Generalized Predictive Control of Temperature on an Atomic Layer Deposition Reactor

This brief establishes a closed-loop control system for a radiant heating atomic layer deposition (ALD) reactor using generalized predictive control (GPC). The GPC-based closed-loop control system can rapidly and precisely stabilize the temperature in the presence of external disturbances. Compared with the conventional open-loop control and the proportional-integral-differential control, the closed-loop GPC system enhances the processing efficiency between every ALD run by substantially reducing settling time with impact by external disturbances. The attenuated temperature fluctuation leads to more uniform thin-film morphologies that fulfill the technical requirements of ALD processes.