Abstract: A film deposition control system and method in which a deposition rate monitor and an ellipsometer are used to control the thickness of a thin film being deposited on a wafer. The ellipsometer is also used to detect the refractive index of the thin film being deposited, and the detected refractive index value is used to control the ratio of the reactive gases being injected into the processing chamber.

Abstract: A method for testing a semiconductor wafer processing step. An overlying electrical structure is created on a bare wafer to form a test wafer which simulates the surface contours of production wafers that will be exposed to the tested processing step. The overlying electrical structure of the test wafer is created using the same processing steps are used in manufacturing the overlying electrical structures of production wafers. Although the test wafers have the same surface contour as the production wafers they simulate, the test wafers are less expensive to manufacture because the test wafers do not include any underlying layers found in the production wafers which are not exposed during the tested processing step, and therefore the steps which form these layers can be omitted when making test wafers.

Abstract: A film deposition control system and method in which a deposition rate monitor and an ellipsometer are used to control the thickness of a thin film being deposited on a wafer. The ellipsometer is also used to detect the refractive index of the thin film being deposited, and the detected refractive index value is used to control the ratio of the reactive gases being injected into the processing chamber.