Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

John B Crowley

Craig William Christian

Qingsu Wang

Denver L Dolman

A system and method for calculating the performance of a cluster tool using a weighted configuration matrix. The system includes a computer system which maintains a database of entities corresponding to semiconductor wafer processing modules in a fab. A user 'clusters' the entities, i.e., selects entities to reflect the relationship of the constituent modules physically linked together which form the cluster tool. The user also designates a main module against which the main performance events of the cluster tool, such as begin run and end run, are logged in the database. The computer system configures all of the 'up' and 'down' state configuration combinations of the cluster tool modules and displays the configurations for the user. The user specifies a weight for each of the configurations based upon an estimate of the performance the cluster tool while in the respective configuration relative to the performance of the cluster tool in a fully operable configuration. For example, the user may choose the weights based upon the throughput of wafers capable of being processed by the cluster tool in each of the respective configurations, the number of wafer processes capable of being performed by the cluster tool in each of the respective configurations, or the economic value added (EVA) by the wafer processes capable of being performed by the cluster tool in each of the respective configurations. The computer system compiles the configurations and received weights into a weighted configuration matrix which is used to calculate the performance of the cluster tool. In particular, the E10 metrics and OEE metric components are calculated as a measure of the reliability, availability, maintainability, operational efficiency and utilization aspects of performance of the cluster tool over a total period of time. Formulas for calculating various of the metrics using the configuration matrix are provided. The method is applicable to both sequential and parallel type cluster tools and does not require additional data tracking beyond currently tracked data.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

John B Crowley