Applied Materials, Inc.

Richard C Lyon

Michael E Wilmer

Terry P Reiss

Sherry Cordova

Natalia Kroupnova

Clari Nolet

Yukari Nishimura

Woon Young Toh

Terry Lee Doyle

Evgueni Lobovski

Inna Louneva

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

The present invention provides a manufacturing environment ( ) for a wafer fab, and an SPDA data environment ( ) for acquiring processing parameters and metrology data of production runs. A computation environment ( ) processes the SPDA data to prepare delta graphs ( and ) of the present invention. These delta graphs are then analyzed in an analysis environment ( ). An MES environment ( ) evaluates the analysis and executes a process intervention if the results of the analysis indicate processing or product quality problems in the process run of the manufacturing environment ( ). Additionally, the invention provides for SPDA delta graphs of SPC control charts as well as SPC techniques utilizing process control limits based on delta graphs to identify, analyze and trouble-shoot semiconductor processing problems, in order to improve equipment reliability and wafer yield. The present invention also provides a process ( ) for computer integrated equipment time states including a service procedures module ( ) linked to preventive maintenance time states ( and ) and to a repair time state ( ).

Semiconductor processing techniques

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Boulder Creek, CA, United States of America

Richard C Lyon