Patent ID: 7738983

Claim:
A method of optimizing a process recipe of a substrate processing system, that includes: a substrate processing apparatus that performs a process for a substrate to be processed according to a process recipe, a data processing unit that executes a calculation for optimizing the process recipe, and a host computer, the substrate processing apparatus, the data processing unit, and the host computer being connected to each other through a network, the method comprising the steps of: sending a command for conducting a process-recipe optimizing process from the host computer to the substrate processing apparatus, when a predetermined condition is satisfied; sending required data from the substrate processing apparatus to the data processing unit in response to the command for conducting a process-recipe optimizing process from the host computer to cause the data processing unit to execute a process-recipe optimizing calculation to calculate an optimum process recipe, and updating the process recipe in the substrate processing apparatus based on the calculated optimum process recipe; sending the updated process recipe from the substrate processing apparatus to the host computer when the process recipe is updated; and judging whether the updated process recipe is acceptable or not by the host computer such that when the updated process recipe is judged to be acceptable, a next command for processing the substrate is sent to the substrate processing apparatus, and when the updated process recipe is judged to be unacceptable, a command for restoring the process recipe is sent to the substrate processing apparatus to return the process recipe to the pre-updated process recipe.