A COMPANIES SUCCESS
A company's success depends on the success of the company's product. In a situation where a company's product is mass-produced and may take several weeks to complete its construction, early and continual monitoring of the products' progress is essential. Such a company is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which manufacturers integrated circuits. Portions of AMD's monitoring efforts are performed by their Product Engineering W.E.T. analysis group. W.E.T. is an acronym for Wafer Electrical Test, and the duties of the group are to provide failure analysis of semi-conductor wafers at an individual device level. During the process of a lot, which is a cassette of up to 25 wafers, tests are routinely ran on automated probing machines, using a program called IC-MS, and the results are stored in files for further analysis. If an irregularity is observed, the wafer may require bench verification before being dispositioned to proceed with further processing. In addition to these standard inspections, Wafer Level Reliability (WLR) testing provides specific information regarding wafer processing. All these, and many more analysis procedures, allow AMD to continually improve the quality of their product.
Parametric tests historically were lengthy programs that required significant programming effort by test engineers to describe desired test. A die is a pattern stepped across a wafer, formed by a collection of modules and product structures. The final step in describing the test was to bring everything together. From this test we determined that the die had been printed onto the wafer incorrectly, resulting in a reticle tilt. Through the use of these measurements, conclusions can be determined concerning the method of process used in manufacturing of the tested lot. Analyzing the data recorded by the tester can provide such insight into the cause for failures, resulting in a more refined plan of investigation. This began with the organization of the Die-Test file. The goal of IS-MS was to simplify the process of creating a test. The three major sections of test definition are:1. IS-MS uses multiple definition and reference files to define a test, allowing wafer tests to share common definitions of module structures and other commons elements. Methods of investigation are data analysis, bench analysis, and work-stream analysis. WLR trends help qualify these process improvements. The books here could be sat down and read or checked out on a person's badge. An understanding of the hierarchy of a wafer's layout is essential in designing an appropriate test program (see Figure 1).
Common topics in this essay:
Work-Stream Analysis,
SLM's SLM's,
Die-Test OPSPEC,
Micro Devices,
Wafer Die,
IC-MS RS/1,
Using RS/1,
Forms ERF's,
Electrical Test,
Module Definition,
wet analysis,
wafer test,
test program,
advanced micro devices,
wlr data,
previously tested,
investigation issues,
die-test file,
micro devices,
trend charts,
advanced micro,
automated probing machines,
program using is-ms,
test program using,
using is-ms author,
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