Patent ID: 8129283

Claim:
A plasma processing method, the method comprising steps of: placing on a lower electrode in a processing chamber inside a vacuum reactor, a wafer having on the surface thereof a multilayered structure including a metal material disposed on a high-k material and having a film structure with a step structure; supplying an etching gas into the processing chamber; controlling a processing pressure; generating a plasma in the processing chamber; supplying a bias power of a plurality of frequencies for forming a bias potential on the wafer, so as to process the film structure of the wafer via the plasma by varying an output of the bias power of the plurality of frequencies detecting a time variation of an impedance of the plasma; isolating a component of an impedance of a wall surface status and a component of an impedance above the wafer from the detected time variation of the impedance of the plasma; detecting an end point of the plasma processing according to the detected time variation result of either the isolated impedance of the component of the wall surface status or the isolated impedance of the component above the wafer; and independently controlling the ion energy being incident on the wafer and the distribution thereof by varying the bias output of the plurality of frequencies and the mixing ratio thereof after performing the end point detection.