WAT Raw data files -

• Loading routines are available to read your specific data files either in ASCII (preferred) or Binary.
• There is no maximum size limitation on raw data files, however, based on our experiences, larger files sizes slow down the data loading and analysis process.

Spec files for Devices -

• We will also develop loading routines to read the respective device spec files to compute the necessary statistics for the diagnostic module.

Disposition Rules -

• Are used for the automated WAT disposition and are input through the PHM "Create Disposition Rules" GUI page.

  There are several ways to produce rules for input to the knowledge-base:

  1. Known problematic wafers
  2. R&D process characterization results
  3. Process simulation results
  4. Data mining

We used data from a 50 wafer lot. The PHM system was equipped with 15 built-in disposition rules to check. The server we used was a 1.6GHz P4 w/512MB RAM.

• The total run time was 3 min 8 sec to check the entire 50 wafer lot and check each of the 15 rules to generate the lot disposition summary.

On an average, a lot will be completed and WAT disposition summary reports will be generated within 3 minutes.

We suggest a high-end PC server

• 1.5GHz or higher
• 512MB Ram or higher
• Windows 2000 OS
• SCSI Drives

If you like, we will provide you with a high-end system so you can take full advantage of a fast turnaround time for analysis results and a better ROI for your company.

Out products use a scaleable Web server farm technology. Based on user needs, new hardware systems can be easily added to the server farm from the system configuration menu.

All the servers in the server farm will be synchronized automatically when new data are loaded on individual server systems.

Users can select any available server for accessing the FAKS system.

Downtime -

Any bug fixes will be dealt with immediately. Full revision software releases will be bi-yearly at a minimum.

FAKS system's?new releases and bug fixes can be updated on line using ADSL Internet support. The ADSL modem is controlled by the users to avoid security intrusion

The WAT system used and developed in each company are more or less different. We will study, analyze and understand each different scenario and integrate FAKS system with company's existing WAT system. If necessary, we will further customize FAKS to meet customers' special needs and demands

By benefiting your engineers -

1. It will make their job easier. Your engineers can be more productive. They won't have to find the problems anymore. They can spend more time finding out why it happened, fix it and prevent it from happening again.
2. Having more time to spend solving problems will make your engineers more knowledgeable and valuable to the company.
3. More productivity and more problem solving will strengthen the company and make it less vulnerable to recessions.
4. Solving more problems will mean having less problems and this will make the company more attractive to customers.
   

We have been using RS/Series software for semiconductor data analysis development for more than ten years. Below is the detailed description of RS/Series software package. Most of the semiconductor and pharmaceutical companies use either SAS or RS/Series software for data analysis and Design of Experiment.

The whole RS/Series consists of many modules which you can buy separately. The basic module is call RS/1, there are some additional modules like RS/Explore (intelligent guided data analysis module), RS/Discover (Design of Experiment module), RS/QCA II (Statistical Process Control (SPC) module), RS/Decision (forward chaining knowledge base inference engine module). RS/WEB server for integrating RS/1 system with Internet computing.

The RS/Series software suite is a full-featured set of open, integrated data analysis products that can be customized to meet your unique requirements. The RS/Series family of software includes RS/1 software for data management, analysis and graphics, and companion software applications for advanced statistical analysis, design of experiments and quality control. RS/1's RS/Discover tool features an interactive, easy-to-use Windows graphical user interface to the most commonly used DOE designs. This allows RS/Discover users to work in a modern visual environment that speeds and simplifies the process of setting up designed experiments.

The RS/Series family of software includes: RS/1, RS/Explore, RS/Discover, RS/QCA II, RS/Web Server, and RS/Client for Windows.

The newest features of the RS/Series software include a new RS/1 COM Interface, and a new RS/1 Oracle? Interface, for faster data access on PC platforms.

Brooks-PRI RS/Series family of products provide integrated statistical and quality analysis solutions for manufacturing, engineering and research applications.

RS/1 features data management, modeling, statistics, curve fitting, graphics and report generating capabilities. These features are complemented by the RPL Toolkit, a powerful programming environment for developing customized applications.

RS/1 provides the functionality, flexibility and extensibility you need to:

1. Analyze data to solve problems.
2. Develop customized solutions to meet your needs.
3. Share your solutions across multiple computing environments.

RS/1 also includes the RS/Web Server, an RPL application that supports use of the RS/Series via the Web. The RS/Web Server is not a browser itself, but makes use of Web browsers to deliver RS/Series data and results to end users.

The RS/Web Server enables users who need RS/Series results in order to do their jobs to access this information easily, without actually using the RS/Series tools themselves. It allows for unprecedented access to RS/Series data, analyses and reports, and promotes the use of the RS/Series' proven analytical and statistical techniques across the organization at a low cost per user.

The RS/Web Server is platform-independent. All users can access the information through any standard Web browser under a common interface across multiple computing platforms.

Analyze Data to Solve Problems

RS/1 software offers extensive statistical and graphical capabilities that enable you to gain knowledge and understanding from your data. It helps you derive and analyze essential information quickly to solve problems. Both versatile and easy to use, RS/1 software features menus, English-language commands and familiar tabular formats for storing, displaying and analyzing data.

RS/1 provides you with a full range of graphical capabilities--including scatterplots, histograms, three-dimensional displays and completely customized graphs. On terminals and workstations running the X Window System, you can create multiple graphical windows, making it faster and easier to visualize and compare complex data. This gives you greater control over your technical processes and provides you with all the information you need to make decisions.

RS/1 for Windows, UNIX and VMS platforms includes a new graphical user interface for RS/Discover on the Windows platform, and a new graphical table editor for the RS/Client.

Graphical User Interface

For RS/Discover, a new graphical interface for setting up designed experiments is available, for the Windows platform only. The graphical user interface gives RS/Discover users the option to perform designed experiments using a series of "wizard-like" dialogs, menus and prompts that guide the user through the process to:

1. Define the inputs and outputs of the process or product.
2. Select the model and a design that is suitable for the model.
3. Carry out the design, generate a worksheet and enter response values.
4. Analyze the data.

The new interface provides menus for each of these steps. As you go from one step to another, the window changes to show options for the new step, and the menu for that step becomes active.

The new interface allows novice, intermediate and advanced DOE practitioners to quickly and easily perform designed experiments to obtain the maximum information out of the minimal number of experimental runs.

Graphical Table Editor for RS/Client

The graphical table editor for RS/Client provides an extensive set of dialogs and pull-down Menus that give the user point-and-click access to table editing and table display functions. These include functions for data entry, data import/export, graphing the data, and sorting and searching the data.

Updated Data Access Capabilities

RS/1 supports the latest release of the data access server. The new data access server uses the latest releases of SequeLinkTM technology from Merant to provide access to multiple databases on a number of platforms, including IngresTM, InformixTM, ORACLETM, and SybaseTM databases. The new releases support extended TCP/IP. RS/Series users can continue to use their existing database interface options for ORACLE and Ingres. RS/1 supports ORACLE 7 and ORACLE 8 as well as Open Ingres 2. Similarly, the new data access server can run side-by-side with previous releases of the servers.

Our product does provide for real-time diagnostic and notification. Please view the following disposition results, After the operator launches the WAT diagnostic process, it only takes 3 to 5 minutes for the system to generate the disposition results. These results are then Emailed to the designated engineers. So far, we have not integrated our KM system with any CIM system. We feel there is a potential for our technology to be utilized in the CIM arena.

We started this project ten years ago as a small consulting firm. During the last ten years, we worked with three production FABs and one R&D FAB to test the system・s architecture and methodology.

The earlier prototype was all menu driven and text based. Its knowledge base was all hard coded with knowledge rules extracted from senior engineers. A typical diagnostic process will take VAX system 30 to 40 minutes to generate the results. Although the engineers are satisfied with the diagnosis results, the time consuming diagnostic process was not practical for the production.

The second prototype was HTML based with limited graphical capability. We developed our first GUI environment for the engineers to enter their knowledge (i.e. disposition rules) into the system. This GUI input implementation dramatically increased the engineer・s acceptance to the system.

In order to fulfill the customer・s demand for graphical drill down analysis, we choose REBOL technology to replace the HTML and javascript model. The current prototype is REBOL based with enhanced graphical data analysis capability. Thanks to the improvement of computer technology, the same diagnostic process which takes a VAX system 30 to 40 minutes to complete has been reduced to 3 to 5 minutes. With this fast diagnostic feedback, it is practical to deploy the system to production so that FAB engineers can benefit from it.

This summer we merged with another consulting company to form Quality Wise Knowledge System to market our KM systems.

Due to our extreme good relationship with our partners, we are able to market our product with their permission.

We have a 45 days free trial offer for our product. Before we deploy our KM system, we record their average scrapped wafers and make an assumption that certain percentage of scrapped wafers can be identified from WAT test results. During this 45 day period we collect information about their scrapped wafers and the symptoms associated with those scrapped wafers. From this data we can then set an appropriate pricing plan. During these 45 days, our customers enjoy the benefits of our real-time diagnostics of having symptom identified almost immediately and having subsequent lots stopped from being processed with the same symptom. We have two pricing plans. The first plan is to charge by usage. The customer is charged for each wafer or lot tested through our products. Even though this appears to be an unusual pricing plan, we feel that when the customers see the savings from our real-time diagnostics, they will not have a problem with this structure. The other plan is to provide a user license fee based on their cost saving percentage.

WAT is also called Wafer Process Evaluation. Most of the companies design very sophisticated test structures to capture all the processing variations. It is the ultimate step to judge the success of manufacturing processes. The test structures were designed to reveal any processing problem. From our experience of talking to R&D engineers about WAT test results, they completely rely on WAT test results for the process characterization and development.

Of course, from our experience working with our customers, there are scrapped wafers or lots which can not be identified from WAT test results. Those scrapped wafers or lots are caused by particle contamination. In order to capture those symptoms, our company・s product road map is to develop a Low Yielding Analysis Knowledge-based Engineering system with three associated subsystems. (i.e. WAT KM, Sort KM, and Defect Density Reduction KM). The vision is to provide a KM system for the engineers to fix the low yielding problems as soon as possible.

You can find the detailed description of our patent at United Stated patent office WEB site

Our patent number is: US patent 6,240,329.

Our KM system ETEST (or WAT) module includes three Western Electrical Rule Violation Detection Rules which will alarm the engineers when certain defined key process parameters shift out of control. This information will allow the engineers to adjust FAB processing equipment to avoid an out of control situation if left unattended. The essence of SPC (Statistical Process Control) is to capture the shifting trend before it is too late. (i.e. out of spec) We strongly feel this feature will be very attractive to our customers. Most of the WAT systems only report out of spec parameters. We can also build some rules to check probe card degradation, or wafer uniformity testing. We can even build data mining rules to find problems unknown to the engineers. Of course, we provide our feature attractive Rule building table environment for the engineers to convert their paper documented WAT disposition rules into our system. Once they have done that, our KM system becomes their personal assistant. They have total control of the system usage and knowledge sharing. It is a win-win situation for both engineers and the company. As a result of using our KM system, the engineers can spend most of their time fixing or resolving the problems instead of chasing them.

Our belief is that by using our KM system, the mis-processing of wafers will be reduce dramatically utilizing real-time feedback of the diagnostic results to FAB module engineers as shown in the following table.

Our 45 day evaluation will provide us information about the FAB cost saving before and after using our KM system. We believe that our KM product value will differ from customer to customer. It is fair to charge more for a large company with more cost saving than a small company with similar percentage of cost saving.

We certainly have fixed license charge for some customers who do not want to buy into our ：Charge by service； model. Once we have some ideas or data backing up how much their FAB saves after using our KM system, we will come up with a price model for them to review.

Our KM systems will physically reside in our customers FAB environment. They have total control of their KM system. All the knowledge deposited in the PHM system belongs to them. They should be comfortable with our system implementation and deployment. Our customers can choose high end UNIX production systems if they want better system performance and stability.