Semiconductor Defect Signal Capturing and Statistical System and Method
First Claim
1. A semiconductor defect signal capturing and statistical system, including an on-line monitoring device, characterized in that, said system further includes a defect signal analytical device, a defect information bank and a defect signal statistical device, the defect signal analytical device is connected with the on-line monitoring device, the defect information bank and the defect signal statistical device respectively, the defect information bank contains several pre-determined defect signal modes, the defect signal analytical device includes a defect signal analysis unit, a defect signal capturing unit and a defect information queue, the defect signal capturing unit includes a sequential detection sub-unit, an overlap detection sub-unit, an iterative detection sub-unit, a grouping detection sub-unit and an undefined signal detection sub-unit.
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Abstract
This invention, embodied in software, is a defect signature detection and analysis system to group and classify defects received from semiconductor inspection tools into categories which identify the defect source. This system includes on-line monitoring devices, signal analytical and statistical devices and information database. The signal analytical device includes an analysis unit, capturing unit and an information queue. The capturing unit includes a number of sub-units, including sequential, overlap and iterative detection, grouping, and undefined signal detection. The system uniquely uses image processing techniques on non-image data to group individual defects into larger clusters, thereby increasing the probability of correct classification of the defect modes on semiconductor wafers, while decreasing incorrect or missing classifications. The system improves accuracy and integrity of these captured defect signals, enabling the statistical methods of the present invention to substantially replace the manual inspection of the prior art, and to decrease semiconductor manufacturing cost.
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11 Claims
- 1. A semiconductor defect signal capturing and statistical system, including an on-line monitoring device, characterized in that, said system further includes a defect signal analytical device, a defect information bank and a defect signal statistical device, the defect signal analytical device is connected with the on-line monitoring device, the defect information bank and the defect signal statistical device respectively, the defect information bank contains several pre-determined defect signal modes, the defect signal analytical device includes a defect signal analysis unit, a defect signal capturing unit and a defect information queue, the defect signal capturing unit includes a sequential detection sub-unit, an overlap detection sub-unit, an iterative detection sub-unit, a grouping detection sub-unit and an undefined signal detection sub-unit.
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