System and method for managing semiconductor manufacturing defects

• US 10,089,161 B2
• Filed: 11/07/2017
• Issued: 10/02/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bickford, Jeanne P. S., Habib, Nazmul, Li, Baozhen, Nsame, Pascal A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Koval, Melissa
• Assistant Examiner(s): Maini, Rahul
• Application Number:
  US15/805,414
• Publication Number:
  US 20180074874A1
• Time in Patent Office: 329 Days
• Field of Search: 324750-76501
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/2849 Environmental or reliability testing, e.g. burn-in or validation tests of individual semiconductors G01R31/2642; of printed circuits boards G01R31/2817; of IC's G01R31/2855
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 22/10 Measuring as part of the manufacturing process burn-in G01R31/2855
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 22/20 Sequence of activities consisting of a plurality of measurements, corrections, marking or sorting steps

Abstract

The present disclosure generally provides for a method of managing semiconductor manufacturing defects. The method includes: determining a cumulative aging parameter for each of a plurality of first IC products produced with a particular manufacturing line, the cumulative aging parameter being dependent on a product operating condition; calculating an observed defect rate for the plurality of first IC products based on a difference between a predicted value of the aging parameter and the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of first IC products; and adjusting a manufacturing reliability model for the particular manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from a predicted defect rate for the plurality of first IC products.

Claims

1. A method of managing semiconductor manufacturing defects, the method comprising:

determining a cumulative aging parameter for each of a plurality of first IC products produced with a particular manufacturing line, the cumulative aging parameter being dependent on a product operating condition;

calculating an observed defect rate for the plurality of first IC products based on a difference between a predicted value of the aging parameter and the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of first IC products; and

adjusting a manufacturing reliability model for the particular manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from a predicted defect rate for the plurality of first IC products, wherein the adjusting of the reliability model includes;

adjusting a variable related to a root failure cause of a selected first IC product from the plurality of IC products to yield a new predicted defect rate, wherein the variable is based on electromigration degradation of circuitry in the selected first IC product;

calculating a manufacturing defect density based on the observed defect rate; and

assigning a relative probability to each of a plurality of potential manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density; and

redistributing an operating load on the plurality of IC products within a shared system, based on the adjusted reliability model.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cumulative aging parameter includes a total operating time.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of first IC products includes a failed IC product.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising determining a root failure cause for the failed IC product based on the cumulative aging parameter.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the product operating condition includes one of a temperature and a voltage.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising calculating a manufacturing defect density based on the observed defect rate.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising assigning a relative probability to each of a plurality of potential semiconductor manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a production parameter for each of the plurality of IC products with a manufacturing sensor, wherein the adjusting of the manufacturing reliability model is further in response to the determined production parameter.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the cumulative aging parameter for each of a plurality of second IC products produced with the particular manufacturing line; and

calculating an observed defect rate for the plurality of second IC products based on a difference between the cumulative aging parameter of each of the second IC products and a predicted value of the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of second IC products;

wherein the adjusting of the manufacturing reliability model for the particular manufacturing line further includes adjusting variables based on the observed defect rate for the plurality of second IC products being different from a predicted defect rate for the plurality of second IC products.

10. A system for managing semiconductor manufacturing defects, the system comprising:

a determining component which determines a cumulative aging parameter for each of a plurality of first IC products produced with a particular manufacturing line, the cumulative aging parameter being dependent on a product operating condition;

a calculating component which calculates an observed defect rate for the plurality of first IC products based on a difference between a predicted value of the aging parameter and the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of first IC products; and

a modeling component which adjusts a manufacturing reliability model for the particular manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from a predicted defect rate for the plurality of first IC products, wherein the modeling component is configured to adjust the reliability model by performing actions including;

adjusting a variable related to a root failure cause of a selected first IC product from the plurality of IC products to yield a new predicted defect rate, wherein the variable is based on electromigration degradation of circuitry in the selected first IC product;

calculating a manufacturing defect density based on the observed defect rate;

assigning a relative probability to each of a plurality of potential manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density; and

redistributing an operating load on the plurality of IC products within a shared system, based on the adjusted reliability model.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the cumulative aging parameter includes a total operating time.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the plurality of IC products includes a failed IC product.

13. The system of claim 12, further comprising a diagnostic component which determines a root failure cause for the failed IC product based on the cumulative aging parameter.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the modeling component further adjusts variables of the manufacturing reliability model based on the root failure cause for the failed IC product.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the product operating condition includes one of a temperature and a voltage.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the calculating component further calculates a manufacturing defect density based on the observed defect rate.

17. The system of claim 10, further comprising a prioritization component which assigns a relative probability to each of a plurality of potential semiconductor manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density.

18. The system of claim 10, further comprising a central data repository which stores the cumulative aging parameters of each of the plurality of IC products.

19. A program product stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the program product operative to manage semiconductor manufacturing defects when executed, the computer readable storage medium comprising program code for:

determining a cumulative aging parameter for each of a plurality of first IC products produced with a particular manufacturing line, the cumulative aging parameter being dependent on a product operating condition;

calculating an observed defect rate for the plurality of first IC products based on a difference between a predicted value of the aging parameter and the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of first IC products; and

adjusting a manufacturing reliability model for the particular manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from a predicted defect rate for the plurality of first IC products, wherein the adjusting of the reliability model includes;

adjusting a variable related to a root failure cause of a selected first IC product from the plurality of IC products to yield a new predicted defect rate, wherein the variable is based on electromigration degradation of circuitry in the selected first IC product;

calculating a manufacturing defect density based on the observed defect rate; and

assigning a relative probability to each of a plurality of potential manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density; and

redistributing an operating load on the plurality of IC products with a shared system, based on the adjusted reliability model.