Enabling Manufacturing Productivity Improvement and Test Wafer Cost Reduction

Today’s wafer fabrication plants must carefully balance the need to increase productivity while simultaneously reducing variable costs. There are a couple of main areas where process control (metrology and inspection) equipment can help minimize variable cost. The first is reducing consumables – minimizing the number of wafers that are processed for non-revenue operations, i.e., test wafers. Second is process equipment productivity improvements, by reducing the number of maintenance cycles per year and the associated time lost due to resolving process excursion false alarms. This article will explore these ideas in more detail, to determine an effective method for reducing test wafer cost in a leading-edge 65nm design rule foundry.