• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.262.2-262.2
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• 2014

Plasma processing is an essential process for pattern etching and thin film deposition in nanoscale semiconductor device fabrication. It is necessary to maintain plasma chamber in steady-state in production. In this study, we determined plasma chamber state with residual gas analysis with self-plasma optical emission spectroscopy. Residual gas monitoring of fluorocarbon plasma etching chamber was performed with self-plasma optical emission spectroscopy (SPOES) and various chemical elements was identified with a SPOES system which is composed of small inductive coupled plasma chamber for glow discharge and optical emission spectroscopy monitoring system for measuring optical emission. This work demonstrates that chamber state can be monitored with SPOES and this technique can potentially help maintenance in production lines.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.32-32
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• 2011

Plasma etching is used in microelectronic processing for patterning of micro- and nano-scale devices. Commonly, optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for real-time endpoint detection for plasma etching. However, if the viewport for optical-emission monitoring becomes blurred by polymer film due to prolonged use of the etching system, optical-emission monitoring becomes impossible. In addition, when the exposed area ratio on the wafer is small, changes in the optical emission are so slight that it is almost impossible to detect the endpoint of etching. For this reason, as a simple method of detecting variations in plasma without contamination of the reaction chamber at low cost, a method of measuring plasma impedance is being examined. The object in this research is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) with statistical approach for real-time endpoint detection of $SiO_2$ etching. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe). However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ film on Si wafer is etched by fluorocarbon plasma on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance analysis is compared with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). From impedance data, we tried to analyze physical properties of plasma, and real-time endpoint detection can be achieved.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.98-105
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• 2008

In this paper, the system for monitoring process of aluminum laser welding was developed using the light signal emitted from the plasma which comes from interaction between material and laser. Photodiode for monitoring system was selected based on the spectrum analysis of light from plasma and keyhole. Behavior of plasma and keyhole was analyzed through the sensor signals. Value of sensor signal represented the light intensity and fluctuation of signal indicated the stability of plasma and keyhole. For the relation between welding condition and sensor signals, the input power and weld geometry greatly effected on the average of each sensor signals. Using the feature values of signals, estimation model for tensile strength of weld was formulated with neural network algorithm. Performance of this model was verified through coefficient of determination and average error rate.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.392-400
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• 2015

Monitoring of plasma etch processes for fault detection is one of the hallmark procedures in semiconductor manufacturing. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) has been considered as a gold standard for modeling plasma etching processes for on-line diagnosis and monitoring. However, statistical quantitative methods for processing the OES data are still lacking. There is an urgent need for a statistical quantitative method to deal with high-dimensional OES data for improving the quality of etched wafers. Therefore, we propose a robust relevance vector machine (RRVM) for regression with statistical quantitative features for modeling etch rate and uniformity in plasma etch processes by using OES data. For effectively dealing with the OES data complexity, we identify seven statistical features for extraction from raw OES data by reducing the data dimensionality. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is more suitable for high-accuracy monitoring of plasma etch responses obtained from OES.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.182-182
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• 2012

Plasma etching is used in various semiconductor processing steps. In plasma etcher, optical- emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for in-situ endpoint detection. However, the sensitivity of OES is decreased if polymer is deposited on viewport or the proportion of exposed area on the wafer is too small. Because of these problems, the object is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) and self plasma optical emission spectrocopy (SPOES) with statistical approach for in-situ endpoint detection. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe) and optical emission signal from SPOES. However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ and SiNx layers are etched by fluorocarbon on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher, if the proportion of $SiO_2$ and SiNx area on Si wafer are small. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance monitoring is compared with optical emission spectroscopy.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 1999

Laser-welded Tailored Blank is the hottest thing in many automobile companies. But they demand on weld quality, reproducibility, and formability. So it is the great problem of automation of laser welding process. Therefore, it is requested to construct on-line process monitoring system on high accuracy. The light which is emitted from plasma and spatter in laser welding was detected by photo-diodes. It was found that the light intensity depends on welding speed. laser power, and flow rate of assist gas. The relationship between the plasma and spatter and the weld quality can be used for on-line laser weld monitoring systems.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.281-283
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• 2005

Processing Plasmas are very sensitive to a variation in process parameters, To maintain process quality and device field, plasma malfunction should be tightly monitored with high sensitivity. A new monitoring method is presented and this was accomplished by applying discrete wavelet transformation to X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. XPS data were collected during a plasma etching of silicon carbide. Various effects of DWT factor on fault sensitivity were optimized experimentally. Compared to raw data, total percent sensitivity for DWT data demonstrated a significantly improved sensitivity to plasma faults induced by bias power.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.515-520
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• 2009

In this paper, the monitoring system was developed measuring the light signal emitted from the plasma in aluminum laser welding. Spectrum of plasma was measured using a spectrometer, and the photodiode was selected based on the spectrum analysis. The sensor signals for various welding conditions could be obtained, the characteristic of signal was closely related to the intensity and stability of plasma through mean value of signal and FFT analysis. The reason of signal fluctuation was behavior of plasma and keyhole and it was also connected with the surface bead shape of weld.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.185.2-185.2
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• 2016

The plasma density is an essential plasma parameter describing plasma physics. Furthermore, it affects the throughput and uniformity of plasma processing (etching, deposition, ashing, etc). Therefore, a novel technique for plasma density measurement has been attracting considerable attention. Microwave probe is a promising diagnostic technique. Various type of cutoff, hairpin, impedance, transmission, and absorption probes have been developed and investigated. Recently, based on the basic type of probes, modified flat probe (curling and multipole probes), have been developing for in situ processing plasma monitoring. There is a need for comparative study between the probes. It can give some hints on choosing the reliable probe and application of the probes. In this presentation, we make attempt of numerical study of different kinds of microwave probes. Characteristics of frequency spectrum from probes were analyzed by using three-dimensional electromagnetic simulation. The plasma density, obtained from the spectrum, was compared with simulation input plasma density. The different microwave probe behavior with changes of plasma density, sheath and pressure were found. To confirm the result experimentally, we performed the comparative experiment between cutoff and hairpin probes. The sheath and collision effects are corrected for each probe. The results were reasonably interpreted based on the above simulation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Laser Processing Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.18-19
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• 1998