Article history: Available online 4 January 2010

This article investigates how to adaptively predict the time-varying metrology delay that could realistically occur in the semiconductor manufacturing practice. Metrology delays pose a great challenge for the existing run-to-run (R2R) controllers, driving the process output significantly away from target if not adequately predicted. First, the expected asymptotic double exponentially weighted m...

ii @Copyright 2012, Xiaomeng Bian iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to all I have ever learnt from. Sincerely. iv Acknowledgement First, I would like to give my sincere thanks to my families: my parents, uncles and aunties, brothers and sisters, and my in-heaven grandparents. Their selfless love and firm support encourage me to face all the challenges in my study-and-life time.

Noncausal estimation algorithms, which involve smoothing, can be used for off-line identification of nonstationary systems. Since smoothing is based on both past and future data, it offers increased accuracy compared to causal (tracking) estimation schemes, incorporating past data only. It is shown that efficient smoothing variants of the popular exponentially weighted least squares and Kalman ...