Development of equipment-installed APC system and critical dimension control technology of gate-hard-mask etching using its system

In the current device manufacturing, APC technology becomes important to reduce the deviation of process capability. A conventional APC system is generally installed to MES. In the case of introducing APC to a factory, development of interface and heavy connection-costs between MES and APC are necessary. In order to solve these problems, an equipment-installed APC system was developed and its performance was confirmed by measuring query time. Moreover, in executing APC, an APC recipe group is necessary and by using DOE and RSM, an APC recipe group could be effectively developed. These technologies of the APC system and the APC recipe group were applied to CD control of gate-hard-mask etching and CD deviation could be reduced.