Efficiency improvements of off-line metrology job creation

Progress of the first lot of a new design through the production line is watched very closely. All performance metrics, cycle-time, in-line measurement results and final electrical performance are critical. Rapid movement of this lot through the line has serious time-to-market implications. Having this material waiting at a metrology operation for an engineer to create a measurement job plan wastes valuable turnaround time. Further, efficient use of a metrology system is compromised by the time required to create and maintain these measurement job plans. Thus, having a method to develop metrology job plans prior to the actual running of the material through the manufacturing area can significantly improve both cycle time and overall equipment efficiency. Motorola and Schlumberger have worked together to develop and test such a system. The Remote Job Generator (RJG(TM)) creates job plans for new devices in a manufacturing process from an NT host or workstation, offline. This increases available system time for making production measurements, decreases turnaround time on job plan creation and editing and improves consistency across job plans. Most importantly, this allows job plans for new devices to be available before the first wafers of the device arrive at the tool for measurement. The software also includes a database manager which allows updates of existing job plans to incorporate measurement changes required by process changes or measurement optimization. This paper will review the results of productivity enhancements through the increased metrology utilization and decreased cycle time associated with the use of RJG(TM). Finally, improvements in process control through better control of Job Plans across different devices and layers will be discussed.