Single wafer rapid thermal processing (RTP) is widely used in semiconductor manufacturing. A precisely applied thermal budget during RTP is crucial and relies on the temperature control of the wafer. However, temperature control in the RTP system with a spike-shaped temperature profile is a challenging task, and achieving perfect servo control is almost impossible because of the high temperature ramp-up/down rate and substantial nonlinearity of the process. This paper presents a novel method of control system design to provide a precise thermal budget in the spike RTP system. By tuning controller parameters and designing the set-point profile, the method targets thermal budget indices instead of temperature servo control. A nonlinear control strategy is proposed based on modeling the RTP system as a nonlinear Wiener model. Furthermore, a multivariable control structure is considered to maintain the temperature uniformity within the wafer. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy and provide helpful guidelines for the design of a multivariable control configuration to achieve superior wafer temperature uniformity. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.