Methods and systems for monitoring etch or deposition processes using image-based in-situ process monitoring techniques include illuminating a measurement area on a sample disposed in a process chamber. The measurement area is illuminated using an input beam generated remote from the process chamber and transmitted to a first viewing window of the process chamber by a first optical fiber. Portions of the first input beam reflected from the measurement area are transmitted from the first viewing window to an imaging sensor by a second optical fiber. A sequence of images is obtained at the imaging sensor, and a change in reflectance of pixels within each of the images is determined. The etch or deposition process is monitored based on the change in reflectance.

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 process for quantifying the amount of unbound metal and bound metal in solution is provided. A process for quantifying the amount of bound metal amino acid chelate and free ligand in a solid (e.g., dry mixture such as an animal feed) is also provided.

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.

A method of characterizing plasmas during semiconductor processes may include receiving operating conditions for a semiconductor process, where the semiconductor process may be configured to generate a plasma inside of a chamber of a semiconductor processing system. The method may also include providing the operating conditions for the semiconductor process as inputs to a model, where the model may have been trained to characterize plasmas in the chamber. The method may also include generating, using the model, a characterization of the plasma in the chamber resulting from the operating conditions of the semiconductor process.

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 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.