductor manufacturing site (one of the most high-cost equipment components which can be repaired for its extended use). In this research, we propose a wireless-type on-wafer temperature monitoring system (OTMS) for easier and faster temperature monitoring to help temperature measurements of the repaired ESC in atmospheric and vacuum conditions. The proposed method, which can effectively measure the temperature distribution of the ESC, should manage the operational condition of ESC. A successful demonstration of the 300 mm size OTMS for the repaired parts enhanced the quality assurance with a temperature deviation of ±3.83 °C over 65 points of measurement.

For pulsed plasma to be used in an atomic layer process, the plasma ignition step should be carefully controlled to avoid lagged plasma ignition. We observed the ignition trend of Ar plasma using an optical plasma monitoring sensor in conjunction with plasma simulations. Under several process conditions, we used optical sensors to observe the dynamic responses of plasma glow discharge to reach a steady state; the elapsed times for the plasma ignition were found to vary depending on the process/equipment settings of pressure and power, and chuck distance. We also observed the stepwise plasma ignition behavior due to the conventional radio-frequency matching system during the short period of the plasma ignition. In the present paper, we report the in situ monitoring of plasma ignition and the reasoning related to the plasma generation environment in a capacitively coupled plasma system to be considered for plasma-assisted cyclic processes, including pulsed plasma systems.