The process specification system for MMST

A specification application (SPEC) was created as part of the Microelectronics Manufacturing Science and Technology (MMST) program at Texas Instruments Incorporated. The overall goal of the MMST program was the development of the next generation wafer fabrication system by improving key areas in the fabrication of wafers, including cycle time, cost, and quality. This paper presents the key features of SPEC used to meet the MMST goals. SPEC composes process flow specifications from equipment, step, sequence, and wafer specification hierarchies. Specifications can be reused and can be machine independent. These specifications are integrated into a specification management framework that provides both revision and change notice control. SPEC integrates with other MMST applications to process wafers; including material release into the factory, material movement, machine scheduling, and direct control of equipment-all key features of a paperless factory. During the processing of a wafer, SPEC uses the latest version of a specification. SPEC played a key role in the MMST program especially during the 1000 wafer pilot production run which achieved a single wafer cycle time of less than 72 h