Production Yield Reporting Software

Synopsis:

This module delivers production yield reports to its platform users, including product, manufacturing, and yield engineers. Additional internal and external stakeholders can access these reports using a simple web browser.

Description:

Operations teams for semiconductor device manufacturers need timely and accurate production yield reports to keep operations flowing. In fabless companies, engineers and planners need the ability to monitor their product as it moves through the manufacturing process. The Reporting & Analysis module can simplify and automate these reports for all stakeholders in your company.

There exist numerous ways for engineers and analysts to look at production test data to support their respective roles.  Our reporting analysis module comes with over 300 standard reports that frees up your staff from the hours needed to write reliable scripts that probe the databases/data warehouses.  Instead, engineers and analysts apply their knowledge of the product, test program, and manufacturing steps to select the reports they need for daily monitoring and engineering improvement projects. With as little as a 5-minute investment, they can define their reports; these can be executed in real-time and they can be executed periodically with the completed report delivered to their inbox. Using data across the manufacturing facility standard reports include these commonly used templates: Yield chart, Bin reports, Parametric data trends, Defectivity reports, and Wafer & Final test results depicted in wafer maps. 

Behind the scenes, this module integrates the data such that engineers can drill down further into the data if they notice an anomaly.  Also, engineers can define triggers that when tripped automatically generate a set of reports. Triggers can be based upon yield targets, statistical bin limits, and other metrics used to flag possible manufacturing anomalies or process excursions.

Engineering Management and Analysts use this module for:

  1. Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRP) and order management.
  2. Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR) or problem-solving with supply chain partners.
  3. Internal staff and business reviews.

 

Engineers use this module for:

  1. Benchmarking “baseline” numbers for yield improvement, test pattern reduction, or other engineering initiatives.
  2. Monitoring yield consistency to detect drifts that could lead to larger yield losses.
  3. Analyzing yield abnormalities for common attributes, i.e. using commonality analysis techniques.
  4. Identifying Final test fallout that could be captured at Wafer test via appropriate virtual tests.

Several illustrative examples highlight how this module’s capabilities gives engineers more focus on solving problems.  As opposed to spending their time importing data, creating scripts for typical reports, and fussing with excel spreadsheets or a SAS database. Our current customers have noted a 3-4 X improvement in their engineering team’s productivity.

Engineers use Wafer Probe (die test) and Final Test (packaged part) yield reports and charts on a daily basis. These

capture cost, consistency, and uniformity from Wafer Fab and Test & Assembly operations. This module provides the tools for engineers to optimize costs by analyzing correlations between these two yields and other variables, such as bin yields. 

The classic fail bin Pareto informs engineers on the ranking of failure types over a period of time.  Such ranking of failure types assists yield engineers in driving down defect rates. The reports seamlessly provide an engineer the ability to drill down further to focus on prioritizing top failures and determine if the problem is coming from a fab process, assembly, or test issue. This enables engineers to determine the need for a comprehensive commonality analysis to detect a problematic reticle, wafer equipment, etc. By specifically looking at a single wafer, wafer lot and product lot engineers can then compare a metric of interest to the larger data set.  As an example, consider a scenario in which wafer #4 in a wafer lot suddenly has a lower average yield than the remaining 24 wafers. This may highlight an issue with fab equipment and a commonality analysis may isolate it further.  With this actionable information, the yield enhancement engineers can partner with the fab equipment engineer to resolve the yield issue.

Yield enhancement engineers are heavy users of wafer map reports because it enables a geospatial analysis. They can view bin and parametric-based maps which assist in identifying yield issues w.r.t. a wafer zone- radially or concentrically based (edge vs bulls eye portion of the wafer). In yieldWerx 2.0 engineers can combine wafer maps with defect image data from the inspection steps; the resulting report provides insight into a possible macro-identified issue such as a scratch or discoloration

A bin correlation report supports a test program release process. Using reference units with this report engineers can compare the pass/fail numbers between the new and prior test program. Usually, you do not expect to see a change. A bin correlation report can also be used to confirm the detection capability of a new test that has been added to the test program.  In this scenario a set of units that includes devices that fail the new test would be run with both the new and prior test program.

As standard wafer sizes have grown from 150mm to 200mm and 300mm, the variation in electrical performance across a wafer has increased. Averaging the electrical results from a typical five-site Process Control Monitor (PCM) has become inaccurate. To improve the accuracy of this analysis, this module allows engineers to break a wafer into “zones” and use the PCM data from the nearest zone for correlation analysis.

With the Reporting & Analysis module product, yield enhancement, test and quality engineers can focus on responding to excursions, exploring where possible improvements can be made to increase yield or reduce test time.

Engineering Roles Impacted:

  • Product and Test Engineer,
  • Process Integration Engineer(PIE),
  • Yield Enhancement(YE) Engineer,
  • Assembly Engineer,
  • Quality and Reliability Engineer,
  • Fab/Test Equipment Engineers

Dependencies on other yWModules:

  • Raw Data monitoring,
  • Automated Data Loading,
  • Data Archive & Purge
Copyright 2023 yieldWerx. All Rights Reserved.