Semiconductor fabrication has increasingly demanded improved control of process parameters related to equipment temperature, such as heating and cooling speed and temperature uniformity of the wafer chuck. We perform preliminary thermal-electrical analysis of a heating chuck with a planar heating element, to investigate the feasibility of a planar heating element for plasma-assisted deposition equipment. We propose and optimize circular electrode patterns for the planar heating element of a 6 inch heating chuck design to improve temperature uniformity of the wafer chuck. Using an Analysis System numerical study, we achieve a superior temperature uniformity profile compared to conventional coil-type heating elements.

Improving semiconductor equipment and components is an important goal of semiconductor manufacture. Especially during the deposition process, the temperature of the wafer must be precisely controlled to form a uniform thin film. In the conventional plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) chuck, heating rate, and temperature uniformity are limited by the spiral pattern and volume of the heating element. To overcome the structural limitation of the heating element of conventional chuck, we tried to develop the planar heating chuck (PHC), a 6-inch PECVD chuck with a planar heating element based on NiCr thin film that would be a good candidate for rapidly and uniformly heating. The time for the temperature elevation from room temperature to 330 °C was 398 s. In a performance evaluation, the fabricated PHC successfully completed a SiO2 PECVD process.

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