Patent ID: 8608903

Claim:
A plasma processing apparatus comprising: a processing chamber including a dielectric window at a ceiling portion thereof; a coil-shaped RF antenna, provided outside the dielectric window; a substrate supporting unit, provided in the processing chamber, for mounting thereon a target substrate to be processed; a processing gas supply unit for supplying a desired processing gas to the processing chamber to perform a desired plasma process on the target substrate; an RF power supply unit for supplying an RF power to the RF antenna to generate a plasma from the processing gas by an inductive coupling in the processing chamber, the RF power having an appropriate frequency for RF discharge of the processing gas; a correction coil provided at a position, outside the processing chamber, and above the RF antenna where the correction coil is to be inductively coupled with the RF antenna by electromagnetic induction, the correction coil being configured to locally control a plasma density distribution in the processing chamber; and an antenna-coil distance control unit configured to variably control a distance between the RF antenna and the correction coil while supporting the correction coil substantially in parallel with the RF antenna and maintaining the inductive coupling between the correction coil and the RF antenna by electromagnetic induction, wherein the correction coil is not connected to any RF power supply unit.