Applied Materials, Inc.

Inna Louneva

Michael E Wilmer

Terry P Reiss

Natalia Kroupnova

Sherry Cordova

Clari Nolet

Yukari Nishimura

Woon Young Toh

Terry Lee Doyle

Richard C Lyon

Evgueni Lobovski

The present invention provides a semiconductor processing device () including a tool () having one or more sensors, a primary data communication port () and a secondary data communication port (). A sensor data acquisition subsystem () acquires sensor data from the tool via the secondary port (). The data acquisition subsystem () acquires MES operation messages via the primary port (). Sensor data are communicated to a sensor processing unit () of a sensor data processing subsystem (). The sensor processing unit () processes and analyzes the sensor data. Additionally, the processing unit () can be adapted for making product or processing related decisions, for example activating an alarm if the process is not operating within control limits. In another embodiment, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for processing data from a wafer fab facility () including a plurality of tools () each having a primary data communication port () and a secondary data communication port ().

Wafer fabrication data acquisition and management systems

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Inna Louneva