Granted Patent B2

US 12,191,176 · App. 18/335,899 · Granted Jan 7, 2025

Inventors: Upendra V. Ummethala (Cupertino, CA); Blake Erickson (Gilroy, CA); Prashanth Kumar (Union City, CA); Michael Kutney (Santa Clara, CA); Steven Trey Tindel (Austin, TX); Zhaozhao Zhu (Milpitas, CA)

Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc.

H01L21/67253H01L21/67288H01L22/20H01L21/67063H01L21/67167

Abstract

Claims (47)

1. A method comprising:

identifying a process recipe associated with a substrate at a manufacturing system by a controller which is operatively coupled to the manufacturing system;

obtaining a first set of measurements for the substrate from a substrate measurement subsystem;

obtaining a second set of measurements for the substrate from one or more sensors of a chamber of the manufacturing system; and generating a mapping between the first set of measurements and the second set of measurements of the substrate; storing the first set of measurements mapped to the second set of measurements;

determining, based on the obtained first set of measurements mapped to the obtained second set of measurements, whether to modify the process recipe by at least one of:

modifying an operation of the process recipe, or

generating an instruction to prevent completion of execution of one or more operations of the process recipe; and

providing, via a user interface of a client device connected to the manufacturing system, a notification of the modification to the process recipe.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first set of measurements for the substrate comprises at least one of spectral data, positional data, or property data and wherein the second set of measurements for the substrate comprises at least one of spectral data, temperature data, pressure data, or power data.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the at least one of the spectral data of the first set of measurements or the spectral data of the second set of measurements comprises at least one of reflectometry spectral data, ellipsometry spectral data, hyperspectral imaging data, chemical imaging data, thermal spectral data or conductive spectral data.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

storing at least one of the first set of measurements or the second set of measurements fat a data store for the manufacturing system, wherein the data store is inaccessible to an operator of the manufacturing system.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining, based on the first set of measurements and the second set of measurements, whether to modify the process recipe comprises:

calculating a difference between a first measurement of the first set of measurements and a second measurement of the second set of measurements; and

determining whether the difference between the first measurement and the second measurement exceeds a difference threshold.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining, based on the first set of measurements and the second set of measurements, whether to modify the process recipe comprises:

determining a target value associated with a first measurement of the first set of measurement;

calculating a difference between the target value and the first measurement; and

determining whether the difference between the target value and the first measurement exceeds a difference threshold.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the notification of the modification to the process recipe comprises a request to modify the process recipe, and wherein the method further comprises:

detecting a user interaction with the user interface in response to the request; and

modifying the process recipe in accordance with the detected user interaction.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the chamber is a processing chamber of the manufacturing system.

9. A method comprising:

identifying a first substrate at a manufacturing system by a controller which is operatively coupled to the manufacturing system and a second substrate at the manufacturing system by the controller, wherein the first substrate is associated with a first process recipe and the second substrate is associated with a second process recipe;

obtaining a first set of measurements for the first substrate from a substrate measurement subsystem;

obtaining a second set of measurements for the first substrate from a chamber of the manufacturing system; and generating a mapping between the first set of measurements and the second set of measurements of the substrate;

storing the first set of measurements mapped to the second set of measurements;

determining, based on the obtained first set of measurements for the first substrate mapped to the obtained second set of measurements for the first substrate, whether to modify the second process recipe associated with the second substrate by at least one of:

modifying an operation of the second process recipe, or

generating an instruction to prevent completion of execution of one or more operations of the second process recipe; and

providing, via a user interface of a client device connected to the manufacturing system, a notification of the modification to the one or more operations of the second process recipe.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the first set of measurements for the substrate comprises at least one of spectral data, positional data, or property data and wherein the second set of measurements for the substrate comprises at least one of spectral data, temperature data, pressure data, or power data.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one of the spectral data of the first set of measurements or the spectral data of the second set of measurements comprises at least one of reflectometry spectral data, ellipsometry spectral data, hyperspectral imaging data, chemical imaging data, thermal spectral data or conductive spectral data.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

storing at least one of the first set of measurements or the second set of measurements fat a data store for the manufacturing system, wherein the data store is inaccessible to an operator of the manufacturing system.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein determining, based on the obtained first set of measurements for the first substrate and the obtained second set of measurements for the first substrate, whether to modify the second process recipe associated with the second substrate comprises:

calculating a difference between a first measurement of the first set of measurements and a second measurement of the second set of measurements; and

determining whether the difference between the first measurement and the second measurement exceeds a difference threshold.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein determining, based on the obtained first set of measurements for the first substrate and the obtained second set of measurements for the first substrate, whether to modify the second process recipe associated with the second substrate comprises:

determining a target value associated with a first measurement of the first set of measurement;

calculating a difference between the target value and the first measurement; and

determining whether the difference between the target value and the first measurement exceeds a difference threshold.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the notification of the modification to the process recipe comprises a request to modify the process recipe, and wherein the method further comprises:

detecting a user interaction with the user interface in response to the request; and

modifying the process recipe in accordance with the detected user interaction.

16. The method of claim 9 , wherein the chamber is a processing chamber of the manufacturing system.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (3)

References Cited (134)