Cost Of Ownership Requirements Research Articles

The Insertion of Single-Wafer Integrated Thermal/CVD Technology in Front-End and Back-End of the Line Processing; Lessons Learned

ABSTRACTThe insertion of single-wafer thermal and CVD technologies into the front- and back-end of the line processing starts with study of the integrated circuits manufacturing and device performance requirements. Relying upon the lessons learned and using the concurrent engineering approach, next generation processing equipment design architecture is then defined. In order to meet the process performance, throughput, and cost of ownership requirements of semiconductor IC manufacturing as defined in the SIA road map, heavy emphasis must be put on sensor fusion and model-based process control. In the existing semiconductor IC manufacturing equipment, process control is usually accomplished by control of equipment settings, qualification wafer runs and ex-situ measurements of the various wafer properties, as well as design architecture for stable equipment performance. The conventional approach, however, suffers from slow drifts of various equipment state parameters such as infrared absorbing quartz media causing thermal memory effects, or deposition of films on the reactor walls causing variation in the optical characteristics of the reactor as well as chemical and particle memory effects. Using model-based real-time control in conjunction with implementation of various in-situ and ex-situ sensors, these effects can be well monitored and controlled. This paper is to discuss various production related issues with single-wafer thermal and CVD technologies.