Feedback control of plasma electron density and ion energy in an inductively coupled plasma etcher

Here the authors report the development of a fuzzy logic based feedback control of the plasma electron density and ion energy for high density plasma etch process. The plasma electron density was measured using their recently developed transmission line microstrip microwave interferometer mounted on the chamber wall, and the rf voltage was measured by a commercial impedance meter connected to the wafer stage. The actuators were two 13.56 MHz rf power generators which provided the inductively coupled plasma power and bias power, respectively. The control system adopted the fuzzy logic control algorithm to reduce frequent actuator action resulting from measurement noise. The experimental results show that the first wafer effect can be eliminated using closed-loop control for both poly-Si and HfO₂ etching. In particular, for the HfO2 etch, the controlled variables in this work were much more effective than the previous one where ion current was controlled, instead of the electron density. However, the pressure disturbance effect cannot be reduced using plasma electron density feedback.