The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 11, 1989
Filed:
May. 04, 1987
Gabriel G Barna, Richardson, TX (US);
Charles Ratliff, Richardson, TX (US);
Texas Instruments Incorporated, Dallas, TX (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and process for detecting aberrations in production process operations is provided. In one embodiment, operations of a plasma etch reactor (10) are monitored to detect aberrations in etching operations. A reference end-point trace (EPT) is defined (50), regions are defined in the reference EPT (52) and characteristics and tolerances for each region are defined (54). The etcher is run (56) and an actual EPT is obtained from the running of the etcher. The actual EPT is analyzed (58) by comparing characteristics of the regions of the actual EPT with characteristics of corresponding regions of the reference EPT. If the characteristics of the actual EPT exceed those of the reference EPT by predefined tolerances (62) a signal is generated (68). The system also checks for aberrations which are manifested by predefined EPT characteristics and signals when those are detected.