System and method for managing semiconductor manufacturing defects

• US 9,880,892 B2
• Filed: 02/24/2014
• Issued: 01/30/2018
• 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:
  US14/187,783
• Publication Number:
  US 20150241511A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,436 Days
• Field of Search: 32475001-76501
• 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

A method of managing semiconductor manufacturing defects, the method including: 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 a 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 an initial predicted defect rate for the plurality of first IC products wherein the manufacturing reliability model reestablishes the initial predicted defect rate.

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 manufacturing line and included within a shared system, wherein each of the plurality of first IC products are communicatively connected to a reliability model for the manufacturing line, and wherein the cumulative aging parameter is dependent on a product operating condition;

calculating an observed defect rate for the plurality of first IC products based on the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of first IC products;

adjusting the reliability model for the manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from an initial 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 first IC products to yield a new predicted defect rate, wherein the variable includes an aging parameter defined as 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 semiconductor manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density; and

redistributing an operating load on the plurality of first IC products within the 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 the 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 determining a production parameter for each of the plurality of first IC products with a manufacturing sensor, wherein the adjusting of the manufacturing reliability model is further in response to the determined production parameter.

7. 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 the cumulative aging parameter of each of the 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.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the redistributing of the operating load includes reducing an electrical load on one IC product in the plurality of first IC products and increasing an electrical load on another IC product in the plurality of first IC products.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the product operating condition includes an effective operating temperature (T_teff) for each of the plurality of first IC products over a time interval Δ

t, the effective operating temperature being determined by the formula;

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the cumulative aging parameter includes an effective operating time (t_opeff) for the device under analysis, the effective operating time being determined by the formula:

11. 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 IC products produced with a manufacturing line and included within a shared system, wherein each of the plurality of IC products are communicatively connected to a reliability model for the manufacturing line, and wherein the cumulative aging parameter is dependent on a product operating condition;

a calculating component which calculates an observed defect rate for the plurality of IC products based on the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of IC products;

a modeling component which adjusts the reliability model for the manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from an initial predicted defect rate for the plurality of 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 first IC products to yield a new predicted defect rate, wherein the variable includes an aging parameter defined as electromigration degradation of circuitry in the selected first IC products; and

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

a prioritization component which assigns a relative probability to each of a plurality of potential semiconductor manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density, and redistributes an operating load on the plurality of first IC products within the shared system based on the adjusted reliability model.

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

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of IC products includes a failed IC product.

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

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the product operating condition includes one of a temperature and a voltage.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the shared system includes a central data repository which stores the cumulative aging parameters of each of the plurality of IC products.

17. A program product stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the program product operative to manage semiconductor manufacturing defects when executed, the non-transitory 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 manufacturing line and included within a shared system, wherein each of the plurality of IC products are communicatively connected to a reliability model for the manufacturing line, and wherein the cumulative aging parameter is dependent on a product operating condition;

calculating an observed defect rate for the plurality of IC products based on the cumulative aging parameter for each of the plurality of IC products;

adjusting the reliability model for the manufacturing line in response to the observed defect rate being different from an initial 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 first IC products to yield a new predicted defect rate, wherein the variable includes an aging parameter defined as 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 semiconductor manufacturing defects based on the manufacturing defect density; and

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