The invention provides a system and method for measuring a characteristic of a plasma or a plasma chamber, wherein the plasma chamber has a viewport or a surface which is permeable to electromagnetic radiation such that at least a portion of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the plasma in the plasma chamber passes through the viewport, the method comprising providing the antenna of a Radio Emission Spectroscopy, RES, plasma bulk system externally to the plasma chamber to absorb at least a portion of the electromagnetic radiation that has passed through the viewport and configured to measure signals in the near-field E- and B-field regions; measuring a first value based on the signal induced in the antenna wherein the signal is obtained from a plurality of powered RF electrodes configured to be independently modulated with one or more power sources; and calculating a second value indicative of a change of magnitude of the characteristic based on a change of magnitude of the first value, wherein the characteristic is plasma power and/or plasma pressure.

A sensor device comprises a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and a coating on at least a portion of a surface of the QCM, wherein the coating selectively reacts with radicals of a target gas and does not react with stable molecules of the target gas. The QCM is configured such that a resonant frequency of the QCM changes in response to reaction of the radicals of the target gas with the coating, wherein the change in the resonant frequency of the QCM correlates to an amount of the radicals of the target gas that have reacted with the coating.

The present disclosure provides embodiments of a system and method for detecting processing chamber condition. The embodiments include performing a wafer-less processing step in a processing chamber to determine the condition of the chamber walls. Based on an analysis of the residual gas resulting from the wafer-less processing step, an operator or a process controller can determine whether the chamber walls have deteriorated to such an extent as to be cleaned.

The present disclosure provides embodiments of a system and method for detecting processing chamber condition. The embodiments include performing a wafer-less processing step in a processing chamber to determine the condition of the chamber walls. Based on an analysis of the residual gas resulting from the wafer-less processing step, an operator or a process controller can determine whether the chamber walls have deteriorated to such an extent as to be cleaned.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a plasma generator capable of efficiently identifying the cause of an abnormal stoppage when an abnormal stoppage of the plasma generator occurs. When the controller determines that at least one detected value has become an abnormal value, the controller terminates plasma generation control. Further, in response to starting plasma generation control, the controller causes the storage section to store a history of detected values in association with time. As a result, it is possible to provide a history of detected values stored in the storage section to efficiently identify the cause of the abnormal stoppage.

A plasma processing apparatus includes a chamber; an apparatus-side controller configured to control plasma processing in the chamber; and a monitoring unit configured to monitor a monitoring target that is disposed within the chamber, or is connected directly or indirectly to the chamber. The apparatus-side controller sets the monitoring target and a timing at which monitoring target information is to be acquired. The monitoring unit acquires the monitoring target information transmitted from the monitoring target to the apparatus-side controller, detects an occurrence of an abnormality in the chamber based on the monitoring target information, and controls the monitoring target for the chamber in which the abnormality occurs.

Described herein are architectures, platforms and methods for acquiring optical emission spectra from an optical emission spectroscopy system by flowing a dry cleaning gas into a plasma processing chamber of the plasma processing system and igniting a plasma in the plasma processing chamber to initiate the waferless dry cleaning process.

A plasma processing system includes a plasma chamber configured to contain a plasma, a shutter chamber fluidically coupled to the plasma chamber via a first orifice, a mass spectrometer fluidically coupled to the shutter chamber, and a shutter disposed in the shutter chamber between the first orifice and the mass spectrometer in the path of a particle beam. The first orifice is configured to generate the particle beam from the plasma using a pressure differential between the shutter chamber and the plasma chamber. The mass spectrometer includes an ionizer configured to ionize species of the particle beam by sweeping through a range of electron energies in a plurality of energy steps. The shutter is configured to open and close during each of the plurality of energy steps.

A thin-film deposition system includes a top plate positioned above a wafer and configured to generate a plasma during a thin-film deposition process. The system includes a sensor configured to generate sensor signals indicative of a lifetime of a component of the thin-film deposition system, a characteristic of a thin-film deposited by the thin-film deposition system or a characteristic of a process material that flows into the thin-film deposition system. The system includes a control system configured to adjust a relative location of a top plate of the thin-film deposition system with respect to a location of a wafer in the thin-film deposition system during the thin-film deposition process responsive to the sensor signals.

The disclosure describes apparatus and method for detecting an endpoint in plasma-assisted wafer processing in a chamber. A fiber array comprising a plurality of fibers collects optical emission light from the chamber during the plasma-assisted wafer processing. The fiber array is split into two or more groups of fibers, each group carrying a portion of the light to a segment of a photodetector. Each segment of photodetector has a corresponding narrowband optical filter designed for a specific range of wavelengths. A computer processor analyzes detected signals from the plurality of segments of the photodetector, and determines, based on the analysis of the detected signals, an endpoint of the plasma-assisted wafer processing as indicated by the presence or the absence of the one or more chemical species in the chamber. The photodetector can be based on photomultiplier tube (PMT) array or based on photodiodes (e.g., avalanche photodiodes (APDs)).