Patent ID: 6928334

Claim:
A computer-executable method for tracking and managing a plurality of lithographic masks through a semiconductor manufacturing environment, wherein the method is embodied in a plurality of instructions for execution by a processor and stored on a memory accessible to the processor, the method comprising: establishing a virtual fab with a plurality of entities, each entity associated with an internal process to a semiconductor fab or an external process to the semiconductor fab, wherein at least one of the entities includes a service system interface for communicating between a computer system associated with a customer external to the virtual fab and a computer system associated with the virtual fab; defining a state diagram for tracking the plurality of lithographic masks through the plurality of entities of the virtual fab; placing each of the plurality of lithographic masks at a pre-determined state of the state diagram; determining a future location for each of the masks in the virtual fab via the state diagram; enabling the customer to identify the pre-determined state of a particular mask and to alter the future state of that particular mask via the service system interface.