Plasma Impedance Monitoring with Real-time Cluster Analysis for RF Plasma Etching Endpoint Detection of Dielectric Layers

Etching endpoint detection with plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) is demonstrated for small area dielectric layers inductive coupled plasma etching. The endpoint is determined by the impedance harmonic signals variation from the I-V monitoring system. Measuring plasma impedance has been examined as a relatively simple method of detecting variations in plasma and surface conditions without contamination at low cost. Cluster analysis algorithm is modified and applied to real-time endpoint detection for sensitivity enhancement in this work. For verification, the detected endpoint by PIM and real-time cluster analysis is compared with widely used optical emission spectroscopy (OES) signals. The proposed technique shows clear improvement of sensitivity with significant noise reduction when it is compared with OES signals. This technique is expected to be applied to various plasma monitoring applications including fault detections as well as end point detection.