E-chuck for automated clamped force adjustment and calibration

1. A semiconductor manufacturing method, comprising:

performing a first process to a wafer;

measuring the wafer for wafer data after the first process;

securing the wafer on an E-chuck in a processing chamber;

collecting sensor data from a sensor embedded in the E-chuck;

adjusting clamping forces to the E-chuck based on the wafer data and the sensor data; and

thereafter performing a second process to the wafer secured on the E-chuck in the processing chamber.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting further includes adjusting the clamping forces based on post-measurement data obtained from wafers that have been processed on the E-chuck in the processing chamber by the second process.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising implementing a process model to relate the post-measurement data to the clamping forces.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting includes applying a process model to the wafer data to relate the wafer data to the clamping forces.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second process includes a semiconductor process selected from the group consisting of etching, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and physical vapor deposition (PVD).

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first process includes a lithography patterning to form a photoresist pattern.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the wafer data includes critical dimensions of the photoresist pattern.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting includes selectively and independently adjusting each of the clamping forces to the E-chuck to compensate a within-wafer non-uniformity introduced to the wafer during the performing of the first process.

9. A semiconductor manufacturing method, comprising:

positioning a wafer on a wafer stage in a processing chamber;

feeding forward pre-measurement data to a process control module;

collecting sensor data from a wafer stage sensor integrated with the wafer stage;

generating a tuning target based on the pre-measurement data and the sensor data;

adjusting clamping forces by the process control module based on the tuning target, wherein the clamping forces are applied to hold the wafer stage to the processing chamber; and

thereafter performing a process to the wafer positioned on the wafer stage in the processing chamber.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the wafer stage is an electrostatic chuck (E-chuck).

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising implementing a first process model to relate between the pre-measurement data and first offsets to the clamping forces.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the generating includes generating the tuning target according to the first offsets.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

feeding back post-measurement data to the process control module; and

implementing a second process model to relate between the post-measurement data and second offsets to the clamping forces.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the generating includes generating the tuning target according to the second offsets.