Process control apparatus, systems, and methods

• US 20050136560A1
• Filed: 12/19/2003
• Published: 06/23/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Helwig, Christofer C.
• Granted Patent: US 6,999,848 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 438/14
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 22/20 Sequence of activities consisting of a plurality of measurements, corrections, marking or sorting steps

Abstract

An apparatus and a system, as well as a method and article, may operate to receive a critical dimension associated with each wafer included in a lot of wafers at a station controller coupled to a metrology tool, calculate a modified recipe time associated with each wafer in the lot based on the critical dimension and a base time, and send the modified recipe time in a message to a station controller coupled to an etch tool to process each of the wafers included in the lot.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a critical dimension associated with each wafer included in a lot of wafers at a station controller coupled to a metrology tool;

calculating a modified recipe time associated with each wafer in the lot of wafers based on the critical dimension and a base time; and

sending the modified recipe time in a message to a station controller coupled to an etch tool to process a selected wafer included in the lot of wafers.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

repeating the sending for all wafers included in the lot of wafers.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the critical dimension in a database.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the message comprises a Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Equipment Communication Standard (SECS) message, further comprising:

incorporating the critical dimension into the SECS message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the modified recipe time further comprises:

calculating a time value approximately equal to a sum of the base time, an offset time, and a quotient of a delta-to-target dimension divided by a slope relationship, wherein the delta-to-target dimension is approximately equal to the critical dimension minus a selected target value.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the slope relationship is approximately equal to a quotient of an etch bias distance divided by an etch time.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

querying a database to obtain the critical dimension indexed according to a wafer number associated with the selected wafer.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

measuring a plurality of sites across a single wafer to provide a corresponding plurality of measurements; and

processing the corresponding plurality of measurements to provide the critical dimension.

9. An article comprising a machine-accessible medium having associated data, wherein the data, when accessed, results in a machine performing:

receiving a critical dimension associated with each wafer included in a lot of wafers at a station controller coupled to a metrology tool;

calculating a modified recipe time associated with each wafer in the lot of wafers based on the critical dimension and a base time; and

sending the modified recipe time in a message to a station controller coupled to an etch tool to process a selected wafer included in the lot of wafers.

10. The article of claim 9, wherein the data, when accessed, results in the machine performing:

receiving the critical dimension in extensible markup language (XML) format from a database.

11. The article of claim 9, wherein calculating the modified recipe time further comprises:

calculating a time value approximately equal to a sum of the base time, an offset time, and a quotient of a delta-to-target dimension divided by a slope relationship, wherein the delta-to-target dimension is approximately equal to the critical dimension minus a selected target value.

12. The article of claim 11, wherein the offset time is associated with a chamber selected to process the lot of wafers.

13. The article of claim 11, wherein the slope relationship is determined by experimentally correlating an etch time to an etch bias distance using a plurality of modified recipe times including the modified recipe time.

14. The article of claim 9, wherein the critical dimension comprises an average of measurements taken at a plurality of sites across a single wafer.

15. An apparatus, comprising:

a station controller to receive a critical dimension of each wafer included in a lot of wafers; and

a module to calculate a modified recipe time approximately equal to a sum of a base time, an offset time, and a quotient of a delta-to-target dimension divided by a slope relationship, wherein the delta-to-target dimension is determined by the critical dimension and a selected target value, and wherein the module is to transmit the modified recipe time to an etch tool for processing a selected wafer included in the lot of wafers according to the modified recipe time.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, further comprising:

a database module to store the critical dimension of a selected wafer included in the lot of wafers.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising:

a database query module to send a query to the database module and to receive a query result including the critical dimension.

18. A system, comprising:

a first station controller to receive a critical dimension of each wafer included in a lot of wafers;

a module to calculate a modified recipe time approximately equal to a sum of a base time, an offset time, and a quotient of a delta-to-target dimension divided by a slope relationship, wherein the delta-to-target dimension is determined by the critical dimension and a selected target value; and

an etch tool to receive the modified recipe time from the module and to process a selected wafer included in the lot of wafers according to the modified recipe time.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

a parsing module to extract the critical dimension from a database query result and to send the critical dimension to a second station controller coupled to the etch tool.

20. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

a metrology tool coupled to the first station controller.

21. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

a second station controller coupled to the etch tool.

22. The system of claim 18, wherein the critical dimension comprises a nested horizontal mean associated with the selected wafer.