A method for adjusting a height of an edge ring arranged around an outer portion of a substrate support includes receiving at least one input indicative of one or more erosion rates of the edge ring. The at least one input includes a plurality of erosion rates for respective usage periods of a substrate processing system. The method further includes determining at least one erosion rate of the edge ring using the plurality of erosion rates for the respective usage periods, monitoring an overall usage of the edge ring and storing the overall usage of the edge ring in a memory, calculating an amount of erosion of the edge ring based on the determined at least one erosion rate and the overall usage of the edge ring, and adjusting the height of the edge ring based on the calculated amount of erosion to compensate for the calculated amount of erosion.

In one embodiment, a method of matching an impedance is disclosed. An impedance matching network is coupled between a radio frequency (RF) source and a plasma chamber. The matching network includes a variable reactance element (VRE) having different positions for providing different reactances. The RF source is subject to a power control scheme to control a power delivered to the matching network. Based on a determined parameter, a new position for the VRE is determined to reduce a reflected power at the RF input of the matching network. The VRE is altered to the new position while the power control scheme is altered.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a plasma processing apparatus includes: a processing chamber in which plasma processing is performed to a sample; a radio frequency power source that supplies radio frequency power for generating plasma in the processing chamber; and a data processing apparatus that performs processing to light emission data of the plasma. The data processing apparatus performs the processing to the light emission by using an adaptive double exponential smoothing method for varying a smoothing parameter based on an error between input data and a predicted value of smoothed data. A response coefficient of the smoothing parameter is derived by a probability density function including the error as a parameter.

The invention is to provide a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus system and a semiconductor device manufacturing method for reducing particles having an adverse effect in a manufacturing step of a semiconductor device. A semiconductor device manufacturing system, includes: a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus; and a platform connected to the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus via a network and in which a particle reduction processing is executed, in which the particle reduction processing includes: a step of acquiring a particle characteristic value by using a sample processed by the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus; a step of specifying a component of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus leading to a particle generation based on the acquired particle characteristic value and correlation data by machine learning; a step of defining a cleaning condition for cleaning the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus based on the specified component; and a step of cleaning the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus using the defined cleaning condition, and the correlation data is correlation data between the particle characteristic value acquired in advance and the component.

A substrate processing system includes: a substrate support within a processing chamber to vertically support a substrate; a temperature probe including: a first temperature sensor to measure a first temperature of the substrate support; a second temperature sensor to measure a second temperature of the substrate support; a third temperature sensor to measure a third temperature of the substrate support; and a fourth temperature sensor to measure a fourth temperature of the substrate support; a temperature module to: in a first state, determine a substrate support temperature of the substrate support based on the first, second, third, and fourth temperatures; in a second state, determine the substrate support temperature based on only three of the first, second, third, and fourth temperatures; and a temperature control module configured to control at least one of heating and cooling of the substrate support based on the substrate support temperature.

The invention provides a method and system to remotely monitor a plasma (3) comprising a magnetic field antenna (2) positioned in the near electromagnetic field of a coupled plasma source wherein the magnetic field antenna is a magnetic loop antenna placed in the near electromagnetic field and measure near field signals emitted from the plasma source. A radio system (1) is utilised to analyse the low power signal levels across a wide frequency band. Plasma paramaters such as series, or geometric, resonance plasma and electron-neutral collision frequencies are evaluated via a fitting of resonant features present on higher harmonics of the driving frequency to identify arcing, pump or matching failure events, common in fabrication plasma systems.

Embodiments herein provide plasma processing chambers and methods configured for fine-tuning and control over a plasma sheath formed during the plasma-assisted processing of a semiconductor substrate. Embodiments include a sheath tuning scheme, including plasma processing chambers and methods, which can be used to tailor one or more characteristics of a plasma sheath formed between a bulk plasma and a substrate surface. Generally, the sheath tuning scheme provides differently configured pulsed voltage (PV) waveforms to a plurality of bias electrodes embedded beneath the surface of a substrate support in an arrangement where each of the electrodes can be used to differentially bias a surface region of a substrate positioned on the support. The sheath tuning scheme disclosed herein can thus be used to adjust and/or control the directionality, and energy and angular distributions of ions that bombard a substrate surface during a plasma-assisted etch process.

In one embodiment, a method of using an impedance matching network to determine a plasma chamber characteristic is disclosed. An impedance matching network is coupled between a radio frequency (RF) source and a plasma chamber. The matching network includes a variable reactance element (VRE) having different positions for providing different reactances. A characteristic of the plasma chamber is determined based on reference values for a parameter of the matching network and a current value. Based thereon, either a visual or audible indication of the determined characteristic of the plasma chamber is provided, or an action is taken to address the determined characteristic.

The invention relates to a device and a method for producing layers whose layer thickness distribution can be adjusted in coating systems with horizontally rotating substrate. A very homogeneous or a specific non-homogeneous distribution can be adjusted. The particle loading is also significantly reduced. The service life is significantly higher compared to other methods. Forming of parasitic coatings is reduced.

Methods and apparatus for processing a substrate are provided herein. For example, a gas supply configured for use with a processing chamber includes an ampoule that stores a precursor and comprises an input to receive a carrier gas and an output to provide a mixture of the carrier gas and the precursor to the processing chamber and a sensor assembly comprising a detector and an infrared source operably connected to an outside of an enclosure, through which the mixture flows, and a gas measurement volume disposed within the enclosure and along an inner wall thereof so that a concentration of the precursor in the mixture can be measured by the detector and transmitted to a controller.