Patent ID: 7295954

Claim:
A method for adjusting a data set defining a set of process runs, each process run having a set of data corresponding to a set of variables for a wafer processing operation, comprising: receiving a model derived from a data set; performing a new process run using a wafer processing system, the new process run generating a new data set corresponding to variables collected in the course of the new process run; receiving the new data set corresponding to the new process run; projecting the new data set to the model; identifying an outlier data point produced as a result of the projecting, the outlier data point corresponding to the new data set; identifying a variable corresponding to the one outlier data point, the identified variable exhibiting a high contribution; identifying a value for the variable from the new data set; determining whether the value for the variable is unimportant; when the value for the variable is unimportant, updating the data set with a normalized matrix of data, the normalized matrix of data being created using random data and the variable that was determined to be unimportant from each of the new data set and the data set; and when the value for the variable is not unimportant, declaring a fault and halting the performing of the new process run.