• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2019

Optical emission spectroscopy is used to identify chemical species and monitor the changes of process results during the plasma process. However, plasma process monitoring or fault detection by using emission signal variation monitoring is vulnerable to background signal fluctuations. IR heaters are used in semiconductor manufacturing chambers where high temperature uniformity and fast response are required. During the process, the IR lamp output fluctuates to maintain a stable process temperature. This IR signal fluctuation reacts as a background signal fluctuation to the spectrometer. In this research, we evaluate the effect of infrared background signal fluctuation on plasma process monitoring and improve the plasma process monitoring accuracy by using simple infrared background signal subtraction method. The effect of infrared background signal fluctuation on plasma process monitoring was evaluated on $SiO_2$ PECVD process. Comparing the $SiO_2$ film thickness and the measured emission line intensity from the by-product molecules, the effect of infrared background signal on plasma process monitoring and the necessity of background signal subtraction method were confirmed.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.121-125
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• 2020

With miniaturization of semiconductor, the manufacturing process become more complex, and undetected small changes in the state of the equipment have unexpectedly changed the process results. Fault detection classification (FDC) system that conducts more active data analysis is feasible to achieve more precise manufacturing process control with advanced machine learning method. However, applying machine learning, especially in supervised learning criteria, requires an arduous data labeling process for the construction of machine learning data. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised learning to minimize the data labeling work for the data preprocessing. We employed equipment status variable identification (SVID) data and optical emission spectroscopy data (OES) in silicon etch with SF6/O2/Ar gas mixture, and the result shows as high as 95.2% of labeling accuracy with the suggested semi-supervised learning algorithm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.523-523
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• 2012

As the wafer geometric requirements continuously complicated and minutes in tens of nanometers, the expectation of real-time add-on sensors for in-situ plasma process monitoring is rapidly increasing. Various industry applications, utilizing plasma impedance monitor (PIM) and optical emission spectroscopy (OES), on etch end point detection, etch chemistry investigation, health monitoring, fault detection and classification, and advanced process control are good examples. However, process monitoring in semiconductor manufacturing industry requires non-invasiveness. The hypothesis behind the optical monitoring of plasma induced ion current is for the monitoring of plasma induced charging damage in non-invasive optical way. In plasma dielectric via etching, the bombardment of reactive ions on exposed conductor patterns may induce electrical current. Induced electrical charge can further flow down to device level, and accumulated charges in the consecutive plasma processes during back-end metallization can create plasma induced charging damage to shift the threshold voltage of device. As a preliminary research for the hypothesis, we performed two phases experiment to measure the plasma induced current in etch environmental condition. We fabricated electrical test circuits to convert induced current to flickering frequency of LED output, and the flickering frequency was measured by high speed optical plasma monitoring system (OPMS) in 10 kHz. Current-frequency calibration was done in offline by applying stepwise current increase while LED flickering was measured. Once the performance of the test circuits was evaluated, a metal pad for collecting ion bombardment during plasma etch condition was placed inside etch chamber, and the LED output frequency was measured in real-time. It was successful to acquire high speed optical emission data acquisition in 10 kHz. Offline measurement with the test circuitry was satisfactory, and we are continuously investigating the potential of real-time in-situ plasma induce current measurement via OPMS.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.832-839
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• 2007

The geometry and dimensions of an expansion chamber are decisive factors in thermal puffer plasma chamber designs. Because they together dominate the temperature and speed at which the cooling gas from the chamber flows back through a flow channel to the arcing zone for the successful interruption of fault currents. In this study, we calculated the flow and mass transfer driven by arc plasma, and investigated the effects of a flow guide installed inside a thermal puffer plasma chamber. It is found that the existing cold gas of the chamber mixes with hot gases entrained from the arcing zone and is subjected to compression due to pressure build-up in the chamber. The pressure build-up with the flow guide is larger than that without due to a vortex which rotates clockwise around the chamber center. By the reverse pressure gradient, the mixing gas of the chamber flows back out for cooling down the residual plasma near current zero. In the case with the flow guide, the temperature just before current zero is lower than that without, and the Cu concentration with high electrical conductivity is also less than that without the flow guide.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.2046-2051
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• 2015

Currently, most high-voltage gas circuit breakers (CBs) include asymmetrical geometries in the shield, the tank, the hot-gas exhaust, and the connection parts for bushings. For this reason, a 3-dimensional (3-D) analysis of the insulation capability is necessary, rather than a 2-D analysis. However, a 3-D analysis has difficulties due to the computational time and complex modeling. This paper presents a 3-D analysis considering the asymmetry in high-voltage gas CBs and a technique to reduce the calculation time. In the proposed technique, the arc plasma requiring the most computational time is first calculated by a 2-D analysis. Then, the results such as pressure, temperature, and velocity are input as a source for the 3-D analysis. This technique is applied to a 145kV self-blast-type CB and the analysis result exhibits good agreement with the experimental result.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.365-368
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• 2002

The design of industrial arc plasma systems is still largely based on trial and error although the situation is rapidly improving because of the available computational power at a cost which is still fast coming down. The desire to predict the behavior of arc plasma system, thus reducing the development cost, has been the motivation of arc research. To interrupt fault current, the most enormous duty of a circuit breaker, is achieved by separating two contacts in a interruption medium, $SF_{6}$ gas or air etc., and arc plasma is inevitably established between the contacts. The arc must be controlled and interrupted at an appropriate current zero. In order to analyze arc behavior in $SF_{6}$ gas circuit breakers, a numerical calculation method combined with flow field and electromagnetic field has been developed. The method has been applied to model arc generated in the Aachen nozzle and compared the results with the experimental results. Next, we have simulated the unsteady flow characteristics to be induced by arcing of AC cycle, and conformed that the method can predict arc behavior in account of thermal transport to $SF_{6}$ gas around the arc, such as increase of arc voltage near current zero and dependency of arc radius on arc current to maintain constant arc current density.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.153-160
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• 2019

This study proposes a current source-type pulse generator to improve output voltage and current waveforms under a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) system. The proposed circuit comprises two parallel-connected current source-type converters. These converters can satisfy the required output waveforms of plasma processing. The parallel-connected converters operate without reverse current fault by applying a time-delay control technique. Conventional voltage source converters based on pulse power supply exhibit drawbacks in short-circuit current, and problems occur when they are applied to a CCP system. The proposed pulse power supply based on a current source converter fundamentally solves the short-circuit current problem. Therefore, this topology can improve the voltage and current accuracy of a CCP system.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.53-57
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• 2009

In this paper we develop a method to observe faults in semiconductor devices and transmission lines by calculating the variation of the reflection function in a dielectric microstrip line that has an open-ended termination containing an optically induced plasma region. It is analyzed with the assumption that the plasma is distributed homogeneously in laser illumination. With the non linear material of degradation, the concentration of the carrier in the part of the material has changed. Since the input wave has produced the phenomenon of reflection, the input signal to the open-ended microstrip lines can be observed on reflection to identify the location of the fault. The characteristic impedances resulting from the presence of plasma are evaluated by the transmission line model. The variation of the reflection wave in the microwave system has been calculated by using an equivalent circuit model. The transient response has been also evaluated theoretically for changing the phase of the variation in the reflection. The variation of characteristic response in differentially localized has been also evaluated analytically.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.875-880
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• 2015

Traditional semiconductor process control has been performed through statistical process control techniques in a constant process-recipe conditions. However, the complexity of the interior of the etching apparatus plasma physics, quantitative modeling of process conditions due to the many difficult features constraints apply simple SISO control scheme. The introduction of the Advanced Process Control (APC) as a way to overcome the limits has been using the APC process control methodology run-to-run, wafer-to-wafer, or the yield of the semiconductor manufacturing process to the real-time process control, performance, it is possible to improve production. In addition, it is possible to establish a hierarchical structure of the process control made by the process control unit and associated algorithms and etching apparatus, the process unit, the overall process. In this study, the research focused on the methodology and monitoring improvements in performance needed to consider the process management of future developments in the semiconductor manufacturing process in accordance with the age of the APC analysis in real applications of the semiconductor manufacturing process and process fault diagnosis and control techniques in progress.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.30-34
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• 2019

We analyzed how the features in plasma information based virtual metrology (PI-VM) for SiO₂ etching depth with variation of 5% contribute to the prediction accuracy, which is previously developed by Jang. As a single feature, the explanatory power to the process results is in the order of plasma information about electron energy distribution function (PI_EEDF), equipment, and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) features. In the procedure of stepwise variable selection (SVS), OES features are selected after PI_EEDF. Informative vector for developed PI-VM also shows relatively high correlation between OES features and etching depth. This is because the reaction rate of each chemical species that governs the etching depth can be sensitively monitored when OES features are used with PI_EEDF. Securing PI_EEDF is important for the development of virtual metrology (VM) for prediction of process results. The role of PI_EEDF as an independent feature and the ability to monitor variation of plasma thermal state can make other features in the procedure of SVS more sensitive to the process results. It is expected that fault detection and classification (FDC) can be effectively developed by using the PI-VM.