Benefits of APC at Infineon application examples from production fab Villach

APC (Advanced Process Control) has gained increasing attention over the past few years. It is supposed that it is a key for the success in increasing process stability/yield and productivity/costs. The paper gives a definition of the APC disciplines Fault Detection and Classification (FDC), Sensor Systems and Run-to-Run Control (R2R). It highlights the APC history and organization at Infineon, and status of implementation at Infineon\´s fab Villach, the application of APC in different process areas, examples of achieved benefits, and give an outlook for future requirements. The paper shows specific FDC application examples and benefits from the Infineon Villach fab, e.g. (i) CVD AMAT P5000: prevention of inhomogeneous layers. (ii) Epi AMAT Centura: prevention of slip-lines. (iii) PlasmaEtch: failure investigation on problem lots (tool, process). Automated analysis for critical tool components. Systematic analysis, e.g. for productivity increase. (iv) Litho Canon i5-stepper: prevention of "de-adjusted wafers and reduction of Tool-Alarms". (v) WetEtch: sensors for chemical concentration and defect density.