Abstract
Particle contamination control during plasma processing for manufacturing semiconductors has increasingly become important because of increased integration of LSI. The behavior of particles in a plasma-processing chamber was investigated using a laser light scattering (LLS) technique and the particle growth mechanisms in plasma were clarified. Since LLS technique can measure only high concentration of particles, it is difficult to follow the behavior of particles that flow from the plasma region. Consequently, the measurement of particles in the plasma-processing chamber was conducted by a particle counter using a sampling probe inserted in the chamber. Through the comparison of the measurement results by the LLS and those with the sampling method, the feasibility of the sampling method for the measurement of particles in the plasma process was clarified.
