Light source technological performance is key to enabling chipmaker yield and production success. Just as important is ensuring that performance is consistent over time to help maintain as high an uptime as possible on litho-cells (scanner and track combination). While it is common to see average tool uptime of over 99% based on service intervention time, we will show that there are opportunities to improve equipment availability through a multifaceted approach that can deliver favorable results and significantly improve on the actual production efficiency of equipment.

The majority of chipmakers are putting light source data generated by tools such as Cymer OnLine (COL), OnPulse Plus, and SmartPulse to good use. These data sets, combined with in-depth knowledge of the equipment, makes it possible to draw powerful conclusions that help increase both chip manufacturing consistency as well as equipment productivity. This discussion will focus on the latter, equipment availability, and how data analysis can help increase equipment availability for Cymer customers.

There are several types of opportunities for increasing equipment availability, but in general we can focus on two primary categories: 1) scheduled downtime and 2) unscheduled downtime. For equipment that is under control of a larger entity, as the laser is to the scanner, there are additional categories related to either communication errors or better synchronization of events that can maximize overall litho-cell efficiency. In this article we will focus on general availability without highlighting the specific cause of litho-cell (laser, scanner and track). The goal is to increase equipment available time with a primary focus is on opportunities to minimize errors and variabilities.

Date Published: 15 March 2016
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 9780, Optical Microlithography XXIX, 97801G (15 March 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2219940

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9780:
Optical Microlithography XXIX
Andreas Erdmann; Jongwook Kye, Editor(s)