Process and chamber health monitoring of plasma enhanced ti deposition process through high performance VI-probe

As an alternative to plasma sensors, high performance VI probe was evaluated in a plasma enhanced Ti deposition process. Its utilization was focused on finding any reasonable differences between good and bad chambers classified in terms of end of line yield data. Some differences of delivered power and time trace current signal between chambers were found, which well matches the good and bad chamber classification. Also, a fault detection and classification algorithm to handle huge amount of raw VI-probe data was evaluated. The algorithm estimates deviation of TiCl
₄
content in plasma occurs right after preventive maintenance, which might be considered as a chamber conditioning procedure. Despite requiring additional evaluations, the combination of VI-probe and well-developed algorithm might be a feasible solution where conventional plasma sensors can not be applied.