Design for control: Temperature uniformity in rapid thermal processor

Control relevant issues in semiconductor manufacturing: Overview with some new results

“…Hebb and Jensen (1998) show that pattern-induced temperature non-uniformity can cause plastic deformation during a RTP cycle and the problem is exacerbated by single-side heating, increased processing temperature and ramp rate. Design and control of RTP to improve temperature uniformity was explored by Huang, Yu, and Shen (2000a, b) and Huang, Liu, and Yu (2000c).…”

“…If the zero-crossing temperatures is greater than manipulated inputs, the next step is to check system interaction and inherent robustness using the structured singular value (SSV; Morari & Zafiriou, 1989). Therefore, the temperature measurement selection criterion can be summarized as follows (Huang et al, 2000c):…”

“…In Section 3, a specific tool, rapid thermal processing (RTP), is used to illustrate the tool level control problems. RTP is employed for various singlewafer thermal treatment processes including annealing, oxidation, cleaning, and chemical vapor deposition (Campbell & Knutson, 1992;Chao, Hung, & Yu, 2003a, b;Cho, Lee, Joo, & Lee, 2005;Huang, Yu, & Shen, 2000a, b;Huang, Liu, and Yu (2000c); Lee, Lee, Chin, Choi, & Lee (2001) ;Lord, 1988). Because wafers processed using RTP has the advantage of fast ramp-up and -down time as compared to conventional batch furnaces.…”