Disturbance-free, recipe-controlled plasma processing system and method

Abstract

A plasma processing control system includes a plasma processing apparatus for generating plasma within a vacuum processing chamber and performing a processing operation over a sample accommodated within the vacuum processing chamber using radicals and ions within the plasma, a pre-measuring instrument which measures a shape of the sample before processing, a post-measuring instrument which measures a shape of the sample after the processing, a parameter changer provided with at least one optimum recipe model for calculating a target process parameter, and a model changer for modifying the optimum recipe model, thereby updating a recipe parameter for each etching.

1 . A plasma processing control system comprising: 
 a plasma processing apparatus for generating plasma within a vacuum processing chamber and performing a processing operation over a sample accommodated within the vacuum processing chamber using radicals and ions within the plasma;    a pre-measuring instrument which measures a shape of the sample before processing of the sample by the plasma processing apparatus is performed;    a post-measuring instrument which measures a shape of the sample after the processing of the sample by the plasma processing apparatus is completed;    parameter changing means provided with at least one optimum recipe model which correlates each recipe parameter of the plasma processing apparatus with an etching performance result, for calculating a target process parameter on the basis of a difference between a target value of a processed result of the sample and a measured result from the pre-measuring instrument and changing at least one parameter of the recipe parameters on the basis of the target process parameter and the optimum recipe model; and    model changing means for modifying the optimum recipe model on the basis of a difference between the measured result of the pre-measuring instrument and the measured result of the post-measuring instrument with respect to the same sample;    thereby updating the at least one of the recipe parameters for each etching.    
   
   
       2 . A plasma processing system according to  claim 1 , wherein the pre-measuring instrument and the post-measuring instrument are formed of the same measuring instrument.