Suggestions from Rudolph's Vice President and General Manager of Data Analysis and Review, Mike Plisinski
Our industry is notorious for its periodic swings in demand. In an upswing none of us has time to think about anything other than moving product out the door. When demand levels off what we really want to do is stop and catch our breath, but the smart money says this is the time to prepare for the next upswing. One of the best investments to consider is advanced process monitoring, control and automation software. Though Rudolph has its roots in the instrument business, we also hold the #1 market position in process control software. Our software business maintains the broadest portfolio of process control solutions of any company in the semiconductor industry. From monitoring the performance of an individual tool to integrating and coordinating the entire enterprise, Rudolph’s solutions help manufacturers worldwide increase yields and improve performance every day.
Fault detection and classification frees users from manual monitoring of equipment and processes and lets engineers develop experience-based models that can be applied across processes and even across tool types. When a model detects a condition, the system can respond by simple notification or taking action on the tool.
Run-to-run process control goes beyond traditional statistical process control and process monitoring to allow users to define process goals in terms of desired effects, such as thickness, rather than machine settings, such as time of deposition. Run-to-run control calculates settings, performs analysis of the feedback data and adjusts the process model to keep the process on target.
Automated process monitoring analyzes the relationships between in-process measurements and end-of-line yield and electrical test results, and then recommends changes to the in-process metrology targets to optimize the average end-of-line yield.
Inline yield management uses advanced analytical tools to let yield and defect engineers find the sources of killer defects quickly, analyze edge defects and edge bead removal (EBR), and quickly determine whether emerging defects are impacting yield. It provides easy access to yield impact and line performance information, allowing fab managers and production planners to predict yields and adjust production as needed across different facilities. Its automatic alarms and fast database processing let operators respond more quickly to problems.
Offline yield analysis allows engineers to interrogate and explore process data from any source in the production line, using powerful visualization, analysis and reporting tools to understand and optimize process yields.
Factory automation reduces the potential for costly human errors. Software tools provide a reusable framework that enables operators, factory equipment and all factory systems (MES, APC, SPC, YMS) to communicate seamlessly, coordinating the fast, accurate, reliable flow of data to achieve production goals.
Whatever your goal - increasing productivity by allowing engineers to focus on problem elimination rather than isolation, improving process capability and narrowing process windows, improving yield, reducing cycle time, accelerating ramp, lowering cost of ownership - now is the time to consider a software solution from Rudolph.
