CN-122003114-A - Semiconductor processing equipment and control method thereof

Abstract

The invention discloses semiconductor processing equipment and a control method thereof, and relates to the technical field of semiconductor manufacturing. The semiconductor processing equipment comprises a cavity, an air source and at least one air inlet valve group, wherein a plurality of air inlet holes which are arranged in a surrounding mode are formed in the side edge of the cavity, each air inlet valve group comprises a plurality of air inlet valves which are in one-to-one correspondence with the air inlet holes and are independently controllable, and each air inlet valve can independently control the on-off of an air path corresponding to the air inlet hole. In the running process of the etching process, partial air inlet valves in the same air inlet valve group and other air inlet valves can execute inconsistent opening and closing actions, so that different etching amounts are obtained in all areas in the circumferential direction of the substrate. The invention can regulate and control the etching quantity aiming at different areas in the circumferential direction of the substrate, effectively stabilize the defect of uneven thickness of the film pre-existing in the substrate, and promote the uniformity of the feature morphology of each area of the substrate after etching and the yield of the semiconductor process.

Inventors

• HUANG YUNWEN
• PAN YANG

Assignees

• 上海原子启智半导体设备有限公司

Dates

Publication Date

20260508

Application Date

20260409

Claims (20)

1. 1. A semiconductor processing apparatus includes a chamber, an air source, and a controller, The cavity is enclosed to form a process cavity and is provided with an exhaust port, the process cavity is vacuumized through the exhaust port to maintain the vacuum environment required by the process, The side wall of the cavity is provided with a gas supply ring, the gas supply ring is circumferentially and circumferentially provided with a plurality of gas inlet holes for supplying gas to the edge of the process cavity, The air inlet valve group comprises a plurality of independently controllable air inlet valves, and the air inlet valve groups are arranged on the air supply ring in a ring-to-ring correspondence with the air inlet holes; The air inlet valve group is communicated with the air source, and the air source is used for supplying process gas; in the process, one air inlet valve group is used for controlling the supply of one process gas, and the process cavity is internally provided with a substrate; The controller is configured to: and acquiring defects of inconsistent characteristics of each area of the substrate before the etching process is performed on the substrate, controlling partial air inlet valves in the same air inlet valve group and other air inlet valves to perform inconsistent opening and closing actions based on the defects in the etching process, and differentially etching the defective area and other areas of the substrate to stabilize the defects.
2. 2. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein, The etching process comprises an atomic layer etching process, wherein the atomic layer etching process comprises a modification stage and a stripping stage which are alternately and circularly carried out, the gas source comprises a first gas source and a second gas source, the first gas source is used for supplying a first process gas of the modification stage, and the second gas source is used for supplying a second process gas of the stripping stage; and the air inlet valve group is communicated with the first air source or the second air source and is used for supplying the first process gas or the second process gas.
3. 3. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein, The controller is respectively connected with each air inlet valve in a communication way, and controls the opening and closing control time sequence of each air inlet valve according to the defects, and drives the corresponding air inlet valve to execute independent opening and closing actions so as to stabilize the defects.
4. 4. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 2, wherein, The semiconductor processing equipment comprises two groups of air inlet valve groups, namely a first air inlet valve group and a second air inlet valve group, The first air inlet valve group is communicated with the first air source and is used for controlling the supply of the first process gas, The second air inlet valve group is communicated with the second air source and is used for controlling the supply of the second process gas, The first air inlet valve group and the second air inlet valve group are alternately switched on and off integrally based on the modification stage and the stripping stage.
5. 5. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 4, An air inlet valve in the first air inlet valve group and an air inlet valve in the second air inlet valve group are arranged in pairs to form an air inlet valve pair, and the air inlet valve pair and the air inlet holes are arranged in one-to-one correspondence, wherein two air inlet valves in one air inlet valve pair are communicated to one air inlet hole in parallel.
6. 6. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 4, The air inlet comprises a first air inlet and a second air inlet, the first air inlet valve group is communicated with the first air inlet, the second air inlet valve group is communicated with the second air inlet, a plurality of air inlet valves in the first air inlet valve group are arranged in one-to-one correspondence with the first air inlet, and a plurality of air inlet valves in the second air inlet valve group are arranged in one-to-one correspondence with the second air inlet.
7. 7. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 6, wherein, The first air inlet holes and the second air inlet holes are alternately arranged in the circumferential direction of the air supply ring, and/or The first air inlet holes and the second air inlet holes are axially arranged at intervals on the air supply ring.
8. 8. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein, The features of each region include a substrate film thickness profile, a substrate density profile, a substrate lithography critical dimension profile, or a substrate mask spatial profile.
9. 9. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 8, wherein, The process chamber is provided with an in-situ detection unit which is in communication connection with the controller and is used for in-situ detecting the characteristics of each region on the premise of not damaging the vacuum environment of the process chamber, and the controller generates opening and closing control time sequences of the plurality of air inlet valves according to the characteristics of each region so as to stabilize the defects.
10. 10. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 9, wherein, The in-situ detection unit comprises an optical reflectometer, a scattering measuring instrument, an ellipsometer or a critical dimension on-line detection device.
11. 11. The semiconductor processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein, The air inlet valve is fixedly connected to the air supply ring through an air guide block, and The distance from the air inlet valve to the air inlet hole communicated with the air inlet valve is shortest relative to the distance from the air inlet valve to other air inlet holes.
12. 12. A control method of a semiconductor processing apparatus, which is applied to the semiconductor processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 11, Acquiring the characteristics of each region of the substrate, recording the defects of inconsistent characteristics of each region of the substrate, enabling the process chamber to operate in the etching process, And controlling the opening and closing control time sequence of a plurality of air inlet valves in the air inlet valve groups based on the characteristics of each area, driving the air inlet valves to execute independent opening and closing actions, enabling partial air inlet valves in one air inlet valve group to execute inconsistent opening and closing actions with other air inlet valves, and differentially etching the defective area and other areas of the substrate to stabilize the defect.
13. 13. The control method according to claim 12, wherein, The opening and closing control time sequence is implemented by analyzing that the area to be corrected in each area characteristic of the substrate is in the coordinate range of the substrate, matching the coordinate range with a corresponding air inlet valve of a plurality of air inlet valves for controlling the air inlet holes of the air supply area of the coordinate range, and controlling the corresponding air inlet valve to execute inconsistent opening and closing actions with other air inlet valves in the same air inlet valve group so as to stabilize the defects.
14. 14. The control method according to claim 12, wherein, The inconsistent opening and closing actions include: In the etching process, part of air inlet valves in one air inlet valve group are in an open state, and the other air inlet valves are in a closed state, or In the etching process, the opening time of a part of air inlet valves in one air inlet valve group is different from the opening time of the rest of air inlet valves.
15. 15. The control method according to claim 12, wherein, The etching process comprises an atomic layer etching process, the atomic layer etching process comprises a modification stage and a stripping stage which are alternately and circularly carried out, and the inconsistent opening and closing actions comprise: in the same atomic layer etching cycle, the opening time of part of air inlet valves in one air inlet valve group is different from the opening time of the other air inlet valves, or In the multiple atomic layer etching cycles, the opening cycle times of part of air inlet valves in one air inlet valve group are different from the opening cycle times of the rest air inlet valves.
16. 16. The control method according to claim 13, wherein, The corresponding area comprises a sector, and the corresponding air inlet valve comprises an air inlet valve, the air inlet hole is communicated with the air inlet valve, the air inlet valve faces the sector, and/or the air inlet hole is communicated with the air inlet valve, and the air inlet hole is adjacent to the air inlet valve of the sector.
17. 17. The control method according to claim 16, wherein, When the air inlet hole facing the sector is not arranged, the corresponding air inlet valve is at least two air inlet valves which are communicated with the air inlet hole and are close to the sector, and when the inconsistent opening and closing actions are executed, a plurality of air inlet valves in the corresponding air inlet valves are alternately opened and closed.
18. 18. The control method according to claim 13, wherein, The etching process comprises an atomic layer etching process, wherein the atomic layer etching process comprises a modification stage based on a first process gas and a stripping stage based on a second process gas, the first process gas is controlled by a first air inlet valve group to supply air into the process cavity, the second process gas is controlled by a second air inlet valve group to supply air into the process cavity, and the first air inlet valve group and the second air inlet valve group are controlled to supply air into the process cavity through side edges of the process cavity.
19. 19. The control method according to claim 18, wherein, The second air inlet valve group and the first air inlet valve group execute the inconsistent opening and closing actions.
20. 20. The control method according to claim 15, wherein, The atomic layer etching cycle is divided into an initial cycle, an intermediate cycle, and a final cycle in the order of cycle progression, and the opening and closing operation inconsistency operation is performed only in the intermediate cycle.

Description

Semiconductor processing equipment and control method thereof Technical Field The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor manufacturing technology, and in particular, to a semiconductor processing apparatus applied to an etching process, and a control method of the semiconductor processing apparatus. Background In actual production, the foregoing previous process inevitably introduces local defects on the surface of the substrate, and is specifically characterized by the problems of uneven film thickness distribution, uneven film density distribution, deviation of Critical Dimension (CD) of the lithography pattern, uneven spatial distribution of the mask pattern, and the like, and inconsistent features of the regions. The defects have localized and differentiated distribution characteristics, the traditional global uniform etching process cannot conduct targeted compensation on the defects, and finally, the uniformity of key parameters of the etched substrate is not up to the standard, and the device performance and the product yield are seriously affected. The traditional semiconductor etching equipment adopts a centralized air supply system, the edge air supply mostly adopts a unified air supply ring and a main pipe control valve, only the air supply parameter of the whole domain of the process cavity can be uniformly regulated, even if multi-channel air supply control is introduced, the control target is also to uniformly etch the substrate in the etching process, the instant etching quantity is kept uniform, the differential etching control can not be carried out on the inherent defects of the substrate before the process, the defects introduced in the previous process can not be effectively compensated, the uniformity treatment in the etching process can not cause the uniformity of key parameters of the substrate after the final etching to be up to standard, and the electrical property and the product yield of the device are seriously affected. Disclosure of Invention Aiming at the defects in the prior art, the invention aims to provide a semiconductor processing device and a control method thereof, wherein independent on-off control of each air inlet point is realized through one-to-one correspondence arrangement of independent controllable air inlet valves and air inlet holes circumferentially distributed in a surrounding way, and the air inlet valves in the same air inlet valve group can be controlled to execute differentiated opening and closing actions based on region characteristic defects introduced by a previous process of a substrate, so that differentiated etching treatment of each region of the substrate is realized, the previous defect is stabilized accurately, and the product yield is improved. According to one aspect of the invention, a semiconductor processing device is provided, which comprises a cavity, an air source and a controller, wherein the cavity is internally surrounded to form a process cavity and is provided with an exhaust port communicated with the process cavity, the process cavity is vacuumized through the exhaust port to maintain a vacuum environment required by a process, the side wall of the cavity is provided with an air supply ring, a plurality of air inlets are circumferentially and circumferentially distributed and used for supplying air to the edge of the process cavity, the semiconductor processing device further comprises at least one air inlet valve group, the air inlet valve group comprises a plurality of independently controllable air inlet valves, the air inlet valves are annularly arranged on the air supply ring and are correspondingly arranged with the air inlets one by one, the air inlet valve group is communicated with the air source, the air source is used for supplying process gas, one air inlet valve group is used for controlling the supply of the process gas, the process cavity is internally provided with a substrate processed by a previous procedure, and the controller is configured to acquire defects of the substrate which are not consistent in the characteristics of each area before etching the substrate, and perform differential actions on the air inlet valve group and other defect areas based on the control of the same part of the air inlet valve group in the etching process. The etching process comprises an atomic layer etching process, wherein the atomic layer etching process comprises a modification stage and a stripping stage which are alternately and circularly carried out, the gas source comprises a first gas source and a second gas source, the first gas source is used for supplying first process gas of the modification stage, the second gas source is used for supplying second process gas of the stripping stage, and the gas inlet valve group is communicated with the first gas source or the second gas source and used for supplying the first process gas or the second process gas. The controller is in communication connection