Recently there have been numerous papers, articles and books on the benefits and rewards of Statistical Process Control for manufacturing processes. Models are used that quite adequately describe methods appropriate for the factory situation where many discrete and identical items are turned out and where a limited number of parameters are inspected along the line. Photolithographic applications often require different statistical models from the usual factory methods. The difficulties encountered in getting started with SPC lie in determining: 1. what parameters should be tracked 2. what statistical model is appropriate for each of those parameters 3. how to use the models chosen. This paper describes three statistical models that, among them, account for most operations within a photolithographic manufacturing application. The process of determining which model is appropriate is described, along with the basic rules that may be used in making the determination. In addition, the application of each method is shown, and action instructions are covered. Initially the "x-bar, R" model is described. This model is the one most often found in off-the-shelf software packages, and enjoys wide applications in equipment tracking, besides general use process control. Secondly the "x, moving-R" model is described. This is appropriate where a series of measurements of the same parameter is taken on a single item, perhaps at different locations, such as in dimensional uniformity control for wafers or photomasks. In this case, each "x" is a single observation, or a number of measurements of a single observation, as opposed to a mean value taken in a sampling scheme. Thirdly a model for a Poisson distribution is described, which tends to fit defect density data, particulate counts, where count data is accumulated per unit or per unit time. The purpose of the paper is to briefly describe the included models, for those with little or no background in statistics, to enable them to begin to implement statistical process control and to reap the benefits of a controlled process, prior to, or without investing large amounts of time in training beforehand.

Date Published: 17 April 1987
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 0775, Integrated Circuit Metrology, Inspection, & Process Control, (17 April 1987); doi: 10.1117/12.940436

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0775:
Integrated Circuit Metrology, Inspection, & Process Control
Kevin M. Monahan, Editor(s)