Identifying key process characteristics and predicting etch rate from high-dimension datasets

In semiconductor manufacturing advanced process control (APC) refers to a range of techniques that can be used to improve process capability. As the dimensions of electronic devices have decreased, the application of APC has become more and more important for the critical stages of production processes. However, the economic disadvantage of employing APC is that it requires feedback information in the form of downstream metrology data, which is both time consuming and costly to obtain.