Patent ID: 7575370

Claim:
A calibrating method for a heat treatment apparatus that includes a processing vessel for accommodating process objects therein, a plurality of heaters and a plurality of temperature sensors; that stores a thermal model for estimating temperature of the process objects in the processing vessel based on outputs of the temperature sensors; that estimates the temperature of the process objects in the processing vessel based on the outputs of the temperature sensors by using the thermal model; and that controls the heaters based on the estimated temperature, to perform a heat treatment to the process objects, wherein the thermal model has a function of estimating temperature of one of the heaters and temperature of the temperature sensors, said method comprising the steps of: driving the heaters to heat an interior of the processing vessel; and calibrating a part of the thermal model involving temperature estimation of said one of the heaters wherein the calibrating step includes the steps of: determining a matrix [K 1 , K 2 . . . , Kn] expressing relationship between an amount of change in the temperature of said one of the heaters and amounts of change in the measured temperatures of the temperature sensors, wherein the matrix is determined so as to satisfy the expression Δ ⁢ ⁢ T = [ K ⁢ ⁢ 1 , ⁢ K ⁢ ⁢ 2 , … ⁢ , Kn ] · [ Δ ⁢ ⁢ Ts ⁢ ⁢ 1 Δ ⁢ ⁢ Ts ⁢ ⁢ 2 ⋮ Δ ⁢ ⁢ Tsn ] where ΔT is said amount of change in the temperature of said heaters and ΔTs 1 . . . , ΔTsn are said amounts of change in the measured temperatures of the respective temperature sensors; determining a difference between an estimated temperature of one of the temperature sensors located closest to the said one of the heaters, as estimated by using the thermal model, and an actual temperature of said one of the temperature sensors measured by the same; and calculating the correction value according to the following expression Correction ⁢ ⁢ value = [ K ⁢ ⁢ 1 , K ⁢ ⁢ 2 , … ⁢ , Kn ] · [ a ⁢ ⁢ 1 a ⁢ ⁢ 2 ⋮ an ] wherein said difference is assigned to one of “a 1 ”, “a 2 ”, . . . “an” corresponding to said one of the temperature sensors located closest to said one of the heaters, while zero is assigned to the remainder of “a 1 ”, “a 2 ,” . . . “an”.