The characterization and optimization of the microcircuit process equipment using design of experimentand data transformation

In the semiconductor manufacturing, the setting of the microcircuit process equipment input need be carefully chosen to make the output get as close as possible to the target and reduce the variability of the process. Design of experiment (DOE) can be used to construct the process output/input relation and optimally select the settings of input variables. In this paper, the model of thermal oxidation furnace is developed using DOE and data transformation. The equipment system involves six input factors and two responses. Using the fractional factorial experimental design, the experiment plan of only 16 run experiments is determined. The Box-Cox transformation method is used to transform the experimental data by the optimum transformation style. The responses are transformed so that the residuals meet the model assumption and the model can explore more information here. Based on the results, the models are subsequently used to optimize the thermal oxidation process. The non-uniformity of film is improved from 0.2% to 0.08% with the other specification satisfied.