Method and apparatus for autonomous identification of particle contamination due to isolated process events and systematic trends

摘要

A system and method for autonomously tracing a cause of particle contamination during semiconductor manufacture is provided. A contamination analysis system analyzes tool process logs together with particle contamination data for multiple process runs to determine a relationship between systematic particle contamination levels and one or more tool parameters. This relationship is used to predict expected contamination levels associated with regular usage of the tool, and to identify which tool parameters have the largest impact on expected levels of particle contamination. The contamination analysis system also identifies process logs showing unexpected deviant particle contamination levels that exceed expected contamination levels, and traces the cause of the deviant particle contamination to particular process log parameter events.

主权项

1. A system, comprising:
at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein computer-executable components; and at least one processor that executes the following computer-executable components stored on the at least one non-transitory computer readable medium:
a function generation component configured to derive a normal contamination function that characterizes systematic particle contamination from a semiconductor fabrication system as a function of a plurality of tool parameters of tools of the semiconductor fabrication system based on analysis of respective normal tool process logs associated with runs of at least one semiconductor material process on the semiconductor fabrication system producing the systematic particle contamination being within a contamination specification for the at least one semiconductor material process, wherein the normal tool process logs are from a set of tool process logs associated with the runs of the at least one semiconductor material process, and each tool process log comprises values for the tool parameters for an associated run of the at least one semiconductor material process;a parameter identification component configured to identify at least one of the plurality of tool parameters as a cause of the systematic particle contamination based on analysis of the normal contamination function; andan interface component configured to display the identified at least one tool parameter to provide guidance as to where maintenance efforts should be focused in order to control contamination levels while minimizing maintenance downtime.