A plasma processing apparatus and method with an improved processing yield, the plasma processing apparatus including detector configured to detect an intensity of a first light of a plurality of wavelengths in a first wavelength range and an intensity of a second light of a plurality of wavelengths in a second wavelength range, the first light being obtained by receiving a light which is emitted into the processing chamber from a light source disposed outside the processing chamber and which is reflected by an upper surface of the wafer, and the second light being a light transmitted from the light source without passing through the processing chamber; and a determination unit configured to determine a remaining film thickness of the film layer by comparing the intensity of the first light corrected using a change rate of the intensity of the second light.

A substrate processing system includes a substrate processing apparatus and a switching timing creation support device, wherein the switching timing creation support device includes: an acquisition part configured to acquire, for each of a plurality of properties of particles contained in a gas in the substrate processing apparatus during a processing for a substrate, a measured value of an amount of the particles from a measuring device; a selection part configured to select properties of a predetermined number of the particles in descending order of temporal variations in the amount of the particles; a determination part configured to determine an operation expression and a switching condition for determining a switching timing based on a temporal change in the amount of the particles for each of the selected properties of the particles; and an output part configured to output the operation expression and the switching condition to the substrate processing apparatus.

A cleaning method includes: supplying a cleaning gas in a processing container while continuously increasing a pressure in the processing container in a stepwise manner at a plurality of time points, thereby executing a cleaning of the processing container by removing a film deposited in the processing container; and detecting an end point of the cleaning based on time-dependent data of a concentration of a predetermined gas generated during the executing the cleaning, for each pressure of the plurality of time points. The executing the cleaning is implemented when the time-dependent data of the concentration of the predetermined gas generated in the continuously increasing the pressure changes from an increasing state to a decreasing state after exceeding a threshold value.

Disclosed are embodiments of an improved apparatus and system, and associated methods for optically diagnosing a semiconductor manufacturing process. A hyperspectral imaging system is used to acquire spectrally-resolved images of emissions from the plasma, in a plasma processing system. Acquired hyperspectral images may be used to determine the chemical composition of the plasma and the plasma process endpoint. Alternatively, a hyperspectral imaging system is used to acquire spectrally-resolved images of a substrate before, during, or after processing, to determine properties of the substrate or layers and features formed on the substrate, including whether a process endpoint has been reached; or before or after processing, for inspecting the substrate condition.

A plasma processing apparatus 1 that performs, on a wafer 16 in which a multilayer film in which an insulating film and a film to be processed containing a metal are alternately laminated is formed on a substrate, plasma etching of the film to be processed, includes: a processing chamber 10 which is disposed inside a vacuum container; a sample stage 14 which is disposed inside the processing chamber and on which the wafer is placed; a detection unit 28 which detects reflected light obtained by the wafer reflecting light emitted to the wafer; a control unit 40 which controls plasma processing on the wafer; and an end point determination unit 30 which determines an etching end point of the film to be processed based on a change in an amplitude of vibration in a wavelength direction of a light spectrum of the reflected light, and the control unit receives determination of the end point made by the end point determination unit and stops the plasma processing on the wafer.

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.

A plasma monitoring apparatus includes a flow control portion including a first port through which an emission light emitted from a plasma is introduced or discharged, and a second port through which the emission light emitted from the plasma is introduced or discharged and has a shape different from a shape of the first port, a transparent glass window extended to the flow control portion and passing an emission light, and a spectroscopic apparatus optically connected to the transparent glass window through an optical fiber and detecting an intensity of the emission light.

This invention provides a wafer processing method comprising a process of irradiating a wafer to be processed placed on the upper surface of a sample table arranged in a processing chamber with light or electromagnetic waves to heat and remove a compound layer of a film layer that is preliminarily formed on the upper surface of the film layer of the upper surface of the wafer, wherein in the process, by receiving the light or electromagnetic waves reflected by the upper surface of the wafer, a signal indicating a temporal change in intensity using the wavelength of the light or electromagnetic waves as a parameter is corrected using information of the intensity of the light or electromagnetic waves detected by receiving the light or electromagnetic waves at a position on the circumferential side of the upper surface of the sample table.

A spectroscopic analysis method having improved accuracy and correlation, a method for fabricating a semiconductor device using the same, and a substrate process system using the same are provided. The spectroscopic analysis method includes receiving plasma light emitted from plasma to generate an emission spectrum, detecting n (here, n is a natural number of 2 or more) peak wavelengths from the emission spectrum, generating a plurality of correlation factor time series from correlation factors between the peak wavelengths, filtering the plurality of correlation factor time series, and analyzing the plasma, using the filtered correlation factor time series.

An apparatus includes a beam conditioning assembly configured to output one or more wavelengths to a substrate being processed and receive one or more reflected wavelengths from the substrate, and a machine learning device configured to process the one or more reflected wavelengths to predict a process variable and compare the predicted process variable with a measured process variable to obtain a comparison result.