A Knowledge Database on Thermal Control in Manufacturing Processes (Molding, Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Micro-Scale Manufacturing)

Control in Semiconductor Wafer Manufacturing

A semiconductor wafer undergoes a wide range of processes before it is transformed from a bare silicon wafer to one populated with millions of transistor circuits. Such processes include Physical or Chemical Vapor Deposition, (PVD, CVD), Chemical-Mechanical Planarization (CMP), Plasma Etch, Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP), and photolithography. As feature sizes keep shrinking, process control pl...

Manufacturing Processes and Process Control

An Ontology for Production Control of Semiconductor Manufacturing Processes

In this paper, we describe an ontology for a hierarchically organized production control system in semiconductor manufacturing. The semiconductor manufacturing domain is characterized by reentrant product flows, sequence dependent setup-times, prescribed due-dates, a diverse product mix, a mix of different process types including batch processes and preventive maintenance issues because of comp...

Symbiotic Simulation Control in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly complex and asset intensive process. Solutions are needed to automate control of equipment and improve efficiency. We describe a symbiotic simulation control system which uses reactive what-if analysis to find a stable configuration of a wet bench tool set. This control system is based on a generic framework for symbiotic simulation. We show that symbioti...

Inspection in Semiconductor Manufacturing

In-line microscopy must keep up with the flow of manufacturing. At an inspection point, of which there are several in the process stream, a fraction of the wafers will be inspected, typically on the order of 20%. The fraction of wafers inspected depends on the maturity of the process, the complexity of the product, and the particular process step being monitored. State-of-the-art inline imaging...