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CN-121994663-A - System and method for monitoring particles in ozone in real time

CN121994663ACN 121994663 ACN121994663 ACN 121994663ACN-121994663-A

Abstract

The invention relates to a system and a method for monitoring particles in ozone in real time, which comprises an ozone reduction device for heating and reducing ozone provided by an ozone source into oxygen along a spiral conveying path and a particle counter for monitoring the particles in the oxygen in real time. The ozone source selectively shunts and supplies a part of ozone to the ozone reduction device and another part of ozone to the processing equipment, so that the particle counter is used for monitoring particles in the oxygen in real time while the processing equipment is used for processing, thereby preventing other non-ozone particles contained in the ozone from polluting, and further proving that ozone gas provided when the ozone generator is used as the ozone source or ozone tail gas discharged when the processing equipment is used as the ozone source does not have pollution particles.

Inventors

  • ZENG XINHUA
  • LIN YOURONG
  • CHEN YOUMING

Assignees

  • 明远精密科技股份有限公司

Dates

Publication Date
20260508
Application Date
20250103
Priority Date
20241104

Claims (20)

  1. 1. A system for monitoring particles in ozone in real time, comprising: An ozone reduction device for heating and reducing ozone provided by an ozone source to oxygen along a spiral conveying path, and A particle counter for monitoring in real time a number of particles and/or a value of a particle size in the oxygen.
  2. 2. The system for monitoring particles in ozone in real time as recited in claim 1, wherein the ozone reduction device comprises: an air inlet conduit connected to the ozone source; a gas delivery pipe for introducing the ozone provided by the ozone source through the air inlet pipe, the gas delivery pipe delivering the ozone through the spiral delivery path; A heating element for providing a heat energy to heat the ozone transferred by the gas transfer tube so that the ozone is heated by the heat energy and reduced to oxygen while flowing along the spiral transfer path, and An outlet conduit connected to the gas delivery pipe for discharging the oxygen obtained by reducing the ozone.
  3. 3. The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as recited in claim 2, wherein said gas delivery tube is a spiral tube and said gas delivery tube is spirally sleeved outside said heating element.
  4. 4. The system of claim 2, wherein the heating element directly heats only the ozone in the gas delivery tube, simultaneously heats the gas delivery tube and the ozone in the gas delivery tube, and/or indirectly heats the ozone in the gas delivery tube by heating the gas delivery tube.
  5. 5. The system of claim 2, further comprising a thermal insulation element surrounding one or more of the gas delivery tube, the heating element, the gas inlet conduit, and/or the gas outlet conduit to maintain a heating temperature of the ozone.
  6. 6. The system of claim 2, further comprising a thermometer for measuring a heating temperature of the ozone in the gas delivery tube for the thermal energy provided by the heating element.
  7. 7. The system of claim 6, further comprising a temperature control device for controlling the heating device to provide the thermal energy according to the heating temperature measured by the thermometer so as to heat the ozone to a predetermined temperature.
  8. 8. The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone of claim 2, further comprising an inlet adapter and an outlet adapter, the inlet adapter being connected between the inlet conduit and the gas delivery conduit, the outlet adapter being connected between the gas delivery conduit and the outlet conduit.
  9. 9. The system for monitoring particles in ozone in real time as recited in claim 1, further comprising a cooling device for cooling the oxygen obtained by heating and reducing the ozone by the ozone reduction device.
  10. 10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a process tool, wherein the ozone source provides at least a portion of the ozone to the ozone reduction device for thermally reducing the at least a portion of the ozone to the oxygen, and the ozone source provides another portion of the ozone to the process tool for performing a process step.
  11. 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the particle counter monitors the number of particles and/or the value of the particle size in the oxygen heated to be reduced by the at least a portion of the ozone simultaneously and in real time as the process equipment performs the process step using the other portion of the ozone.
  12. 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the process equipment determines whether the ozone is contaminated with particles based on the number of particles of the particle counter and/or the value of the particle size, thereby controlling the continuous or stopping of the introduction of the other portion of the ozone provided by the ozone source into the process equipment.
  13. 13. The system of claim 10, wherein the ozone source is configured to provide at least a portion of the ozone and another portion of the ozone via a shunt to provide the at least a portion of the ozone to the ozone reduction unit and the another portion of the ozone to the process equipment, respectively.
  14. 14. The system of claim 13, wherein a control valve is provided between the ozone source and the shunt for controlling the supply or stop of at least a portion of the ozone and/or another portion of the ozone based on the number of particles and/or the number of particles.
  15. 15. The system of claim 1, wherein the particle counter irradiates the oxygen with a light from a light source such that the particles in the oxygen are scattered or diffracted, and the number of the particles and/or the value of the particle size is obtained by analyzing the characteristics of the light from the light source.
  16. 16. The system of claim 1, further comprising a source of pure oxygen for supplying pure oxygen to the ozone reduction device until the number of particles and/or the value of the particle size monitored by the particle counter is zero before the ozone reduction device heats and reduces the ozone supplied by the ozone source to the oxygen.
  17. 17. A method for monitoring particles in ozone in real time using the system for monitoring particles in ozone in real time according to any one of claims 1 to 16, characterized by comprising the steps of: performing an ozone supply step for supplying the ozone by using the ozone source; Performing a redox step for heating and reducing the ozone supplied from the ozone source to the oxygen along the spiral conveying path by using the ozone reduction device, and A monitoring step is performed for monitoring the number of the particles and/or the value of the particle size in the oxygen in real time using the particle counter.
  18. 18. The method of claim 17, further comprising performing a zeroing step after the step of providing ozone and before the step of redox, such that the number of particles and/or the value of the particle size monitored by the particle counter is zero.
  19. 19. The method of claim 17, further comprising performing a cooling step to cool the oxygen obtained by heating and reducing the ozone by the ozone reduction device after performing the oxidation-reduction step and before performing the monitoring step.
  20. 20. The method of claim 17, wherein after the step of providing ozone and before the step of redox, further comprising performing a shunt step for shunt supply of the ozone.

Description

System and method for monitoring particles in ozone in real time Technical Field The present invention relates to a system and a method for monitoring particles contained in ozone gas, and more particularly, to a method for integrating ozone gas reduction technology and particle monitoring technology after ozone reduction and a system designed according to the method. Background Ozone has been found to oxidize organic and/or metallic materials and is therefore useful in semiconductor wafer cleaning and processing, for example, to remove unwanted photoresist residues. The ozone may be used in a gaseous form (dry ozone technology), but may be dissolved in water to be used as ozone water (wet ozone technology). For example, ozone may be used to remove photoresist after a series of lithographic processes. Either dry ozone technology or wet ozone technology can be applied to the semiconductor wafer surface, wherein the dry ozone technology exposes the semiconductor wafer surface to ozone gas and one or more gases, thereby oxidizing the material on the wafer surface. Wet ozone technology exposes the semiconductor wafer surface to ozone and a process fluid, such as Deionized (DI) water or a chemical solution, thereby oxidizing the material on the wafer surface. Since the cleanliness of the wafer surface can affect the yield of subsequent semiconductor processes and products, up to 50% of all yield losses result from contamination of the wafer surface. The most common major contaminants include residues of metals, organics and particulate particles. When ozone is used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, contamination, particularly metal contamination, caused by impurities contained in the ozone is a serious problem. The metal constituting the pollution source includes, for example, a metal electrode of a reaction chamber for generating ozone by high-voltage discharge, or a reaction product resulting from a reaction between ozone and a metal line used as an ozone supply. These metallic impurities have a considerable impact on the performance of semiconductor components, including electrical properties such as conductivity, resistance, and dielectric constant. For example, metal contamination can cause leakage current in the p-n structure, which in turn can lead to a reduction in breakdown voltage of the oxide and a reduction in carrier life cycle. Conventional techniques currently known use gas filters to remove impurities from ozone used in semiconductor device manufacturing processes. One known conventional gas filter uses, for example, an adsorbent that adsorbs impurities to remove gaseous impurities. Another known conventional gas filter uses a filter material to filter impurities in the form of solid fine particles. In addition, conventionally known technologies have been attempted to continuously improve electrode structures and electrode materials for high-voltage discharge in ozone generators, whereby the generated ozone contains less metal impurities. Since the ozone generator generates ozone by discharging between metal electrodes, metal particles generated by the metal electrodes are also generally one of the sources of ozone pollution. In order to solve the above-mentioned problem of ozone pollution sources, conventional techniques (e.g., taiwan patent publication No. 200605208 a) disclose the incorporation of molecular permeable membranes capable of filtering metal particles into an ozone gas supply system. Further, conventional techniques (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,218,2 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,2) disclose the incorporation of a gas filter in an ozone generating apparatus for filtering solid particles having a particle size of greater than 0.2 μm to remove impurities and foreign substances. However, after a period of use, the gas filter or molecular permeable membrane of these ozone generating devices is not known to retain its intended effect, and it is generally necessary to wait until a shutdown before scanning inspection using a test wafer (dummy wafer) and an optical microscope. In addition to cleaning, ozone has also been found to grow an oxide layer that can be used as a passivation or interface layer for semiconductor devices. Ozone is extremely poor in stability, and can be automatically decomposed into oxygen at normal temperature, so that ozone cannot be stored, and is generally produced by an ozone generator on site and immediately used. However, ozone is a gas that is harmful to both the human body and the environment, and although it is decomposed into oxygen in the natural environment, the natural decomposition is slow, so that the tail gas of ozone requires further treatment to be discharged. Moreover, the prior art fails to demonstrate whether ozone tail gas emitted by ozone sources (e.g., semiconductor processing equipment) has contaminating particles. While ozone reduction technology is currently available to decompose ozone into oxygen, ozone has a half-life of about 3 days at