Manufacturing intelligence for determining machine subgroups to enhance yield in semiconductor manufacturning

Linewidth control is a critical issue for yield enhancement in semiconductor manufacturing. Most of the existing techniques such as run-to-run control have been developed to control the critical dimension (CD) in photolithography and etching process. However, few studies have addressed the tool behavior that would also affect the result of CD in etching process and the etch bias that is the CD difference between photolithograph and etching process. This study aims to propose a manufacturing intelligence (MI) approach to develop dispatching rules for etching tool in order to reduce the variation of critical dimension measured after etching process and determine the machine subgroups for compensating the etching bias. An empirical study was conducted to estimate the validity of proposed approach and the results showed practical viability of this approach.