MMST MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY - HARDWARE, SENSORS, AND PROCESSES

This paper describes the equipment and processes utilized in the Micro electronics Manufacturing Science and Technology (MMST) program. The p rocesses were carried out in a combination of testbeds (AVP, the TI de signed and built Advanced Vacuum Processor) and commercial equipment, all in the single-wafer mode. All AVP processing was performed with th e wafers in an inverted, face-down, configuration. All the processing equipment was connected to a Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) s ystem, which both collected the designated data and communicated the p rocess parameters from the CIM database to the particular processing u nit. Where available, in situ sensors were utilized for monitoring the process parameters, with measurements made on a metrology die in the center of the wafer. Many of these processes were controlled by the mo del-based process-control algorithms in the CIM system. Otherwise, the processes were controlled by standard statistical process control (SP C) methods. This paper emphasizes the processing methodology that was developed and followed in order to operate in this CIM environment and successfully execute an approximately 150 step 0.35 mu CMOS process i n less than 72 hours.