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:
Sep. 23, 2003
Filed:
Mar. 08, 2000
Michael R. Conboy, Austin, TX (US);
Sam H. Allen, Jr., New Brunfels, TX (US);
Elfido Coss, Jr., Austin, TX (US);
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
The detection of a processing deviation in a multiple stage wafer processing system is achieved by assigning individual wafers a set of positional coordinates each time the wafer moves within the wafer processing system. In an example embodiment, a wafer is placed into a first processing stage and it is rotated to a certain angle of rotation. As the wafer moves from one processing stage to another the wafer is given a different angle of rotation; both the rotation angle and the wafer location are then recorded as a set of positional coordinates. The processed wafer is examined for surface deviations arising from variations in the processing parameters. The positional coordinates are used to develop a wafer movement map that aids in identifying the processing stage location where the deviation in the processing parameters occurred. An important advantage is the increased processing deviation traceability that the method brings to wafer processing.