Patent ID: 6169960
Filing Date: 2001-01-02
Classification: H01L

Abstract:
A method for determining damage potentials of various wafer defects in semiconductor manufacturing, comprising: providing a semiconductor wafer comprising a plurality of die sites; producing a defect data base from a plurality of defects on said wafer, wherein said data base comprises a location, a size, and a type of each of said defects; testing each of said die to produce a wafer map indicating whether each of said die is functional or nonfunctional; proposing a die model for predicting a die probability that one of said die is functional, wherein said die probability is a function of said location, said size, and said type of said defects, wherein said proposing said die model to predict said die probability that one of said die is functional comprises: proposing a single model for predicting a plurality of single probabilities that one of said die will be functional when only a single defect exists on said die; and computing said die probability by forming a product of said single probabilities corresponding to all defects on said die; and minimizing an error function by modifying said proposed die model, wherein said error function comprises a difference between said wafer map and said proposed die model.