As semiconductor devices are scaled down to sub-20 nm, process window of plasma etching gets extremely small so that process drift or shift becomes more significant. This study addresses one of typical process drift issues caused by consumable parts erosion over time and provides feasible solution by using virtual metrology (VM) based wafer-to-wafer control. Since erosion of a shower head has center-to-edge area dependency, critical dimensions (CDs) at the wafer center and edge area get reversed over time. That CD trend is successfully estimated on a wafer-to-wafer basis by a partial least square (PLS) model which combines variables from optical emission spectroscopy (OES), VI-probe and equipment state gauges. R2 of the PLS model reaches 0.89 and its prediction performance is confirmed in a mass production line. As a result, the model can be exploited as a VM for wafer-to-wafer control. With the VM, advanced process control (APC) strategy is implemented to solve the CD drift. Three σ of CD across wafer is improved from the range (1.3–2.9 nm) to the range (0.79–1.7 nm). Hopefully, results introduced in this paper will contribute to accelerating implementation of VM based APC strategy in semiconductor industry.
Highly selective chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) of Si3N4 over SiO2 is achieved by using a modified silica abrasive. Controlling the removal rate of Si3N4/SiO2, chemical reaction is a dominant factor for ceria abrasive, but physical force such as repulsion/attraction is a primary one for silica abrasive. In order to maximize mechanical action in CMP process using silica slurry, we modified the surface charge of silica abrasive into having more negative charge, which resulting in −50 mV of zeta potential in a low pH (< 3.0) slurry. This strong negative zeta potential of the modified silica abrasive enables enhancing attractive forces to Si3N4 and repulsive forces to SiO2 in a low pH environment. In addition, a cocoon shape silica abrasive shows 3 times higher Si3N4 RR than a spherical shape one. Consequently, selectivity of Si3N4 over SiO2 reaches 95.0, which is significantly improved from 0.0167 in the conventional silica abrasive case. When this modified silicon abrasive and the optimum pH condition are applied, in-chip uniformity at various pattern densities of Si3N4 (0, 12, and 32%) turns out to be well controlled under 100 Å. This result is an acceptable level for our semiconductor device integration.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.