Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H10—SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; ELECTRIC SOLID-STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • H10P—GENERIC PROCESSES OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OR TREATMENT OF DEVICES COVERED BY CLASS H10
  • H10P72/00—Handling or holding of wafers, substrates or devices during manufacture or treatment thereof
  • H10P72/50—Handling or holding of wafers, substrates or devices during manufacture or treatment thereof for positioning, orientation or alignment
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H10—SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; ELECTRIC SOLID-STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • H10P—GENERIC PROCESSES OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OR TREATMENT OF DEVICES COVERED BY CLASS H10
  • H10P72/00—Handling or holding of wafers, substrates or devices during manufacture or treatment thereof
  • H10P72/06—Apparatus for monitoring, sorting, marking, testing or measuring
  • H10P72/0611—Sorting devices

Definitions

• the invention refers to a method for processing products by predefining a sequence of orders and executing product processing steps by product processing tools, during regular processing the product processing steps being executed in compliance with the predefined sequence of orders, wherein multitudes of products to be processed are transported in product containers, and wherein product processing data of product processing steps are stored with reference to product positions in the product containers and to product identifi- cation codes.
• Integrated circuits are arranged on a semiconductor wafer which has a unique wafer identification code (ID) .
• ID wafer identification code
• a great number of processing tools is required for execution of deposition steps, patterning steps, doping steps or etch- ing steps on respective tools, for instance.
• the equipment and the operating personnel controlling the equipment are working in cleanroom environment to avoid particle contamination of the semiconductor products.
• the semiconductor products are manually or automatically transported to the respective processing tools.
• a container e.g. a SMIF pod or a FOUP (Front Opening Unified Pod)
• processing data are stored together with the information indicating the posi- tion and identification code (ID) of each wafer in a container. Due to the great number of hundreds of processing steps performed in sequence, it is very important to store all position data identifying all wafer positions in the con- tainers from the beginning to the end of wafer processing. The main benefit of this storage is the possibility of retrieving the information of wafer location and identification when improper processing performance has occurred.
• mapping steps are required for changing the number of the position of the wafers in the containers. For instance, a certain number of wafers in a container has to be separated from the others by reasons of processing plans or other circumstances. As the processing tools are not able to change the number or the position of the wafers in the containers, handling devices like mappers are provided in the cleanroom. Whenever a mapping step is required, the respective container is transported to one of the mappers, the mapping step is executed and the container is transported to the next processing tool.
• the transport to and from the mapping devices is performed manually by the operating personnel.
• an unplanned handling step may become necessary by reasons of improper processing performance, for instance. Due to the complexity of modern semiconductor manufacture, the necessity of per- forming an additional handling operation arises with increasing probability.
• the handling operation as such may be performed in the same manner as the regular handling steps at any stage of the process plan.
• any further processing data are attributed to incorrect wafer positions within a carrier.
• processing data as well as wafer position data must be rearranged afterwards for proper wafer history infor- mation retrieval.
• the present invention relates to these irregularly performed handling steps.
• mapping device can be joined with the processing tools and an existing transport system, that is with the complete equipment, which is provided within the mini-environmental cleanroom atmosphere, and which automatically executes any sequence of orders one programmed.
• the present invention allows flexible reaction on any process complication requiring other order sequences than initially predefined. Upon irregular processing, the amended order sequence can be extended in turn. In any case, the resulting actual product flow is in conformity with the product flow resulting from the order sequence.
• the product handling order can be inserted between two product processing orders of the predefined sequence. That is, it is inserted like an additional product processing or- der. This embodiment is preferred especially when no urgent actions are required upon irregular wafer processing.
• the product handling order can be inserted after partial execution of a product processing step being inter- rupted, thereby creating an order for residual execution of the interrupted product processing order.
• the order for the unplanned handling step is nested in two parts of the single product processing order, which is recommendable when immediate action is required to save wafers not yet processed from disadvantageous process operation.
• a single handling step that is the step performed by a device not actually processing the products
• further product processing orders are defined and integrated in addition.
• These further product processing orders may be template process nodes instanciable at any time when required by reasons of irregular process execution.
• the further product processing orders are reprocessing orders serving to restore a processing stage before disadvantageous processing, for instance to remove, in semiconductor industry, a distortedly patterned lithographic structure of a deposited layer.
• the orders are executed by a multitude of product processing tools, and handling orders are defined in such a way that they are executable by anyone of the handling devices.
• handling orders are defined in such a way that they are executable by anyone of the handling devices.
• at each process tool operating personnel is capable of defining and integrating the handling order executable by any handling device.
• the products are semiconductor products arranged in respective slots of the containers.
• the handling step is per- formed by a mapper of a sorter, capable of performing splitting, merging, sorting or transferring operations, for instance.
• the products to be handled may preferably be semiconductor wafers .
• processing data and position data are stored for each single semiconductor product in a semiconductor history data file.
• the figure schematically illustrates a sequence of processing steps PS representing a process plan rather complex in reality.
• the sequence of orders contains a first processing step interrupted upon irregular processing, as well as process steps PS + 1, PS + n - 1 and PS + n.
• To excerpts of the sequence of orders denoted as case I and case II illustrate two preferred embodiments of the invention. They refer to two different ways of integrating unplanned op- tional mapping steps OMS . According to case I, the first part
• POn of a processing step is interrupted upon irregular processing execution, and a mapping order MO is defined and inserted, thereby creating an order POff for residual execution of the interrupted product processing order to be executed after the mapping order.
• the next process step PS + 1 is executed.
• a dispatch list with orders to be executed is stored, and semiconductor products corresponding to data in the dispatch list are transported to the respective processing tool by a transport system.
• the semiconductor products are transported in groups of one or several lots in containers like front opening unified pots, for instance, with several slots, each slot receiving a single semiconductor wafer. Every processing and mapping order is initiated and concluded by respective move- in and move-out sub-orders MVIN and MVOU.
• a mapping order is integrated in the sequence of orders by insertion between two processing orders PS + n - 1 and PS + n.
• mapping orders and, if required, further processing orders, into the order sequence before executing subsequent orders are retrievable.
• a job report JR is created and filed in a database containing history data of every single wafer.
• the history data contain all relevant processing data as well as the position data of the wafer, that is number of the slot of the front opening unified pod and the identification of the unified pod.
• the history data contain all information required for gapless slot and wafer ID related wafer tracking from the beginning to the end of the processing root. According to prior art, the history data did not correspond to the actual wafer posi- tions after diverse handling steps manually performed upon irregular processing, and hence had to be rearranged.

Landscapes

• Container, Conveyance, Adherence, Positioning, Of Wafer (AREA)
• General Factory Administration (AREA)

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Citations (2)

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• 2000
  • 2000-08-17 EP EP00117733A patent/EP1180788A1/en not_active Withdrawn
• 2001
  • 2001-08-01 WO PCT/EP2001/008900 patent/WO2002015235A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2001-08-01 KR KR10-2003-7001633A patent/KR100523826B1/ko not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2001-08-01 EP EP01960604A patent/EP1309988B1/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2001-08-01 JP JP2002520274A patent/JP2004507082A/ja active Pending
  • 2001-08-01 DE DE60130896T patent/DE60130896T2/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2001-08-16 TW TW090120079A patent/TW503501B/zh not_active IP Right Cessation
• 2003
  • 2003-02-18 US US10/368,073 patent/US6909932B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related

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