SmartFab Data and Analytics - Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Each new generation of semiconductor technology presents increasingly difficult challenges for effective quality control of the hundreds of individual processes and the integration of those processes comprising semiconductor manufacturing. Today those challenges include controlling dimensions of patterned features to a few nanometers and controlling film thicknesses to handfuls of atoms. Objectives included in the March 2024 US National Science and Technology Council National Strategy on Microelectronics Research highlight the need for advances in process control and process optimization. Advances in process control and optimization rely on the ready availability of a vast scale and scope of data, and on the effectiveness of analytics for anomaly detection, anomaly diagnosis, and process optimization. Here we consider some challenges and opportunities associated with the acquisition and management of that data, and the rapid evolution of ML and AI capabilities.