300mm Prime Guidelines

Phase 2
Version 2.5
December 2007

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

300mm Prime Task Force0

Contents
1.

2.

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

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

1.2.

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

1.3.

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

Basic Guidelines .............................................................................................................. 5
Manufacturing Management and Control in Wafer Point of View (Explanation) ............. 5

3.

2.1.

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

2.2.

Quality assurance across business boundary............................................................ 9

2.3.

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

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 basic equipment capability visualization ................................................ 13

3.4.

Provision of critical values for 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

4.

3.7.

Areas of interest in equipment engineering data usage .......................................... 17

3.8.

Structure of equipment engineering data................................................................ 19

3.9.

Equipment engineering data quality ....................................................................... 20

3.10.

Focus on machine-to-machine/chamber-to-chamber difference......................... 21

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

Graceful shutdown of production tools (EEC Guidelines)..................................... 22

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

1

5

4.3

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

4.4

Hot-wafer overtaking in batch equipment .............................................................. 25

Production Improvement ............................................................................................... 26
Definition of Dandori ....................................................................................................... 26

6

5.1

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

5.2

Dandori control from 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

Factory-Production Equipment Control Interface for Individual wafer control............ 34
6.1

Addition of individual wafer management interface.............................................. 34

6.2

Individual wafer -equipment control interface ....................................................... 35

6.3

Individual wafer traceability in production equipment .......................................... 36

6.4

Processed wafer and unprocessed wafer notification ............................................. 37

7

Contacts ......................................................................................................................... 38

8

Revision Record ............................................................................................................ 38

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 against productivity losses induced by Dandori
operations2

1. Next Generation Fab Image Intended by J300P Guidelines
1.1. Introduction
This guideline booklet was developed by 300mm Prime Task Force affiliated withJEITA-JSIA (Japan Electronics Information Technology Association -Japan Semiconductor
Industry Association) Technology Committee (hereafter J300P Task Force). 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.
Phase 1 guidelines focus on wafer point of view visualization of factory and equipment
activities, and phase 2 guidelines focus on equipment controllability.

1.2. Background
The first generation 300mm factories were designed for thorough factory automation andbuilt worldwide. There are following issues in terms of productivity and a paradigm shift inthe manufacturing methodology is now being sought.
(1) Process outcome control for individual wafers in response to process node advancement(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

Mass Production

2005

GJGStandard
Spec

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 past 5 years; e-Manufacturing,
Agile-Manufacturing, Engineering Chain management, Equipment Engineering System,
Proactive Visualization, Hierarchical Strategic Quality Assurance. J300P Task Forceformulated requirements as guidelines out of these manufacturing concepts with focuses on
productivity and cycle time improvement.

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 that is asked in
the base guidelines
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 is asked in the individual wafer
equipment control guideline4Standardization of wafer management information at the interface between production
equipment and factory for wafer
2010
Standardization and implementation of those individual wafer control capabilities requiredin Phase 2

2. Basic Guidelines
Manufacturing Management and Control in Wafer Point of View
(Explanation)
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 based on this lot
basis and the information has been gathered.
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 basic guidelines is that equipment
productivity and equipment process control activities are to be analyzed for individual
wafers so as to visualize individual wafer activities as well as productivity losses that havenot been explored before and the process outcome control and related peripheral activity
control are to be done for individual wafers as well to improve the productivity in acomprehensive manner.
Phase 1 basic guidelines present the requirements for factory activity visualization from theviewpoint of individual wafers and from the other viewpoints as well. Phase 2 basic
guidelines present the requirements for factory control activity from the viewpoint of
individual wafers and from the other viewpoints, such as equipment’s Dandori control andequipment’s chronicle drift compensation. The viewpoint of individual wafers requires
structured information of wafer’s attributes and status to play a very important role. This
structured information needs to be standardized urgently. GL requires equipment to haveindividual wafer traceability based on this structured information as well.

5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 and information sharing 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 is 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 where, for an example, subtle timedifference in process set up timing can cause serious process outcome degradation.

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 individual wafer traceability data shall be defined to have finer granularity incomparison to the lot based traceability data. Particularly event data upon equipment’s statechanges shall be defined with high granularity for standardization.
Examples of data definitions of data definitions for elaboration of equipment management
and control 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 wafers that comprise of overhead time
for individual wafers (know 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 delivered7

Wait time in a queue
Wait to time for manual operation, wait time for quality judgment, etc.
Internal to equipment;
Time segments that can not 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
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. 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. This equipment quality will be succeeded andused at 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 toimprove the quality and efficiency of equipment engineering operations
at both parties.
Standards:
Standard requirements will be described in the dependent lower levelguidelines. For the implementation of this guideline following
standardization efforts are required in plural industry 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 are to be provided and shared in the industry
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 and efficient data sharing
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 can propose important EEQA contents fromtheir experiences in manufacturing. 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, reduced process outcome quality fluctuation, reduced
machine-to-machine or chamber-to-chamber difference) shall be assured in accordance withequipment’s hierarchical logical structure model (e.g., per whole equipment functionality level,
control level, and, process actuator level) . The necessary EE data shall be shared between theequipment supplier and the device maker.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
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, device makers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers, 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: None11

3.2. Reinforcement of production equipment quality assurance
Production equipment quality visualization, assurance, validation, traces, and, maintenanceshall be reinforced with using steadily available equipment engineering data from theproduction equipment.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers, 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 3.6 for production equipment quality reinforcement.

123.3. Focus on basic equipment capability 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:
A process tool is, for example, consist of process condition generation means such as forreaction conditions of pressure and reactant concentrations, wafer temperature. It is a basic
and the very first step to examine if individual equipment capabilities are functioning inaccordance to their specifications or to what equipment has been designed.
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. The whole
equipment functionality shall be validated by integration of these capability components
and relevant validation results.
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. Provision of critical values for equipment performance healthinessdetermination
Equipment supplier shall provide both sets of critical values to determine the healthiness ofequipment capability performances and/or behaviors for the initial validation at the time of
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 since 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 of proactive 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 for standardization 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, 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 can not 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 terms of thedata and its data retrieval capabilities with individual equipment capability granularity and in orderto promote efficient equipment engineering data utilization.

Remarks: None

16

Equipment engineering data definition
3.7. Areas of interest in equipment engineering data usage
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 factory system view equipment behavior(GEM300)

2.

Productivity management and improvement operations in terms of OEE , cycle timefrom 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, 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 plural 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 above mentioned 5 operation areas. Since there are many data that are17

used commonly in the 5 equipment engineering operation areas, information extraction
from the equipment engineering data shall be done external to the equipment in accordancewith targeted operation areas of interest.

18

3.8. Structure of equipment engineering data
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 and device makers
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 basic capabilities.
Standards:
Equipment capabilities shall be described in a standardized hierarchical logical structure.
Basic equipment capabilities should be standardized for their behavior models comprisingof data definition and healthiness models.
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.

19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
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and Purposes:
Although the specification of equipment engineering data can not determined uniformly
since there are many different data utilizations and different tool types, equipment
engineering data should be provided with the quality data that assures correct datainterpretation. This data quality corresponds to context data provision. Context data should
enable data extraction of particular focused area with the right logical state of equipment
and recognition 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.
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.
Remarks: None20

3.10. Focus on machine-to-machine/chamber-to-chamber difference
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 andmany relevant process contents to execute. Process condition generation means are to bevalidated for the stability, repeatability, and, fidelity to the instruction with the criteria at
least through execution of the relevant best-known methods. The performances of theprocess condition generation means are to be compared with those in another tool using thedefined criteria over all the shipment. Statistical performance management of theseequipment’s process condition generation means at equipment suppliers is expected toencourage more rationalized management of equipment’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 tools (EEC Guidelines)
While production tools are designed to have the maximized effective production time, aproduction tool shall cease processing wafers safely when malfunctions in safety or baseequipment capabilities are detected with the minimum granularity unit such as individual
wafers or individual chambers. The consecutive sequence from the decision making of
ceasing processing to actual shut down 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 and variety of process status.
Remarks:
The malfunction of the equipment should be detected within the process time of therelevant chamber in multi-chamber tools. Processed wafers and unprocessed wafers arerecognized accordingly. Process ceasing method should be selected per information
available from and out of the tool, depending on tool/process configuration such as series orparalleled sequence in 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 internal control orexternal control to compensate equipment capabilities’ performance variations
that are described as chronicle variation models. This control shall be delegatedto equipment by the host system and made visible by and to the factory system
controller.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose:
Equipment has well-known chronicle performance variations such as discharge
impedance’s decrease and its film growth rate change as the sputter target
erosion proceeds, or vacuum pumping speed’s decrease due to debris
accumulation inside the pump’s piping of CVD equipment. Such equipment
process performance change is characteristics specific to individual chambers
even though they are gradual.
Equipment's process performance adjustment control needs delegation
mechanism of control to the equipment by the factory system in order tocompensate process performance variations and the chamber differences.
This mechanism enables recipe operation without describing the compensation
measure in detail per chamber or equipment differences.
Standards: For the compensation, the logical interface needs to be standardized.
Remarks: None23

4.3 Continuous wafer feeding and pick-Up
Equipment shall support operation using different input carriers and different
output carriers to realize continuous wafer feeding and pick-up. This operation
shall include dividing or mixing groups of wafers as required. Equipment andthe factory system shall mutually exchange the necessary information in orderto pick-up empty carriers and feed necessary carriers to receive the processedwafers.
Who to implement this guideline: Device makers and equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose:
In case of tools with large number of process positions such as linked litho tools,
carriers may need to wait to receive all the processed wafers of that carrier for a
prolonged time and resultantly this prevents carriers with unprocessed wafers
from being delivered to the equipment at the right time. If there is enoughnumber of lord ports, such productivity degradation can be eliminated, but
actually the number of load ports in equipment is physically limited.
One solution is to increase virtually the number of lord ports, by picking up the
empty carrier from the lord port for a while so that a carrier with unprocessedwafers can be delivered to the equipment. Another carrier needs to be delivered
to a load port to receive processed wafers and it is to be picked up at right timeby AMHS. This GL contributes to factory productivity improvement.
Standards: In addition to the uni-cassette operation already defined in GEM300,
the above mentioned operation scenario of equipment needs to be standardized.
Remarks: None24

4.4 Hot-wafer overtaking in batch equipment
In batch equipment that has the internal buffer hot-wafers shall be able toovertake the other reserved wafers for a batch until before the factory systemgives relevant process start instruction.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose: Batch equipment such as oxidation/diffusion,
wet-cleaning, and low pressure-CVD is one of the biggest cycle time detractors
for hot-wafers or hot-lots. Following operations may enable reduction of
hot-wafer’s cycle time and should play an important role in SoC business.
(1) Fill-dummy wafers to be replace with product wafers
The hot-wafers replace the filling dummy wafers already planned to be in
the batch, and batching will be redefined by the host system.
(2) Reserved product wafers to be replaced with hot-wafers or simply hot-wafers
are to be added to the reserved batch
Reserved product wafers will be replaced with the hot-wafers andbatching will be redefined. Hot-wafers may be simply added to thereserved batch, and batching will be repeated.
Standards: The definition of hot wafer’s over taking and its controlling method
need to be standardized.
Remarks: None25

5 Production 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 transportation, wafer identification operation.
Dandori operations may be categorized per operation responsibility owners;
Class 1 Dandori operations: where Dandori operations are all delegated to the equipment
and designed by equipment suppliers to be executed within that production equipment.
Class 2 Dandori operations: where Dandori operations reside across the boundary of factory
and the production equipment, and they are very often related with the information transfer.
Class 3 Dandori operations: where Dandori operations are controlled by the factory

5.1 Dandori visualization
Dandori operations shall be categorized for the ease of solutions development by device
maker and the equipment supplier. The categorization of Dandori operations shall bedefined together with the relevant state triggers. Dandori data shall be designed so that thedevice maker and equipment supplier can share.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
Dandori operation elimination or its time reduction, paralleling Dandori operations with theother operations, evaluation of effectiveness and related effects of each Dandori operation
are important to plan to improve equipment cycle time and OEE. Dandori operations havenot been categorized and defined per logical locations, i.e., equipment side, factory side,and their boundary. Dandori operations are required to be categorized as described in
Dandori definition of the following table and analyzed in detail.
Standards:
Dandori operations should be defined and categorized in standard.
Remarks: it is important to eliminate productivity losses by deploying effective measures ofwhich examples are listed in Figure 3 that are possible with sharing Dandori information
between the different control layers
Category

Improvement in SpecificImprovement in Control Technology

26

Technology
Class 1

Class 2

Class 3

• Reduce seasoning and/or
cleaning time•

Optimize tool internal wafertransfer scheduling• Reduce equipment internal
preparation time for process
generating means for new
recipes•

Optimize tact balance between
equipment side and factory side•

Reduce process instruction
information time••

Reduce carrier identification
time

Parallel such operations asseasoning and cleaning withother operations•

Preset the process instruction•

Reduce NPW preparation
time•

Optimize the wafer process
order

•

Reduce carrier dispatchingtime•

Pre-create of NPW process jobs••

Reduce time used forequipment process
performance stability

Synchronization of job
exchange and dispatching•

Paralleled product quality
confirmation operations andother operations•

Reduce time used for productquality confirmation
Figure 3: Counter measure examples against productivity losses induced by
Dandori operations27

5.2 Dandori control from factory system
Equipment’s Dandori shall be instructed by the factory system in a similar
fashion to wafer processing instruction. The instruction of the Dandori
operations inside equipment shall be structured.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background/purpose: If Dandori operation inside equipment is instructed in amanner like as wafer processing, the order manipulation of wafer processingand Dandori, and the visualization of Dandori become possible with ease andcontribute to productivity improvement.
The equipment’s schedule information, such as start time and end time, ofDandori or wafer processing needs to be reported to the factory system.
Standards: The interface to control the enforcement of Dandori operation needs
to be standardized.
The instruction of the Dandori operation inside equipment needs to be
standardized.
Remarks: Please refer to the requirements related to wafer processing order.
Simply repeated Dandori operation inside equipment is not interest of thefactory system and the operation needs to be delegated to equipment. The
equipment needs to have such two simplified controlling methods as startDandori and delegate Dandori to equipment.

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5.3 Continuous wafer processing across lot boundaries
A single wafer processing tool shall be able to process wafers continuously across lot
boundaries when that tool is fed with multiple different process lots except for a possible
discontinuity due to the lack of process resource availability for the consecutive lots withdifferent recipe contents
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
There are often observed unnatural discontinuity in production time between lots withdifferent recipe contents.
Equipment in some cases needs to wait for a tool internal processing resource will become
available to the wafers in the following lot in such cases as bake temperature change fromone value to another across the lot boundary.
This guideline intends to require that the wafer 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 occur when continuous wafer supply is not possible fromthe load ports.

29

5.4 Intended stable wafer processing
A single-wafer processing tool shall control execution of identical processing to individual
wafers within a lot or across adjacent lots
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
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 determines the process
condition in process tools. A good example is the condition between the process steps in a
multi-chamber configuration tools. It is important to understand the process conditions
while a wafer is transferred between chambers such as time between steps, environment
where the wafers are immersed, temperature changes, 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.
Standards: None
Remarks:
Some process tools are designed to use plural process chambers in parallel.
Chamber-to-chamber differences are to be sufficiently reduced by proactive equipment
quality visualization.
Equipment control for identical wafer processing is to be visualized and should be able tobe validated as required.

30

5.5 External utilization of equipment internal counter information
Wearing information about consumables inside equipment shall be externallyaccessible.
Equipment interlock’s setting values and current monitored values shall be
externally accessible.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
To know the wearing condition of the consumables inside equipment is
indispensable to scheduling equipment maintenance and Dandori operations for
improved productivity.
After exchanging consumable parts in maintenance the confirmation ofresetting consumable’s wearing counter is effective to prevent equipment’s
frequently happening accidents and wrong doing occurrences. Systemizing theconfirmation procedure is important.
Also the reconfirmation of setting values against the normal values of interlock
criteria is effective to prevent equipment’s frequently happening accidents andwrong doing occurrences. Systemizing the reconfirmation procedure ofinterlock’s critical values is important.
Standards:
Access items and access methods need to be standardized.
Remarks: None31

5.6 Efficient Operation of Multi-Chamber Equipment
Each process chamber in equipment shall provide its availability status. This
status value shall be able to be altered by the factory system.
The availability status is such that the chamber can process all relevant
product wafers, or it can process some certain product wafers, or it can notprocess any product wafers, or it can process only non-product wafers such as"dummy wafers" or monitor wafers. The change of the status by the equipment
shall be reported to the factory system.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
The overall operation of multi-chamber equipment may be influenced by one theprocess chamber’s status; where if one of 2 process chambers that are expected
to be used in paralleled operation becomes not functional, some special recipe
needs to be used to accommodate some necessary adjustment to assure thesame fabrication outcome. Because of the high flexibility multi-chamber tools
require complex host instructions depending on individual process chambers’
statues to attain the high productivity expected. Productivity data collectedfrom multi-chamber tools are not utilized to full extent because of the low
granularity of chamber level data contents.
There are cases that multi-chamber tools especially undergoes maintenancework for one of the process chambers while as a tool it can execute
manufacturing with possibly a limited applicability. In such circumstances
dummy runs or seasoning processes needs to be handled at the same timeprocessing product wafers by different chambers.
Chamber statuses are need to be defined for the stages from shut-down formaintenance to requalification decision being made and that these statuses areable to be manipulated from the host so that the host can control that
equipment using less number of recipes combined with the product wafer
information and the chamber statuses. This may allow seasoning of a processchamber and processing product wafers in another chamber in the same process
tool.
Such chamber status information may allow more effective utilization of
productivity data from multi-chamber tools.
Standards:
32

The instruction method of setting availability status from the factory systemneeds to be standardized.
Remarks: None33

6 Factory-Production Equipment Control Interface for
Individual wafer control
6.1 Addition of individual wafer 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, process sequences log data for individual wafers, wafer
rotation at relevant wafer positions, Process Positions, equipment group, equipment,
equipment modules that individual wafers went through, carriers in which that wafer wascontained, processing instruction information such as the recipe, Variable Parameters.
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 encountered. Although the uni-cassette operation has been
implemented for many years where carrier integrity and slot integrity are well managed at
hardware level, such integrities will be possibly subjected to change by the implementationof individual wafer control required in the next generation fab. Such elaborate management
will eventually require optimization of wafer feed to individual process parts of the
production equipment in terms of stable process and productivity control including cycle
time reduction. This guideline is a basic prerequisite requirement to individual wafer
manufacturing control.
Standard:
The information handled across the wafer management interface and its method of
information provision shall be standardized.
Remarks: None34

6.2 Individual wafer -equipment control interface
Equipment’s wafer processing order and Dandori order shall be controlled by the factory
system.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Equipment suppliers and device makers
Background and purposes:
There is often necessity to improve equipment productivity by changing the wafer
processing order within the wafers provided to the tool so as to enable reducing processchange number and reducing Dandori between process operations.
One carrier accommodates a commensurate number of wafers to the factory’s AMHS
capability, but this new control of the factory system enables virtually single wafer
production. Wafer processing order manipulation is to be done within one carrier, or among
different carriers. It is sometimes required that this process order change needs to be doneat late timings.
Standards:
Queuing manipulation of Jobs defined in GEM300 needs to be investigated and extended.
Remarks:
Requirement on Dandori control should be also referred along with thisguideline requirement. There may be such cases where relevant Dandori
operations are to be scheduled accordingly for a given wafer process execution
order. Equipment’s processing schedule information, such as process start andprocess end time of individual wafers and or those times for relevant Dandori
operations are to be informed to the factory system.
Equipment needs to have capability to provide the following information to thefactory system so that the factory system can decide the next processing
wafer(s).
1. Scheduled end time of a wafer being processed
2. Scheduled process start and end time for a reserved wafer
3. Load port and the internal buffer status information of the next wafer(s) to bedelivered to the tool
4. Scheduled end time of Dandori operation such as tools process condition
stabilization time associated with a certain wafer
5. Scheduled process start time for the next wafer

35

6.3 Individual wafer traceability in production equipment
Equipment shall be able to trace individual wafers even after the processingorder of individual wafers is changed.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
The current 300mm production equipment processes wafers in an order of theslot number of a carrier that contains the group of the wafers, and the processedwafers are returned to the same slot of the same originating carrier (known as
Slot Integrity and Carrier Integrity). The wafer processing order may have to bechanged in order to attain a better productivity, or the processed wafers may
have to return to the different slots or to the different carriers in some cases. In
such cases the traceability of individual wafers is important.
Host side information on relation of individual wafers to the current carriers
and to slots is relatively hard to be renewed quickly once wafers are given to the
production equipment. Implementation of individual wafer traceability
capability in the production equipment is, thus, important.
Standards:
The wafer traceability guaranteed by equipment needs to be standardized.
Standards operation scenarios for reading wafer ID and verification of this ID
are to be developed.
Remarks: None36

6.4 Processed wafer and unprocessed wafer notification
Equipment shall clearly distinguish processed wafers from unprocessed wafers and notify
the information to the factory system in case of urgent equipment shutdown.
Who to implement this guideline: Equipment suppliers
Who to use this guideline: Device makers
Background and purposes:
When equipment shutdowns ongoing processing urgently, equipment shall clearly
distinguish properly processed wafers, likely improperly processed wafers, andunprocessed wafers based on process log of individual wafers. This information will
facilitate the recovering operation.
Standards: The notification method of the required information about urgent equipment
shutdown needs to be standardized.
Remarks: None37

7 Contacts
Hiroyuki Ito
Shinsuke Uenaka
Toshihiko Osada
Shigeru Kobayashi
Tsunehiro Koyama
MichioHonma
Kazutaka Mishima
AkiraMitsui
Shoichi Kodama

Selete/Sharp
Panasonic
Fujitsu
Renesas Technology
Sony Semiconductor Kyusyu
NECElectronics/Selete
Sony Semiconductor Kyusyu
Panasonic
Toshibaito.hiroyuki@selete.co.jp
uenaka.n@jp.panasonic.com
osada.toshihiko@jp.fujitsu.com
kobayashi.shigeru2@renesas.com
Tsunehiro.Koyama@jp.sony.com
michio.honma@necel.com
Kazutaka.Mishima@jp.sony.com
mitsui.akira@jp.panasonic.com
Shoichi.kodama@toshiba.co.jp

8 Revision Record
1.02
1.03
1.04
2.00
2.02
2.03
2.04
2.5

2007/06/22 Edits and bug fixes. Set page links from the Contents.
2007/06/25 Updated Chapter 1.2, Chapter 2, Chapter 2.1, Chapter 2.3, Chapter 5, Chapter
6.1 and Figure 3
2007/06/27 Updated Chapter 1.3 and Chapter 4.5
2007/11/14 Added some contents to Phase 2, and updated Phase 1
2007/11/21 Revised Figure 1, updated Chapter 3, Chapter 4.6, Chapter 5.6 and Mailing
List
2007/11/22 United the terms and updated the contents over the booklet
2007/11/26 Added structured information
2008/08/28 Exact match between Japanese and English versions together with some
updates.

38