300mm Prime Guidelines

Phase 2
Version 2.04
December 2007

JEITA-JSIA
Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industry
Association-Japan Semiconductor Association

300mm Prime Task Force0

Contents
1. Next Generation Fab Image Intended by J300P Guidelines............................................ 3
1.1.

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3

1.2.

Background............................................................................................................... 3

1.3.

Implementation Timings .......................................................................................... 4

2. Base Guidelines ............................................................................................................... 6
Manufacturing management and control in wafer point of view ..................................... 6
2.1.

Manufacturing management and control in wafer point of view ............................. 7

2.2.

Production equipment quality assurance across business boundary ........................ 9

2.3.

Hierarchical Assurance of equipment’s process execution performance ............... 10

3. Equipment Engineering Data/Model Definition ........................................................... 11
Proactive visualization of production equipment quality ................................................. 11
3.1.

Proactive visualization of production equipment quality ....................................... 11

3.2.

Reinforcement of production equipment quality assurance ................................... 12

3.3.

Focus on equipment capabilities’ visualization...................................................... 13

3.4.

Critical values provision of equipment performance healthiness determination ... 14

3.5.

Collaboration between device makers and equipment suppliers............................ 15

3.6.

Improved efficiency in equipment engineering data collection and data utilization
16

Equipment engineering data definition............................................................................. 17
3.7.

Equipment engineering data utilization areas of interest........................................ 17

3.8.

Equipment engineering data structure .................................................................... 18

3.9.

Equipment engineering data quality....................................................................... 19

3.10.

Focus on Machine-to-Machine/Chamber-to-Chamber differences .................... 21

4. Individual Wafer Equipment Control ............................................................................ 22
4.1.

Graceful shutdown of production equipment ......................................................... 22

4.2 Equipment capability performance conditioning and adjustment not linked towafer processing control................................................................................................... 23
4.3

Continuous wafer feeding and pick-up................................................................... 24

4.4

Wafer-level over-taking control in batch processing equipment............................ 25
1

5

4.5

Wafer-level intermediate process quality confirmation (Phase3) .......................... 25

4.6

Wafer-level processing quality management (Phase3) .......................................... 25

4.7

Productivity of inspection and metrology tools (Phase 3)...................................... 25

Production Equipment Productivity Improvement........................................................ 26
Definition of Dandori ....................................................................................................... 26

6

5.1

Dandori visualization.............................................................................................. 26

5.2

Dandori control from the factory system................................................................ 28

5.3

Continuous wafer processing across lot boundaries............................................... 29

5.4

Intended stable wafer processing............................................................................ 30

5.5

External utilization of equipment internal counter information ............................. 31

5.6

Efficient operation of multi-chamber equipment ................................................... 32

New Factory-Production Equipment Control Interface ................................................ 33
6.1

Addition of wafer-level management interface ...................................................... 33

6.2

Wafer-level equipment control interface................................................................ 34

Wafer-level traceability in production equipment............................................................ 35
6.4

Processed wafer and unprocessed wafer notification ............................................. 36

7

Guideline Phasing.......................................................................................................... 37

8Contacts ......................................................................................................................... 37

9

Revision Record ............................................................................................................ 37

Figures:Figure 1: Paradigm shift for the next generation semiconductor factory
Figure 2: Cycle time visualization concept from wafer point of view
Figure 3: Counter measure examples for productivity losses by Dandori operations2

1. Next Generation Fab Image Intended by J300P Guidelines
1.1. Introduction
This guideline booklet has been developed by 300mm Prime Task Force affiliated withJEITA-JSIA (Japan Electronics Information Technology Association Japan-Japan
Semiconductor Industry Association) Technology Committee, hereafter J300P Task Forcesince April 2006. The area of the guideline requirements is limited to production equipment
and related peripheral capabilities per the agreement made among the JEITA-JSIA member
companies.
This set of guidelines is expansion of the existing global guidelines (GJG300: Global Joint
Guidance for 300mm Semiconductor Factory CIM and EEC: Equipment Engineering
Capabilities Guidelines) to capture the requirements in the next generation semiconductor
fabs as reduction in production cycle time, more stable and elaborate process outcome
controllability, and, reinforced productivity in the production equipment. J300P Task Forcereviewed the existing guidelines of both GJG300 and EEC. J300Ptask Force found they are
all reusable except for new additional requirements that are collected in this booklet.
Phase 1 guidelines focus on wafer point of view visualization of factory and equipment
activities and equipment quality, and phase 2 guidelines focus on equipment controllability,and phase 3 guidelines are planned to focus on inspection and metrology equipment andprocess quality control.

1.2. Background
First generation 300mm factories have been designed for thorough factory automation andbuilt worldwide basis. There are following problems in terms of productivity and aparadigm shift in the manufacturing methodology now being sought.
(1) Wafer-level process outcome control capability in response to process nodeadvancement(2) Productivity and cycle time improvement in response to rapidly changing business
requirement
Figure 1 shows the image of above mentioned paradigm shift in semiconductor factory andits manufacturing methodology. This figure was created by STRJ and presented in 2005
winter ITRS meeting.

3Operation
Operation
ForForHM/SL&
HM/SL &
AdvanceddeviceAdvanced device
geometrygeometry

Lot and wafer based for
quality and delivery
450mm
450mm
Commonality will be succeeded

e-Mfg
Agile
ECM
EES
PV

Simplified
Operation

300mm
300mmPrime
Prime

2009

2006

Pilot

201１
First
FirstGeneration
Generation300mm
300mm

1997

Lot based managementfor quality and delivery

2005

GJGStandard
Spec

Mass Production
PV: Proactive Visualization,
HM/SL：High Mix/Small Lot Size

Source STRJ 2005

Figure 1: Paradigm shift for the next generation semiconductor factory

STRJ disclosed following manufacturing concepts in the preceding past 6 years to thisguideline development; e-Manufacturing, Agile-Manufacturing, Engineering Chain
management, Equipment Engineering System, Proactive Visualization, HierarchicalStrategic Quality Assurance. J300P Task Force formulated requirements as guidelines outof these manufacturing concepts with a focus on productivity, cycle time improvement, and,waste reduction.

1.3. Implementation Timings
Followings are implementation timings of the capabilities required in this guideline.
2008
Completion of equipment engineering data contents and data provision readiness that are
asked in the base guidelines
Standardization of structured information of wafer’s attributes and status
2009
Implementation of wafer traceability information from wafer point of view
Completion of standardization for equipment capability and relevant data models
Standardization of information definition for Dandori visualization
Implementation of graceful shut down of equipment that are asked in the individual wafer
equipment control guidelines

4

Standardization of wafer management information at the interface between production
equipment and factory for wafer
2010
Standardization and implementation of those wafer-level control capabilities required in
sections 4 through 6.

5

2. Base Guidelines
Manufacturing management and control in wafer point of view
Wafer processing operations are graphically represented in Figure 2. A lot has been defined
as a carrier containing 25 wafers and most of the production information has been defined
based on this lot definition, and manufacturing is controlled and executed on this lot basis
and the relevant information is gathered as well.
For the further improvement of the cycle time and productivity it will become important toutilize individual wafer’s movement information that describe all experienced states in thecourse of fabrication at individual wafers internal and external to the equipment together
with equipment operation log data. The scope of the base guidelines is that equipment
productivity and equipment process control activities are to be analyzed at individual
wafer-level so as to visualize individual wafer activities as well as productivity losses thathave not been explored in the past in a comprehensive manner.
Phase 1 base guidelines present the requirements for factory activity visualization from theviewpoint of individual wafers and from the other conventional viewpoints as well such as
factory resource view. Phase 2 base guidelines present the requirements for factory control
from the viewpoint of individual wafers and from the other viewpoints such as equipment’sDandori control and equipment capability performance’s chronicle drift compensation. The
viewpoint of individual wafers requires structured information of wafer’s attributes andstatus. This structured information needs to be standardized urgently. GL requires
equipment to have wafer-level traceability based on this structured information as well.

Figure 2: Cycle time visualization concept from wafer point of view6

2.1. Manufacturing management and control in wafer point of view
Manufacturing management and control information shall be designed to allow elaborated
wafer view utilization both in the factory and equipment systems.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
For the consistent improvement both in the cycle time and productivity it will become
important to utilize factory information comprising of individual wafer’s movement
information that describe all experienced states in the course of fabrication internal andexternal to the equipment in conjunction with hierarchically structured relevant equipment
activity log data. Wafer view factory information such as cycle time and waiting time
information has been defined by individual device makers. The equipment activity
information from the wafer viewpoint such as wafer movement upon load port transfer andequipment internal transfer events are provided by equipment suppliers in their specificmanner. Wafer view information utilization will play an even more important role in thecontext of more complex and finer geometry fabrication.

Standards:
1. Wafer view cycle time related data such as individual wafers’ waiting time, process timeneed clear definitions. Wafer view cycle time related data are to be defined to have ahierarchical structure in the standard.
2. The wafer-level traceability data shall be defined to have finer granularity in comparison
to the lot-based traceability data. Particularly event data upon equipment’s state changes
shall be defined with high granularity for standardization.
Examples of data definitions that require standardization:
Time duration of equipment internal fabrication or fabrication related operations fromthe viewpoint of individual wafers
Graphical representation methods of equipment internal paralleled operations on
multiple wafers,
Discrete waiting time segments for individual wafer that comprise overhead time ofindividual wafers (known as B values):
Across the factory-equipment boundary;Time of “paper work” of wafer carrier acceptancePhysical transfer time and some wait time
External to equipment;
Wait time for a carrier to be transported
Wait time in a queue•
Internal to equipment;7

Time segments that cannot be hidden by parallelism of equipment internal
processes that add up to the total lot cycle time
Production time discontinuity between consecutive 2 lots with different
recipesTime needed for batch formation
Cleaning and seasoning time, time used for particle check
Wait to time for manual operation, wait time for quality judgment, etc.
Wafer traceability information element examples:
Process sequences log data for individual wafers, Wafer rotation at relevant wafer
positions, equipment group, equipment, equipment modules that individual
wafers went through, carriers in which that wafer was contained
Examples of event data that support above mentioned wafer view data utilization;
Event of equipment status changes, its contents, and, event data definition interms of engineering specifications and structural definition that contains relevant
context information.
Remarks:None8

2.2. Production equipment quality assurance across business boundary
Production equipment quality shall be visualized, traced, and maintained across theequipment supplier-device maker business boundary.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and Purposes:
Production equipment quality is built into the equipment in the manufacturing process. Thisequipment quality will be succeeded and used in device maker’s production line. It is
important that quality maintenance and improvement activities at the equipment supplierand those at the device maker are mutually interrelated so as to improve the quality andefficiency of equipment engineering operations at both parties.
Standards:
Standard requirements will be described in the dependent lower level guidelines. For the
implementation of this guideline following standardization efforts are required in pluralindustry domains.
Consortia campaign:
Business model study of Enhanced Equipment Quality Assurance
For EEQA see http://jeita-smtc.elisasp.net/
Implementation encouragement by consortia: Following publications
Establishment of EEQA’s technical procedure as a common knowledge
Format of EEQA contents sheet
EEQA contents standardization of well-known equipment capabilities
Standardization of EEQA equipment engineering data and data specifications
EEQA equipment engineering data reutilization

Remarks:
Business model study as an industry is required for implementation of this guideline.
Industry organizations from both equipment suppliers and device makers should
conduct mutual and open investigation. For effective and proactive visualization ofequipment quality each party should prepare to propose the equipment quality
visualization contents. Device makers’ active support of equipment suppliers’
reutilizing the EEQA data for the further equipment quality improvement should
become a common practice.

9

2.3. Hierarchical Assurance of equipment’s process execution performance
Equipment’s process execution performance quality (such as low failure rate, short equipment
state validation time, low process outcome quality fluctuation, reduced machine-to-machine orchamber-to-chamber difference, shall be assured in accordance to equipment’s hierarchicallogical structure model. This quality validation shall be performed prior to equipment’s
acceptance to the production line by the equipment supplier. This quality assurance should be
performed at needed frequency after the acceptance. The EEQA data shall be able to be shared
between the equipment supplier and the device maker.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers, device makers, and third parties
Background and purposes:
Selected equipment engineering data sharing is required between the equipment supplier andthe device maker for sufficient information support to maintain the equipment at the specified
performance. Data selection shall be decided by collaboration between the equipment makerand the device maker.
Standard:
Hierarchical equipment logical structure (equipment level capability layer, equipment module
level capability layer, part level capability layer) should be standardized.
Remarks:
Equipment reliability improvement is important to semiconductor manufacturing where
inherent feature shrinkage continues. Scientific approach to the more stable equipment
performance is eagerly expected with hierarchical quality traceability being in place fromlow component level to the whole equipment level.

103. Equipment Engineering Data/Model Definition
Proactive visualization of production equipment quality
3.1. Proactive visualization of production equipment quality
Production equipment quality shall be visualized with sharable healthiness and productivity
evaluation methods and evidence data, and that visualized information shall be able to bereutilized.
Who to implement this guideline: equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes
Production equipment is the most important factory resource and its quality influences
semiconductor product quality, cost, delivery time. Therefore the equipment quality
validation at the time of acceptance to the production line and the equipment quality
maintenance and tracking are very important equipment engineering operations. They need
to be consequentially reinforced with scientific equipment engineering data.
Standard:
Equipment quality validation procedure shall be standardized.
Equipment engineering data for equipment quality description and evidence shall bestandardized.
Remarks:11

3.2. Reinforcement of production equipment quality assurance
Production equipment quality visualization, assurance, validation, and, trace shall be
reinforced with using steadily available equipment engineering data from the production
equipment.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
Currently available on-line equipment data is not utilized in a positive manner for
production equipment quality assurance. Equipment capabilities shall be tuned, validated
for performance with using steadily available equipment engineering data for the purposeof enhancing equipment quality assurance. Production equipment performance
visualization and maintenance should use this steadily available equipment engineering
data so as to succeed the initial equipment performance validation by using the same data.
Standard:
None
Remarks;
See guideline 2.6 for production equipment quality reinforcement.

123.3. Focus on equipment capabilities’ visualization
Visualization of individual equipment capabilities and equipment control capability shall beprioritized in conducting production equipment quality validation, trace, and maintenance
operations.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
An process tool is, for example, consist of process generation means such as reaction
condition generation (pressure and reactant concentrations, etc.), wafer temperatureadjustment means, wafer transportation means, and such. It is a basic and very first step toexamine if individual equipment capabilities are functioning in accordance to their
specifications or to what design intended.
Standard:
Validation procedures and the relevant data shall be standardized at least for the principal
equipment capabilities.
Remarks;
There are several well-known equipment capabilities in production equipment. These
capability performances shall be expressed as logical capability components and to bevalidated for their performances per these logical definitions. Accumulation of these logicalcomponents should validate the whole equipment performance so that that equipment
quality is described.
Examples of equipment capability performance focus;(1) Famous capabilities with well-known high trouble potential such as mass flow
controllers, automatic pressure controllers …
(2) Machine-to-machine and/or chamber-to-chamber difference(3) Repeatability of in-equipment process execution sequence13

3.4. Critical values provision of equipment performance healthinessdetermination
Equipment supplier shall provide both sets of critical value sets to determine the healthinessof equipment capability performances and/or behaviors for the initial validation at the timeof production line acceptance and for the continuous operation in production.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers

Back ground/purposes:
Currently the critical values to determine the healthiness of an equipment capability
performance for the initial validation at the time of production line acceptance and thecritical value for the continuous operation in production that is the expectation of theperformance stability are not well distinguished, and, hence, equipment suppliers have very
often no such pairing design values. This ends up with poor traceability of equipment
quality, and examination of particular equipment capability’s healthiness is difficult
without the provision of critical values for performance stability.
It is expected that the equipment supplier is most knowledgeable about the healthiness
definition or designed criteria. Device maker engineers are also knowledgeable enough to
set reasonable critical values for healthiness determination from his/her experiences, but notnecessarily know all the equipment capabilities and because of their large number it is
impossible to cover wide good portion of the capabilities.

Standard:
Behavior models and healthy operation models of principal equipment capabilities shall bestandardized.
Remarks:
Equipment supplies are expected to continuously collect field data and proactive equipment
quality visualization data to accumulate knowledge so as to elaborate visualization contentssuch as equipment capability healthiness determination criteria. Equipment suppliers are
expected to improve their traceability capability with statistical analysis of equipment
quality proactive visualization data from a large number of shipped tools, a large number ofprocess chambers, or large number of individual logical equipment capability components

143.5. Collaboration between device makers and equipment suppliers
Device makers and equipment suppliers are to investigate and improve the contents ofproactive equipment quality visualization collaboratively.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
Device makers are expected to propose the better contents of proactive equipment quality
visualization from their experiences in running the production tool in mass production
environment. The equipment quality data obtained for equipment capability validation at
the time of production equipment acceptance to the production line shall be used by theequipment suppliers for improvement of equipment quality and services.
Standard:
Typical proactive equipment quality visualization shall be standardized.
Typical measurement methods of productivity and equipment capability performances shallbe standardized including important trigger data.
Visualization items of productivity and equipment capability performances shall be
distinctly sorted from the viewpoints of factory operation, production equipment, and,product wafers.
Remarks: none

15

3.6. Improved efficiency in equipment engineering data collection and datautilization
Equipment engineering data collection and data utilization shall be systemized with being
embedded in the current workflows.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
If data gathering and analysis take too long for equipment quality improvement andmaintenance, equipment quality visualization with enough coverage and depth cannot be
achieved. The data gathering shall be done on-line as much as possible. Furthermore thenecessary data extraction, information abstraction, data sorting and accumulation per
individual equipment capabilities, statistical determination of individual equipment
capability healthiness shall be automated and systemized so that data reliability andhealthiness determination reliability are to be improved. This also contributes to establish
equipment quality improvement cycles.
While equipment data collection systems have been implemented for years at device
makers for process condition data retrieval, equipment suppliers shall implement equipment
engineering data collection and utilization system at their own manufacturing sites forproactive equipment quality visualization or enhanced equipment quality assurance withequipment capability level granularity.
Standard:
Data utilization for proactive equipment quality visualization shall be standardized in termsof the data and its data retrieval capabilities with individual equipment capability
granularity and in order to promote efficient equipment engineering data utilization.
Remarks: None

16

Equipment engineering data definition
3.7. Equipment engineering data utilization areas of interest
Production equipment shall provide elemental data for the information used in the various
equipment engineering operation areas.
Above-mentioned equipment engineering operation areas should include followings;
1. Management and control operations of the factory system view equipment behavior(GEM300)
2. Productivity management and improvement operations in terms of OEE, cycle timefrom the factory system view, equipment view, and, product wafer view.
3. Energy consumption management and reduction and consumables management andreduction operations
4. Process condition management, monitor, fault detection, and advanced process control
operations where process parametric information is mainly used
5. Equipment engineering operations such as process tool healthiness monitoring,equipment capability performance validation, malfunction identification, maintenancemanagement where equipment capability activity information is mainly used.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
The history has been that the equipment data is superimposed onto the SECS
communication, and that the main data utilization purpose was to monitor the process
conditions. Production equipment is the most precious resource in the factory, andconsequently it is involved in many aspects of equipment engineering operations. The
equipment engineering data shall be reexamined from above mentioned many aspects ofrelevant data usage.
Standards:
Equipment engineering data items, data types, and, relevant context data shall bestandardized for each of the equipment engineering operations of interest.
Remarks:
It is note worthy to mention that equipment does not necessarily provide readily usable
information for 5 operation areas. Since there are many data that are used commonly in the
5 equipment engineering operation areas, information extraction from the equipment
engineering data shall be done external to the equipment in accordance with targeted
operation areas of interest.

17

3.8. Equipment engineering data structure
The definition of equipment engineering data is designed in accordance with the logicalmodular structure per equipment’s control capability logical structure.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers, device makers, and, software vendors
Background and purposes:
Equipment engineering data should be designed so that it is used both by the equipment
suppliers and device makers for the purposes of equipment quality maintenance andimprovement. Although the process parametric monitoring has been historically the centerof interest at device makers, equipment data that more directly describes equipment
capability activities is required from the viewpoint of equipment supplier.
The process performance of a production tool is hard to be described in terms of the process
results since it is considerably dependent on process parameter settings and the wafer itself.
Equipment quality should be visualized by visualizing individual capability performances.
It should be understood that a production equipment is described as a logical combinationof many individual equipment capabilities, and that some of these capabilities are common
to other production equipment; i.e., an RF power application means is used in plasma CVD,
PVD, dry etching tools. Design and utilization of equipment engineering data will be madeefficient by standardized modeling of these equipment base capabilities.
Standards:
Equipment capabilities shall be described in a standardized hierarchical logical structure.
Base equipment capabilities should be standardized for their behavior models comprisingof data definition and healthiness model.
Remarks:
It is required that equipment engineering data is used per each of data utilization purposeswith high efficiency. Information extraction from equipment engineering data should bewell defined for automation without much labor. This means that equipment suppliers areable to gather data from the all process chambers delivered to users as needed and toevaluate the necessary part of the data with ease. If these are done by hand or with lots ofmouse clicks, systematic and continuous equipment quality improvement will bejeopardized.

18

3.9. Equipment engineering data quality
Equipment engineering data shall be designed to suffice its data specification in accordancewith individual data usage purposes. More concretely following 4 data qualities shall beconsidered;(1) Data items and their precisions defined after healthiness models of individual
equipment capabilities(2) Sufficiency of context for equipment internal activity description endorsed withequipment activity event data
(3) Sufficiency in time stamping that allows correct interpretation of series of equipment
activity accompanied by control sequential structure information(4) Provision of context data from the viewpoint of equipment control sequence that helps
a cluster of data be allocated in the right timing of equipment’s control sequence data wherethat cluster of data is obtained external to the equipment control. Such “external data”
gathering examples are data collection of supplemental equipment such as slurry supply
units or fast trace data collection by dedicated data collector hardware such as an etchingend point detector.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers, and, software vendors
Background and Purposes:
Although the specification of equipment engineering data cannot be determined uniformly
since there are many different data utilizations and different tool types, equipment
engineering data should be provided with the quality that assures correct data interpretation.
This data quality corresponds to context data provision. Context data should enable data
extraction of particular focused areas with the right logical state of equipment andrecognition of start and end of a certain control sequence. Some equipment sequence
context may be deduced from combination of plural equipment activity event data. Plural
data sets with different time stamps with different clocks can be correctly interpreted byprovision of adequate sequence context data. In other words very high time stamping
accuracy would be required with less adequate context information (equipment activity
event data) to read the data in some cases.
It is extremely important to note that the equipment should be correctly adjusted for theirembedded capabilities’ functions with using the clocks inside the tool and without factory
system clock synchronization by equipment suppliers. Therefore EE data should bedesigned so that EE data can be interpreted correctly within EE data. Such concept of data
usage on both side of the industry did not exist, and this concept is true enabler ofconsiderable improvement of the equipment and related engineering activities.
Standards:
Data quality standard development is required whose scope includes interpretation ofequipment engineering data with using the combination of time stamping and equipment
control consequence information from the viewpoint of data utilization procedure.
19Remarks: None20

3.10. Focus on machine-to-machine/chamber-to-chamber differences
Equipment suppliers shall visualize process condition generation capabilities built in theequipment by equipment engineering data in accordance with the granularity that matches
to the relevant sensitivity of the process with using reusable methods and referencing
values. Equipment suppliers shall collect above mentioned equipment engineering datafrom the relevant process condition generation capabilities in all the shipment so that thedata is to be statistically analyzed for reasonable management of chamber-to-chamber andmachine-to-machine differences.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and Purposes:
Process tools are designed to perform intended process execution of the relevant processes
to the tools, validated, and, supplied to the market although there are many tool types andtheir processes to execute. Process condition generation means are to be validated for thestability, repeatability, and, fidelity to the instruction with the criteria at least throughexecution of the relevant best-known methods. The performances of the process condition
generation means are to be compared with each other using these defined criteria over all
the shipment. Statistical management of these equipment’s process condition generationmeans at equipment suppliers is expected to encourage more rationalized management ofequipment’s performance to provoke further effective reduction of chamber-to-chamber or
equipment-to-equipment differences at equipment suppliers.
Standards: None
Remarks: None21

4. Individual Wafer Equipment Control
4.1. Graceful shutdown of production equipment
While production equipment is designed to have the densely scheduled processing overwafers so as to maximize the throughput, a production equipment shall cease processing
wafers safely when malfunctions in safety or base equipment capabilities are detected
within the minimum granularity unit such as individual wafers or individual chambers.
The consecutive sequence from the decision making of ceasing processing to actual
shutdown shall be reported.
(Ref.: EEC Guidelines 2002)
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and Purposes:
The granularity of production tool’s process ceasing action has not been standardized. It is
important that the number of scrap wafers is minimized by designing production tools withminimum number of granularity of ceasing action.
Standards:
The process ceasing actions are to be standardized with considering the equipment types andvariety of process status.
Remarks:
The malfunction of the equipment should be detected within the process time of therelevant chamber in multi-chamber tool. Processed wafers and unprocessed wafers areclearly recognized. Process ceasing method should be selected per information available
from the tool, depending on tool/process configuration such as series or paralleled sequencein multi-chamber tools.

224.2 Equipment capability performance conditioning and adjustment notlinked to wafer processing control
Equipment shall have a control means that allows either equipment internal control orexternal control to compensate equipment capabilities’ performance variations where wellestablished chronicle variation models are available. This control shall be delegated to theequipment by the factory system in an apparent procedure and the relevant compensation
control activity shall be made visible to the factory systems.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose:
Equipment has well-known chronicle variations such as discharge impedance’s decrease
and its film growth rate change with a given power due to progress of erosion in the sputter
target, and such as evacuation speed’s decrease due to debris deposition accumulation
inside the exhaust piping of CVD equipment.
This kind of stable and gentle change of equipment process performance still is specific toeach of process chambers. Compensation control against such changes sometimes
complicates the equipment control to unnecessary extent, and this is especially true forsmall lot manufacturing situations where much shorter time period of time is available topresetting such compensation parameters with knowing the destination process chambers
for individual wafers compared to what it is for 25 wafer lot-based equipment control.
Delegation mechanism of such compensation control to the equipment by the factory
system eliminates such complication.
This mechanism would allow simple recipe operation without describing the compensation
parameters in detail per individual chambers or equipment differences.
This kind of compensation is often done implicitly by equipment itself, but thecompensation needs to be explicitly delegated and the compensation activity needs to be
explicitly visualized.
Standards:
For the compensation, the logical interface needs to be standardized.
Remarks:23

4.3 Continuous wafer feeding and pick-up
Equipment shall support operation using different input carriers and different output
carriers to realize continuous feeding of unprocessed wafers to the process part of a tooland pick-up of processed wafers. Such operations shall include operations of dividing or
mixing groups of wafers into output carriers as required. Equipment and the factory systemshall mutually exchange the necessary information in order to pick-up unloaded input
carriers and to feed carriers to load the processed wafers.
Who to implement this guideline: Device makers and equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose:
In case of equipment which has relatively large number of process positions, such as linked
lithography equipment , unloaded empty carriers may occupy the load ports waiting for theprocessed wafers originated from these individual carriers to come back while they have nofurther unprocessed wafers to feed to the process part of the equipment. Furthermore
AMHS is prevented from feeding carriers loaded with unprocessed wafers due to theoccupation of load ports by these carriers. Although such phenomenon would be eliminatedif sufficient number of lord ports are provided, it is not usually practical to widen
equipment’s physical width of the front end to accommodate large number of load ports.
One solution is to virtually increase the number of lord ports, by replacing the empty
carriers with new carriers loaded with unprocessed wafers so as not to discontinue wafer
feeding while collecting the processed wafers into designated empty carriers. Loaded
carriers are to be picked up at appropriate timings by AMHS so that the flow of processedwafers is not disturbed. This GL is intended to encourage such solutions for productivity
recovery.
Standards:
In addition to the uni-cassette operation already defined in GEM300, the above mentioned
operation scenarios or likes of equipment need to be standardized.
Remarks:24

4.4 Wafer-level over-taking control in batch processing equipment
Batch process equipment with the internal buffer shall be capable of accepting hot wafers
until the reserved process is started by the instruction from the factory system.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose: Batch equipment such as oxidation/diffusion, cleaning, and low
pressure-CVD is one of the biggest obstacles to achieve reduction of hot wafer’s cycle time.
Operations below would enable reduction of hot wafer’s cycle time. This would be a large
positive impact to SoC business.
• In the case where reserved fill-dummy wafers for the scheduled batch can be replacedwith hot wafers, new process starts after batch formation is repeated for the new set ofwafers.
In the case where product wafers for the scheduled batch can be replaced with hot wafers or
where hot wafers can be simply added to the scheduled batch, the new process starts after
batch formation is repeated for the new set of wafers.
Standards:
Wafer-level over taking scenarios and its controlling methods need to be standardized forbatch equipment.
Remarks:

4.5 Wafer-level intermediate process quality confirmation (Phase3)
4.6 Wafer-level processing quality management (Phase3)
4.7 Productivity of inspection and metrology tools (Phase 3)25

5 Production Equipment Productivity Improvement
Definition of Dandori
Dandori operations are peripheral operations to the throughput-constraint main thread
operations. Dandori operations include preparatory operations before the processing, postprocess operations, wafer transportations to the process tool or to the process part of thetool, and, wafer identification operation.
Dandori operations may be categorized per operation responsibility owners;
Class 1 Dandori operations: where operations are all delegated to the equipment anddesigned by equipment suppliers to be executed within that production equipment.
Class 2 Dandori operations: where operations reside across the boundary of factory and the
production equipment, and they are very often related the information transfer.
Class 3 Dandori operations: where operations are controlled by the factory system.

5.1 Dandori visualization
Dandori operations shall be categorized for the ease of solutions development by device
makers and the equipment suppliers. The categorized Dandori operations shall be definedwith provision of the states and their triggers. Dandori data shall be designed for a structureso that the factory system and the equipment can share for control synchronization.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
Dandori operation elimination or its time reduction, paralleling Dandori operation with themain thread operations, evaluation of effectiveness and related effects of Dandori
operations are to be considered for improvements in cycle time and OEE.
Historically Dandori operations have not been well categorized and defined per theirlogical location affiliations such as equipment side, factory side, and their boundary.
Standards:
Dandori operations should be defined and categorized in standard.

Remarks:
Figure 3 shows list of counter measures examples against productivity losses due to
Dandori operations where the operations are categorized per owner of the operation.

26

CategoryClass 1

Improvement in Specific Technology• Reduce seasoning and/or cleaning time
• Reduce WIP identification time

Improvement in Control Technology• Optimize tool internal wafer transfer
scheduling• Optimize tact balance between equipment sideand factory side

Class 2

• Reduce process instruction informationtime• Parallel such operations as seasoning andcleaning with other operations• Reduce WIP identification time

• Preset the process instruction• Reduce carrier identification time

• Optimize the wafer process order• Reduce NPW preparation time
Class 3

• Reduce carrier dispatching time

• Pre-create of NPW process jobs

• Reduce time used for equipment process
performance stability• Synchronization of job exchange anddispatching• Reduce time used for product quality
confirmation• Parallel product quality confirmation
operations and other operations

Figure 3: Counter measure examples for productivity losses by Dandori operations27

5.2 Dandori control from the factory system
Equipment shall be equipped with a capability that allows the factory system to instruct
Dandori operations on the equipment. The above control information shall be designed fora reasonable structure.

Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose:
Implementation of such capability that allows manipulation of Dandori operations onequipment will provide the same degree of controllability in sequence manipulation andvisibility to the factory system as the processing execution, and it is expected to contributeto improvement of equipment productivity.
The information on scheduled Dandori operations on equipment as well as wafer
processing needs to be communicated with the factory system.
Standards:
The control interface of Dandori operations needs to be standardized.
The instruction information of Dandori operations on equipment needs to be standardized.
Remarks:
Readers should refer to the requirements on wafer processing order manipulation.
Dandori operations simply repeated on equipment would not be of interest for the factory
system, and, therefore, the operations are often delegated to the equipment. The equipment
needs to have two such simplified controlling functions; delegation of such Dandori
operations to equipment and triggering the start of such Dandori operations.

28

5.3 Continuous wafer processing across lot boundaries
Single wafer processing equipment shall be able to process wafers with the minimum
production discontinuity across lot boundaries over different process lots as theequipment’s process resources become available for the following lot.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
There are often observed unnatural discontinuity in production time of individual wafers
across lots with different recipe contents.
Equipment needs to wait for a tool internal processing resources to become available to thewafers of the following lot (such cases as bake temperature setting change from one value
to another across the lot boundary).
This guideline intends to encourage that the wafers in the subsequent lot will be processed
without excessive delay so as to minimize the discontinuity in the production time.
Standards:
Standards for single carrier multi-lot capabilities need to be reinvestigated
Remarks:
Production discontinuity can also arise where continuous wafer supply from the load ports
is not possible. The requirements in 4.3 should be referred.

29

5.4 Intended stable wafer processing
A single-wafer processing tool shall conduct the identical processing to each of theindividual wafers within a lot or across adjacent lots as intended.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
There are many factors beside what is written in a recipe that determine the process
condition in process tools. A good example is the condition observed by the wafer between
the 2 adjacent process steps in a multi-chamber configuration tools. It is important tounderstand the process conditions for the wafer between chambers such as wafer’s waitingtime on robot blade between steps, environment the wafers are exposed, temperature
decrease, etc..
Process tools are expected to provide identical process execution to all wafers within a lot,or even for wafers in different lots with the same processing conditions in accordance to theequipment design concept for what is written in the recipe and what is not necessarily
written in the recipe as well.
Standards:
None
Remarks:
Some process tools are designed to use plural process chambers in parallel, and in suchcases, chamber-to-chamber differences are to be sufficiently reduced together with above
mentioned effort to conduct the identical processing to the wafers.
Equipment control for identical wafer processing is to be visualized and can be validate as
required.

30

5.5 External utilization of equipment internal counter information
1. Life time progress information and state of consumables in the equipment shall be madeexternally accessible.
2. Setting values and current observed values of equipment’s interlock capabilities shall bemade externally accessible.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
Equipment maintenance planning or scheduling is one of the basic equipment engineering
operations. The lifetime progress information of the consumables in the equipment is very
important to this operation.
Systematic confirmation of resetting consumables’ lifetime counters after maintenancework is effective to prevent equipment’s accidents and/or malfunction happenings that has
pronounced high occurrence tendency especially after maintenance work.
Conformance confirmation of the setting values of interlock capabilities against the normal
values is also effective to prevent equipment’s frequently happening accidents after
maintenance work. Systemizing above mentioned confirmation procedures are important.
Standards:
Data items and data access methods need to be standardized.
Remarks: None31

5.6 Efficient operation of multi-chamber equipment
Each of equipment’s process positions, process stages, or, process chambers shall be
designed to have its process acceptance state attribute. This state value shall be set andutilized by the factory system.
Process acceptance status are of that the chamber can process all processes designated tothe equipment, that it can process some restricted processes, that it cannot process any
product wafers but monitor wafers, or, that it can process only non-product wafer likedummy wafers. The change in the status shall be reported to the factory system.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
In multi-chamber tools the whole operation is sometimes restricted to unnecessarily
confined operations depending on state of one of the chambers, and different recipes may
be needed to be given depending on the availability change in one of the chambers for the
execution of the same process.
. The utilization summary data of multi-chamber equipment cannot be fully used because of
the data’s rough granularity in the state expressions.
It is anticipated that processing of production wafers in the normal state process chambers
and processing such as chamber seasoning with non-product wafers are required to undergo
simultaneously especially in multi-camber equipment.
A process chamber can be managed with the smaller engineering effort under most of its
various status such as those during the recovery operation of equipment after maintenancesuch as seasoning and in the process of qualifying for production, in the full capability if
individual chamber’s availability state values are set by the factory system with reasonablegranularity. The equipment would be able to combine these process position status and theattribute of incoming wafers so that partial maintenance of that tool is made possible.
Useful data acquisition will be possible especially for multi-chamber equipment.
Standards:
The instruction method of setting availability status from the factory system needs to be
standardized.
Remarks: None32

6 New Factory-Production Equipment Control Interface
6.1 Addition of wafer-level management interface
Following information shall be defined across the interface where individual wafers aretransferred to process part of the production equipment. This information shall be sharedwith the system external to the equipment.
The information to be handled is as follows;
Wafer identification information, wafer traceability information with its elements such asprocess sequences log data for individual wafers, wafer rotation at relevant wafer positions,equipment group, tools, equipment modules that individual wafers went through, carriers inwhich that wafer was loaded, processing instruction information such as the recipe,
Variable Parameters, process positions.

Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
In high-mix production various process/chamber configuration and operations are possiblyused. Therefore process management requires the granularity of individual wafers andindividual processes used. Although the uni-cassette operation has been implemented formany years where carrier integrity and slot integrity are well managed at hardware level,such integrities will be possibly subjected to change in response to the wafer-level controlof the next generation fab. Such elaborate management will be eventually lead to
optimization of wafer feeding into individual process parts of the production equipment interms of stable process and productivity control including cycle time reduction. This
guideline is a basic prerequisite requirement to individual wafer-level manufacturingcontrol.
Standards: None
Remarks: None33

6.2 Wafer-level equipment control interface
Equipment shall be equipped with a capability that allows the factory system to manipulate
the wafer processing queue and equipment’s Dandori operation queue.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
There is often observed necessity to improve equipment productivity by changing the wafer
processing order which enables reducing process changes and reducing Dandori operations
between process operations. The wafers of interest are those physically and/or logicallygiven to the tool. Such control of the factory system virtually enables the single wafer
production control.
Wafer processing order is may be changed within one carrier, or among different carriers.
The manipulation of wafer processing order should be possible at the latest occasion so thatthe chance to accept the queue manipulation is large to retain the higher degree of
productivity improvement
Standards:
Queue operation already defined in GEM300 needs to be reinvestigated and extended.
Remarks:
Readers should refer to the requirements of Dandori control from the factory system.
The factory system needs to schedule Dandori processing together with the wafer
processing order.
Equipment needs to upload the following data to the factory system so that the factory
system is able to decide the next processing wafer.
1. Scheduled process end time of wafers being processed
2. Anticipated process end time of reserved wafers
3. The load ports and/or internal buffer shelves that are planned to be made available to thenext wafer(s)4. Anticipated Dandori operations and their information for the next available wafer(s)such as recipe download and conditioning the equipment
5. Next wafer’s anticipated process start and end time34

6.3 Wafer-level traceability in production equipment
Equipment shall be able to trace each of the wafers even on an event in which wafer
processing queue is modified.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
Currently in most of the cases wafers are processed per slot number order and they are
returned to the same slot of the same carrier; they are called “slot integrity “and “carrier
integrity”, respectively.
Because of the productivity reasons it is sometimes necessary to change wafer’s processingorder. Some operations require different output carriers from the input carriers or different
output slots from input slots. The ability to trace the wafers with accurate log data on
wafer-by-wafer basis becomes extremely important for such operations.
The factory system needs a certain time to update the wafer trace information. For the
implementation of wafer-level control the latest information is required in a real timemanner for high granularity process control, and equipment should be able to provide to thelatest trace data for fast control purposes.
Standards:
The wafer traceability provided by equipment needs to be standardized. Several standards
need to be prepared according to different operation scenarios which include reading wafer
ID and using it for control.
Remarks: None35

6.4 Processed wafer and unprocessed wafer notification
Equipment shall clearly distinguish processed wafers from unprocessed wafers, and report
the relevant information to the factory system upon urgent process shutdown.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
When equipment urgently shuts down processing, equipment needs to clearly distinguishthe properly processed wafers, the likely improperly processed wafers, and the unprocessedwafers. Equipment needs to conduct wafer collection and recovery actions to the normal
condition. This requirement is extremely important under such occasions.
Standards:
The notification method of the above mentioned information needs to be standardized.
Remarks: None36

7 Guideline Phasing
The guideline items marked as Phase 3 in the contents will be developed after January 2008
and revision 3 J300P guidelines will be published

8 Contacts
Hiroyuki Ito
Nobuyuki Uenaka
Toshihiko Osada
Shigeru Kobayashi
Makoto Hiura
MichioHonma
Kazutaka Mishima
AkiraMitsui
Hiromi Yajima

Sharp
Panasonic
Fujitsu
Renesas Technology
Sony Semiconductor Kyusyu
NECElectronics
Sony Semiconductor Kyusyu
Panasonic
Toshiba

9 Revision Record

37

uenaka.n@jp.panasonic.com
osada.toshihiko@jp.fujitsu.com
kobayashi.shigeru2@renesas.com
Makoto.Hiura@jp.sony.com
michio.honma@necel.com
Kazutaka.Mishima@jp.sony.com
mitsui.akira@jp.panasonic.com
hiromi.yajima@toshiba.co.jp