High-performance temperature control system for resistance furnace annealing and crystal growth of semiconductor compounds

Abstract

This paper describes the control system for the annealing and growth of semiconductor crystals. In this process, precise temperature control is crucial to obtain high-quality samples. For this reason, a high-performance temperature control based on the PID controller augmented in the gain-scheduling (G-S) path has been applied. To overcome the drawback related to the synthesis procedure of the controller directly on the plant, the modeling stage has been introduced. At this stage, in the MATLAB/Simulink environment, a simulation model was built, the task of which is to approximate the operation of the test stand. Simulation and experimental tests indicate an advantage of the proposed control system compared to the reference solution. Simulations and experiments were performed for the PID controller in standard configuration and with G-S. A shortening of the temperature output signal rise time for a system with G-S was observed compared to a standard close system.

Keywords

• Gain-scheduling PID control
• Semiconductor crystals growth
• Resistance furnace