System to identify a wafer manufacturing problem and method therefor
First Claim
1. A method for determining a response to a wafer manufacturing process problem, the method comprising the steps of:
- generating a wafer map signature corresponding to a wafer that contains defect attributes associated with a wafer manufacturing process;
retrieving one or more stored wafer map signatures from a database, wherein each of the one or more stored wafer man signatures include a description of process tools and/or equipment that the wafer was exposed to prior to signature capture;
matching said wafer map signature with said one or more stored wafer map signatures from said database;
calculating a conditional probability distribution of a process tool type or a determined wafer defect type based on the wafer map signature to be identified; and
combining the calculation with a wafer map signature similarity metric to arrive at a probabilistic recommendation of the wafer manufacturing process to be corrected.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method (400) for determining a response to a wafer manufacturing process problem includes the steps of generating a wafer map signature (406) containing defect attributes to be identified and retrieving (410) one or more wafer map signatures from a database. The wafer map signature to be identified is matched (414) with the one or more wafer map signatures from the database in order to help find a root cause of a defect in a wafer manufacturing process.
This provides at least the advantage that a signature matching capability allows an Operator to more accurately identify a root manufacturing cause of a wafer defect. Furthermore, instant feedback to the wafer manufacturing process can be provided to facilitate rapid correction of manufacturing errors.
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Citations
36 Claims
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1. A method for determining a response to a wafer manufacturing process problem, the method comprising the steps of:
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generating a wafer map signature corresponding to a wafer that contains defect attributes associated with a wafer manufacturing process;
retrieving one or more stored wafer map signatures from a database, wherein each of the one or more stored wafer man signatures include a description of process tools and/or equipment that the wafer was exposed to prior to signature capture;
matching said wafer map signature with said one or more stored wafer map signatures from said database;
calculating a conditional probability distribution of a process tool type or a determined wafer defect type based on the wafer map signature to be identified; and
combining the calculation with a wafer map signature similarity metric to arrive at a probabilistic recommendation of the wafer manufacturing process to be corrected. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A system to identify a manufacturing problem comprising:
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a signature creation function configured to create a wafer map signature corresponding to a wafer that contains defect attributes to be identified and associated with a wafer manufacturing process;
a database, operably coupled to said signature creation function and configured to store a plurality of wafer map signatures;
a signature retrieval function, operably coupled to said signature creation function and configured to retrieve one or more wafer map signatures from said database, wherein each of the one or more stored wafer map signatures include a description of at least one of process tools and equipment that the wafer was exposed to prior to signature capture; and
a signature matching function, operably coupled to said signature retrieval function and configured to match said wafer map signature to be identified with said one or more wafer map signatures retrieved from said database, to calculate a confidence metric based on a similarity between said wafer map signature to be identified with said one or more wafer map signatures retrieved from said database, to calculate a conditional probability distribution of a process tool type or a determined wafer defect type based on the wafer man signature to be identified, and to combine the calculation with the confidence metric to arrive at a probabilistic recommendation of the wafer manufacturing process to be corrected. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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Specification