Real-Time Control of Rapid Thermal Processing Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment

A real-time multivariable control system has been developed for rapid thermal processing (RTP) semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The controller has been used for spatial and temporal temperature control of a semiconductor wafer. The control system, originally developed for prototype equipment at Stanford University, has been transferred and customized for operation on seven on-line RTP reactors at Texas Instruments (Dallas). The control system has been used for more than 5,000 process runs comprising thirteen different thermal fabrication steps of two sub-half-micron CMOS process technologies.