| Patent application number | Description | Published |
| 20100228370 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TUNING ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL PARAMETERS - A method of advanced process control (APC) for semiconductor fabrication is provided. The method includes providing a present wafer to be processed by a semiconductor processing tool, providing first data of previous wafers that have been processed by the semiconductor processing tool, decoupling noise from the first data to generate second data, evaluating an APC performance based on proximity of the second data to a target data, determining a control parameter based on the APC performance, and controlling the semiconductor processing tool with the control parameter to process the present wafer. | 09-09-2010 |
| 20100234970 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL - A method includes: initializing first and second variables; operating equipment based on the variables; measuring first and second parameters; determining a new value for the first variable based on the first parameter, and calculating a new value for the second variable based on the second parameter and the current value of the second variable; and repeating the operating, measuring, determining and calculating. According to a different aspect, an apparatus includes a computer-readable medium storing a computer program. When executed, the program causes: initializing of first and second variables; operating equipment based on the variables; receiving measured first and second parameters; determining a new value for the first variable based on the first parameter, and calculating a new value for the second variable based on the second parameter and the current value of the second variable; and repeating the operating, measuring, determining and calculating. | 09-16-2010 |
| 20100249974 | ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL WITH NOVEL SAMPLING POLICY - The present disclosure provides a semiconductor manufacturing method. The method includes performing a first process to a first plurality of semiconductor wafers; determining a sampling rate to the first plurality of semiconductor wafers based on process quality; determining sampling fields and sampling points to the first plurality of semiconductor wafers; measuring a subset of the first plurality of semiconductor wafers according to the sampling arte, the sampling fields and the sampling points; modifying a second process according to the measuring; and applying the second process to a second plurality of semiconductor waders. | 09-30-2010 |
| 20100250172 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING WAFER ACCEPTANCE TEST ("WAT") ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL ("APC") WITH ROUTING MODEL - System and method for implementing wafer acceptance test (“WAT”) advanced process control (“APC”) are described. In one embodiment, the method comprises performing an inter-metal (“IM”) WAT on a plurality of processed wafer lots; selecting a subset of the plurality of wafer lots using a lot sampling process; and selecting a sample wafer group using the wafer lot subset, wherein IM WAT is performed on wafers of the sample wafer group to obtain IM WAT data therefore. The method further comprises estimating final WAT data for all wafers in the processed wafer lots from IM WAT data obtained for the sample wafer group and providing the estimated final WAT data to a WAT APC process for controlling processes. | 09-30-2010 |
| 20100268367 | METHOD FOR BIN-BASED CONTROL - A method for providing bin-based control when manufacturing integrated circuit devices is disclosed. The method comprises performing a plurality of processes on a plurality of wafer lots; determining a required bin quantity, an actual bin quantity, and a projected bin quantity; comparing the determined required bin quantity with the determined actual bin quantity and determined projected bin quantity; and modifying at least one of the plurality of processes on the plurality of wafer lots if the determined actual bin quantity and determined projected bin quantity fail to satisfy the determined required bin quantity. | 10-21-2010 |
| 20100292824 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING A WAFER ACCEPTANCE TEST ("WAT") ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL ("APC") WITH NOVEL SAMPLING POLICY AND ARCHITECTURE - System and method for implementing wafer acceptance test (“WAT”) advanced process control (“APC”) are described. In one embodiment, the method comprises performing a key process on a sample number of wafers of a lot of wafers; performing a key inline measurement related to the key process to produce metrology data for the wafers; predicting WAT data from the metrology data using an inline-to-WAT model; and using the predicted WAT data to tune a WAT APC process for controlling a tuning process or a process APC process. | 11-18-2010 |
| 20110010215 | METHOD FOR A BIN RATIO FORECAST AT NEW TAPE OUT STAGE - A method for providing a bin ratio forecast at an early stage of integrated circuit device manufacturing processes is disclosed. The method comprises collecting historical data from one or more processed wafer lots; collect measurement data from one or more skew wafer lots; generating an estimated baseline distribution from the collected historical data and collected measurement data; generating an estimated performance distribution based on one or more specified parameters and the generated estimated baseline distribution; determining a bin ratio forecast by applying a bin definition and a yield degradation factor estimation to the generated estimated performance distribution; determining one or more production targets based on the bin ratio forecast; and processing one or more wafers based on the one or more determined production targets. | 01-13-2011 |
| 20110112678 | ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL FOR NEW TAPEOUT PRODUCT - The present disclosure provides a semiconductor manufacturing method. The method includes providing product data of a product, the product data including a sensitive product parameter; searching existing products according to the sensitive product parameter to identify a relevant product from the existing products; determining an initial value of a processing model parameter to the product using corresponding data of the relevant product; assigning the initial value of the processing model parameter to a processing model associated with a manufacturing process; thereafter, tuning a processing recipe using the processing model; and performing the manufacturing process to a semiconductor wafer using the processing recipe. | 05-12-2011 |