Wafer fabrication data acquisition and management systems

US6952656B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• Applied Materials, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Sherry Cordova · Sunnyvale, US
• Terry Doyle · Atherton, US
• Natalia Kroupnova · Sunnyvale, US
• Evgueni Lobovski · San Jose, US
• Inna Louneva · Palo Alto, US
• Richard C. Lyon · Ramona, US
• Yukari Nishimura · Sunnyvale, US
• Clari Nolet · Los Altos, US
• Terry Reiss · San Jose, US
• Woon Young Toh · San Jose, US
• Michael E. Wilmer · Palo Alto, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Apr 28, 2000
• Grant date: Oct 4, 2005
• Expiry date: Apr 28, 2020

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G05B19/042
• WIPO field: Control
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

The present invention provides a semiconductor processing device (800) including a tool (802) having one or more sensors, a primary data communication port (804) and a secondary data communication port (806). A sensor data acquisition subsystem (808) acquires sensor data from the tool via the secondary port (806). The data acquisition subsystem (808) acquires MES operation messages via the primary port (804). Sensor data are communicated to a sensor processing unit (828) of a sensor data processing subsystem (810). The sensor processing unit (828) processes and analyzes the sensor data. Additionally, the processing unit (828) can be adapted for making product or processing related decisions, for example activating an alarm if the process is not operating within control limits. In another embodiment, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for processing data from a wafer fab facility (1000) including a plurality of tools (1004–1010) each having a primary data communication port (1012–1018) and a secondary data communication port (1042–1048).