On-Wafer Temperature Monitoring Sensor for Condition Monitoring of Repaired Electrostatic Chuck
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript demonstrate wireless type temperature distribution measurement system to monitor the abnormal state of the ESC along with its limitations. The work may be of interest to scientific community working in this area. However, there are many ambiguties in the work, which should be clear before its acceptance. Few of them are listed below.
- The novelty in the introduction section is ambiguous. This is the main part of the manuscript.
- The language of the manuscript needs improvemnt. There are various type and grametical mistakes.
- First few lines in the abstract look like part of the introduction part.
- Line 42-46 is not clear. Please rewrite the sentence.
- Line 55, Please provide the reference.
- Besides the mentioned temperature sensors, please mention state of the art semiconductor temperature sensors. For example, following works may be referred:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vacuum.2020.109590
https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4884756
7. Line 177-- Please mention which software is used.
8. Figure 7, Please change the symbols for before and after temperature calibration. Check its caption too, which is incomplete.
9. Line 196 is ambiguous.
10. Line 204-- What is the significance of claimed temperature deviation?
11. Please rewrite the conclusion accordingly.
Author Response
According to the reviewer's comments, the submitted manuscript has been revised and highlighted. Professional English review has also been done. Please find the attachment for the replies.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper deals with measurement results of the On-wafer Temperature Monitoring System (OTMS), which is a "wireless" wafer type sensory system.
The paper is interesting and the system verification is accurate and the effort in performing measurement is appreciable.
The authors may increase the quality of the paper by mentioning all the other "wired" safety/reliability counter measurements for overtemperature conditions. For instance, the authors may also refer to the built-in (on-silicon) solution aimed at preventing the chip damage based on thermal shut-down circuits that are completely not mentioned. (i.e. 10.1109/TEMC.2011.2169964 that also deals with the EMI issue like your paper and maybe others that you may find in the literature dealing with the same issues.).
Generally, it would be better to increase the reference list and, on the basis of an extended comparison table, have a possibility to compare the existing method and the new one proposed.
Please spend a few more words about how Fig. 9 and 10 are obtained (i.e. software/equipment?)
Author Response
According to the reviewer's comments, the submitted manuscript has been revised and highlighted. Professional English review has also been done. Please find the attachment for the replies.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors have satisfactory replied to comments. The work may be accepted.
minor language changes are required
Line 21-32 The words "becoming increasingly" don't look fit.Rewrite the sentence.. "Because..... delicate process control must improve the yield".
"improve the yield reduction and cost increase because of the complicated process". and so on..
Author Response
We have revised the whole paragraph as follows. (Also find the attachment)
Line 21-32 The words "becoming increasingly" don't look fit. Rewrite the sentence.. "Because..... delicate process control must improve the yield". "improve the yield reduction and cost increase because of the complicated process". and so on..
=> Condition monitoring of semiconductor equipment are becoming more important than ever because of the increased complexity of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to enable fabricating nano-scale semiconductor devices. Semiconductor fabrication equipment consists of thousands of parts and components, and malfunctioning parts and components jeopardize the success of chip manufacturing because it misleads the desired process results. A small change in process chamber condition affects the process result, thus the importance of health monitoring for semiconductor equipment has increased [1–3].
The novelty in the introduction section is ambiguous. This is the main part of the manuscript.
=> The temperature of electrostatic chuck (ESC), a wafer suscepter in semiconductor etch equipment, must accurately control the temperature of wafers during the etching process to obtain uniform and consistent process results. Failure to control the precise temperature control lead the rejection of the use from the high-volume semiconductor manufacturing site, one of the most high-cost equipment components, can be repaired for their extended use. In this research, we propose the wireless-type on-wafer temperature monitoring system (OTMS) for easier and faster temperature monitoring to help the temperature measurement of the repaired ESC in atmospheric and vacuum condition. The proposed method that can effectively measure the temperature distribution of the ESC should manage the operational condition of ESC. A successful demonstration of the 300 mm size OTMS for the repaired parts to enhance the quality assurance with the temperature deviation of ±3.83 °C over 65 points of measurement.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
