US-20260126422-A1 - SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR REAL-TIME MONITORING OF PARTICLES IN OZONE

US20260126422A1US 20260126422 A1US20260126422 A1US 20260126422A1US-20260126422-A1

Abstract

Disclosed is a system and a method for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone comprising an ozone reduction device for heating and reducing an ozone provided by an ozone source into an oxygen along a spiral conveying path and a particle counter for real-time monitoring of particles in the oxygen. The ozone source optionally shunts to supply a portion of the ozone to the ozone reduction device and another portion of the ozone to a process equipment, the particle counter can be used to monitor particles in the oxygen in real time while the process equipment is performing a manufacturing process, thereby preventing other non-ozone particles contained in the ozone from causing pollution, and also proving that an ozone gas provided by an ozone generator as the ozone source or an ozone tail gas emitted by the process equipment as the ozone source does not contain polluting particles.

Inventors

Shin-Hua Tseng
Yu-Jung LIN
Yu-Ming Chen

Assignees

Finesse Technology Co., Ltd.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260507
Application Date: 20250202
Priority Date: 20250103

Claims (20)

1 . A system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone, comprising: an ozone reduction device for heating and reducing an ozone provided by an ozone source into an oxygen along a spiral conveying path; and a particle counter for real-time monitoring of a number of a particle and/or a numerical value of a particle size in the oxygen.
2 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the ozone reduction device comprises: an air inlet conduit communicated to the ozone source; a gas conveying pipe used for introducing the ozone provided by the ozone source through the air inlet conduit, and the gas conveying pipe conveys the ozone via the spiral conveying path; a heating element used for providing a heat energy to heat the ozone conveyed by the gas conveying pipe, so that the ozone is heated by the heat energy when flowing along the spiral conveying path and reduced into the oxygen; and an air outlet conduit communicated to the gas conveying pipe to discharge the oxygen obtained by reducing the ozone.
3 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the gas conveying pipe is a spiral pipe, and the gas conveying pipe is spirally sleeved on an exterior of the heating element.
4 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the heating element heats only the ozone in the gas conveying pipe directly, heats the gas conveying pipe and the ozone in the gas conveying pipe simultaneously, and/or heats the ozone in the gas conveying pipe indirectly by heating the gas conveying pipe.
5 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 2 , further comprising a heat insulation element, the heat insulation element coating one of or more than one of the gas conveying pipe, the heating element, the air inlet conduit and/or the air outlet conduit to maintain a heating temperature of the ozone.
6 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 2 , further comprising a thermometer used for measuring a heating temperature of the heat energy provided by the heating element on the ozone in the gas conveying pipe.
7 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 6 , further comprising a temperature control element used for controlling the heating element to provide the heat energy according to the heating temperature measured by the thermometer so as to heat the ozone to a preset temperature.
8 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 2 , further comprising an air inlet adapter and an air outlet adapter, the air inlet adapter being connected between the air inlet conduit and the gas conveying pipe, the air outlet adapter being connected between the gas conveying pipe and the air outlet conduit.
9 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a cooling device for cooling the oxygen obtained by heating and reducing the ozone with the ozone reduction device.
10 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a process equipment, wherein the ozone source provides at least one portion of the ozone to the ozone reduction device for heating and reducing the at least one portion of the ozone into the oxygen, and the ozone source provides another portion of the ozone to the process equipment to perform a process step.
11 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the particle counter simultaneously and instantaneously monitors the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size in the oxygen generated by heating and reducing the at least one portion of the ozone when the process equipment uses the other portion of the ozone to perform the process step.
12 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 11 , wherein the process equipment determines whether the ozone is contaminated by the particle based on the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size of the particle counter, thereby controlling to continue or to stop introducing the other portion of the ozone provided by the ozone source into the process equipment.
13 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the ozone source shunts to supply the at least one portion of the ozone and the other portion of the ozone through a shunt pipe, thereby providing the at least one portion of the ozone to the ozone reduction device and providing the other portion of the ozone to the process equipment respectively.
14 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 13 , wherein a control valve is provided between the ozone source and the shunt pipe to control supplying or stop supplying the at least one portion of the ozone and/or the other portion of the ozone according to the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size.
15 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the particle counter uses a light source to provide a light ray to illuminate the oxygen, causing the particle in the oxygen to scatter or diffract, and then analyzes characteristics of the light ray of the light source to obtain the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size.
16 . The system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a pure oxygen source for supplying a pure oxygen to the ozone reduction device before the ozone reduction device heating the ozone provided by the ozone source to reduce the ozone into the oxygen until the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size monitored by the particle counter are/is zero.
17 . A method for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone, using the system for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 1 to real-time monitor the particle in the ozone, comprising following steps: performing an ozone providing step, for providing the ozone using the ozone source; performing an oxidation-reduction step, for using the ozone reduction device to heat and reduce the ozone provided by the ozone source into the oxygen along the spiral conveying path; and performing a monitoring step, for using the particle counter to monitor in real time the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size in the oxygen.
18 . The method for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 17 , wherein further comprising performing a zeroing step after performing the ozone providing step and before performing the oxidation-reduction step, so as to make the number of the particle and/or the numerical value of the particle size obtained by monitoring with the particle counter zero.
19 . The method for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 17 , wherein further comprising performing a cooling step after performing the oxidation-reduction step and before performing the monitoring step, for cooling the oxygen obtained by heating and reducing the ozone with the ozone reduction device.
20 . The method for real-time monitoring of particles in ozone as claimed in claim 17 , wherein further comprising performing a shunt step for shunting supply of the ozone after performing the ozone providing step and before performing the oxidation-reduction step.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application claims the benefit of priority from, and is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/967,015, filed on Dec. 3, 2024, entitled “OZONE REDUCTION DEVICE”, which claims the benefit of priority of Taiwan Patent Application No. 113211954, filed on Nov. 4, 2024. In addition, this application also claims priority from Taiwan Patent Application No. 114100301, filed on Jan. 3, 2025; claims priority from Taiwan Patent Application No. 113211954, filed on Nov. 4, 2024; and claims China Patent Application No. 202510007486.X, filed on Jan. 3, 2025, each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entireties. BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE 1. Field of Disclosure The disclosure relates to a system and a method for monitoring particles contained in ozone gas, more particularly to a method integrating ozone gas reduction technique and post-ozone reduction particle monitoring technique, and a system designed according to the method. 2. Related Art Ozone has been found capable of oxidizing organic and/or metallic materials and thus can be applied in semiconductor wafer cleaning and processing, for example, to remove unwanted photoresist residues. Ozone can be used in gaseous form (dry ozone technique), but it can also be dissolved in water and used as ozone water (wet ozone technique). For example, ozone can be used to remove photoresist after a series of photolithography and etching processes. Dry ozone technique or wet ozone technique can be applied to the surface of semiconductor wafers. Dry ozone technique exposes the surface of semiconductor wafers to ozone gas and one type of gas or more than one type of gas to oxidize the materials on the surface of the wafer. Wet ozone technique exposes the semiconductor wafer surface to ozone and process fluid [such as deionized (DI) water or chemical solution] to oxidize the materials on the wafer surface. Since the cleanliness of the wafer surface will affect the subsequent semiconductor manufacturing processes and the yield of products, to such an extent that up to 50% of all production losses are caused by wafer surface contamination. The most common major contamination includes metal, organic and particulate residues. When ozone is used in semiconductor component manufacturing processes, contamination caused by impurities contained in ozone, especially metal contamination, is a serious problem. The metals constituting the contamination source include, for example, the metal electrodes of a reaction chamber where ozone is generated by high voltage discharge, or the reaction products resulting from the reaction between ozone and a metal pipeline used for supplying ozone. These metallic impurities have a significant impact on the performance of semiconductor components, including electrical properties such as electrical conductivity, resistance and dielectric constant. For example, metal contamination can cause leakage current in the p-n structure, which in turn leads to a decrease in the breakdown voltage of oxides and a reduction in the carrier life cycle. The conventional technique known at present uses a gas filter to remove impurities from ozone used in semiconductor component manufacturing processes. One known conventional gas filter uses, for example, an adsorbent capable of adsorbing 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, conventional techniques known in the art have also attempted to continuously improve the electrode structure and electrode materials used for high voltage discharge in ozone generators, so as to make the generated ozone contain less metal impurities Since ozone generators generate ozone by discharge between metal electrodes, metal particles generated by the metal electrodes are usually one of the sources of ozone pollution. In order to solve the above-mentioned problem of ozone pollution source, a conventional technique (e.g., Taiwan Patent Publication No. 200605208A) discloses adding a molecular permeable membrane capable of filtering metal particles into the ozone gas supply system. In addition, conventional techniques (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,186,647B2 and 9,764,268B2) disclose adding a gas filter to an ozone generating device to filter solid particles with a particle size greater than 0.2 μm to remove impurities and foreign body. However, after using the gas filters or molecular permeable membranes of these ozone generating devices for a period of time, it is impossible to know whether they still maintain the expected effect. Usually, it is required to wait until the device is shut down and use a test wafer (blank wafer) and an optical microscope to perform a scan inspection. In addition to cleaning, ozone has also been found capable of growing an oxide layer that can be used as a passivation layer or an interface layer for