Patent ID: 6195621
Filing Date: 2001-02-27
Classification: G01H,G03F,H01L

Abstract:
A system to diagnose potential malfunctions in semiconductor manufacturing equipment components, comprising:a transducer to monitor present component vibration signatures of the semiconductor manufacturing equipment components and provide at least one output signal representative of present component vibration;an electrical circuit to read said at least one output signal generated by said transducer and transmit at least one data signal representative of said present component vibration signatures to a computer system; anda computer system which contains a software application to analyze said at least one data signal wherein said software application comprises:a set of instructions operable to direct said computer to collect said at least one data signal, store data representative of said present vibration signatures in a memory location, andcompare said data to a database of historical component vibration signatures wherein an alert is supplied to a user noting differences between said present component vibration signatures and the historical component vibration signatures.