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:
Nov. 23, 1999
Filed:
Apr. 02, 1997
Applicant:
Inventors:
Ashok V Kulkarni, San Jose, CA (US);
Paul Rockwell, Santa Cruz, CA (US);
Assignee:
KLA Instruments Corporation, San Jose, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H01L / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
702 83 ; 702 35 ; 702 81 ; 702 82 ; 702 84 ; 36446816 ; 36446817 ; 36446828 ; 438 10 ; 438 12 ; 438 18 ;
Abstract
Techniques for improving manufacturing process control based on inspection of manufactured items at intermediate process steps, based on clustering and binning of defect data. Additionally, the using the defect data produced by inspection machines to improve manufacturing process control specifically relating to semiconductor manufacturing process control. Examples described here relate specifically to semiconductor wafers, but may be generalized to any manufacturing process.