An Overview of Industrial Screening Experiments

Abstract

An overview of industrial screening experiments is presented, focusing on their applications in process and product design and development. Concepts and terminology that are used in later chapters are introduced and explained. Topics covered include a discussion of the general framework of industrial experimentation, the role in those activities played by screening experiments, and the use of two-level factorial and fractional factorial designs for screening. Aliasing in fractional factorial designs, regular and nonregular designs, design resolution, design projection, and the role of confirmation and follow-up experiments are discussed. A case study is presented on factor screening in a plasma etching process from semiconductor manufacturing, including a discussion of the regular fractional factorial design used and the analysis of the data from the experiment.