| US 7,575,370 B2 | ||
| Heat treatment apparatus and method of calibrating the apparatus | ||
| Youngchul Park, Tokyo-To (Japan); Kazuhiro Kawamura, Tokyo-To (Japan); and Yuichi Takenaga, Tokyo-To (Japan) | ||
| Assigned to Tokyo Electron Limited, Tokyo (Japan) | ||
| Appl. No. 10/561,976 PCT Filed Jul. 01, 2004, PCT No. PCT/JP2004/009326 § 371(c)(1), (2), (4) Date May 22, 2006, PCT Pub. No. WO2005/004214, PCT Pub. Date Jan. 13, 2005. |
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| Claims priority of application No. 2003-189330 (JP), filed on Jul. 01, 2003. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2007/0195853 A1, Aug. 23, 2007 | ||
| Int. Cl. G01K 15/00 (2006.01); G01K 19/00 (2006.01); G01K 3/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 374—1 [374/137; 432/241] | 6 Claims |
| 1. A calibrating method for a heat treatment apparatus that includes a processing vessel for accommodating process objects
therein, a plurality of heaters and a plurality of temperature sensors; that stores a thermal model for estimating temperature
of the process objects in the processing vessel based on outputs of the temperature sensors; that estimates the temperature
of the process objects in the processing vessel based on the outputs of the temperature sensors by using the thermal model;
and that controls the heaters based on the estimated temperature, to perform a heat treatment to the process objects, wherein
the thermal model has a function of estimating temperature of one of the heaters and temperature of the temperature sensors,
said method comprising the steps of:
driving the heaters to heat an interior of the processing vessel; and
calibrating a part of the thermal model involving temperature estimation of said one of the heaters
wherein the calibrating step includes the steps of:
determining a matrix [K1, K2 . . . , Kn] expressing relationship between an amount of change in the temperature of said one of the heaters and amounts
of change in the measured temperatures of the temperature sensors, wherein the matrix is determined so as to satisfy the expression
 where ΔT is said amount of change in the temperature of said heaters and ΔTs1 . . . , ΔTsn are said amounts of change in the measured temperatures of the respective temperature sensors;
determining a difference between an estimated temperature of one of the temperature sensors located closest to the said one
of the heaters, as estimated by using the thermal model, and an actual temperature of said one of the temperature sensors
measured by the same; and
calculating the correction value according to the following expression
 wherein said difference is assigned to one of “a1”, “a2”, . . . “an” corresponding to said one of the temperature sensors located closest to said one of the heaters, while zero
is assigned to the remainder of “a1”, “a2,” . . . “an”.
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