Methods and apparatus reduce chucking abnormalities for electrostatic chucks by ensuring proper planarizing of ceramic surfaces of the electrostatic chuck. In some embodiments, a method for planarizing an upper ceramic surface of an electrostatic chuck assembly may comprise placing the electrostatic chuck assembly in a first planarizing apparatus, altering an upper ceramic surface of the electrostatic chuck assembly, and halting the altering of the upper ceramic surface of the electrostatic chuck assembly when an S.sub.a parameter is less than approximately 0.1 microns, an S.sub.dr parameter is less than approximately 2.5 percent, an S.sub.z parameter is less than approximately 10 microns for any given area of approximately 10 mm.sup.2 of the upper ceramic surface, or a pit-porosity depth parameter of greater than 1 micron is less than approximately 0.1 percent of area of the upper ceramic surface.

A semiconductor equipment monitoring apparatus including a wafer-type sensor inside a process chamber and configured to sense a plasma state inside the process chamber; a light detector and analyzer configured to detect and analyze light sensed by the wafer-type sensor; and a light coupler between the wafer-type sensor and the light detector and analyzer and configured to transmit the light sensed by the wafer-type sensor to the light detector and analyzer. The wafer-type sensor includes a plurality of sensors each comprising a passive element.

An electrostatic chuck includes a base plate and a ceramic dielectric substrate. The ceramic dielectric substrate has a first major surface. The first major surface includes at least a first region and a second region. At least one first gas introduction hole connected to at least one of multiple first grooves. The first grooves include a first boundary groove, and at least one first in-region groove. Multiple second grooves and at least one second gas introduction hole are provided in the second region. The second grooves are include a second boundary groove extending along the first boundary and are provided to be most proximal to the first boundary. A groove end portion-end portion distance between the first boundary groove and the second boundary groove is smaller than a groove end portion-end portion distance between the first boundary groove and the first in-region groove.

A plate-shaped member of a holding device has a first surface having a gas outlet, and a second surface having a gas inlet and positioned opposite to the first surface. The plate-shaped member includes a plane-parallel gas passage extending parallel to the first surface and including a connection hole, and a gas inflow/outflow passage connected to the connection hole and providing communication between the gas outlet or the gas inlet and the plane-parallel gas passage. A porous body is disposed in the gas inflow/outflow passage and projects into the plane-parallel gas passage from the connection hole. The porous body includes a wide portion disposed in the plane-parallel gas passage. A dimension of the wide portion on a cross section taken along a plane orthogonal to the first surface is greater than a hole width of the connection hole.

An electrostatic chuck (ESC) undercoating system includes a memory and a controller. The memory stores an undercoat application. The controller configured to execute the undercoat application to: determine undercoat parameters; perform a full clean process to remove undercoat deposits in processing chamber of substrate processing system; and based on the undercoat parameters, perform one or more deposition processes to deposit one or more undercoat layers on the ESC to provide an overall undercoat layer having an overall thickness between 7-15 m, the one or more undercoat layers providing protection of the ESC during subsequent deposition processing of a substrate on the ESC.

The present invention relates to an electrostatic chuck heater having a bipolar structure, the electrostatic chuck heater comprising: a heater body having an internal electrode and an external electrode for selectively performing any one of an RF grounding function and an electrostatic chuck function according to a semiconductor process mode; and a heater support mounted below the heater body so as to support the heater body.

An electrostatic chuck (ESC) for holding a workpiece in a plasma processing chamber, where the ESC includes a monolithic insulating substrate with a top surface; a plurality of electrodes embedded in the insulating substrate, the plurality of electrodes being in a multipolar configuration to receive multiple DC bias signals from a first power supply circuit; and a radio frequency (RF) electrode embedded in the insulating substrate, the plurality of electrodes being located between the top surface and the RF electrode, the RF electrode including a contact node configured to be coupled to a second power supply circuit configured to generate an RF signal.

A method for etching features in a stack below a patterned mask in an etch chamber is provided. The stack is cooled with a coolant with a coolant temperature below 20 C. An etch gas is flowed into the etch chamber. A plasma is generated from the etch gas. Features are selectively etched into the stack with respect to the patterned mask.

Disclosed are a susceptor for enabling uniform plasma treatment over the entire surface of a wafer, and a manufacturing method therefor. Provided is the susceptor comprising: a dielectric plate having an upper surface on which a wafer is loaded, and a lower surface facing same; and an inner RF electrode and an outer RF electrode that are buried in the dielectric plate, wherein, with respect to the lower surface, the height of a first plane in which the inner RF electrode is buried is less than the height of a second plane in which the outer RF electrode is buried.

Described is a semiconductor processing system including a measurement tool configured to measure warpage characteristics in a semiconductor wafer. The semiconductor processing system further includes a pixelated surface configured to retain the semiconductor wafer, where the pixelated surface approximates the warpage characteristics to conform to the semiconductor wafer. The semiconductor processing system further includes a semiconductor processing tool configured to perform processing on the semiconductor wafer while it is retained on the pixelated surface.