Patent ID: 6909931

Claim:
A method for estimating a microelectronic fabrication product yield comprising: providing a database containing therein historic production data for production of a series of existing microelectronic fabrication products fabricated within at least one microelectronic fabrication facility, the historic production data comprising: a series of historic die size options for the series of existing microelectronic fabrication products fabricated within the at least one microelectronic fabrication facility; a series of arbitrarily determined historic mask complexity factors for a series of masks employed for fabricating the series of existing microelectronic fabrication products within the at least one microelectronic fabrication facility; and a series of historic microelectronic fabrication product defect densities for the series of existing microelectronic fabrication products fabricated within the at least one microelectronic fabrication facility; determining for a new microelectronic fabrication product to be fabricated within the at least one microelectronic fabrication facility: a die size; an N value which equals a summation of mask complexity factors for a series of masks employed for fabricating the new microelectronic fabrication as determined through correlation with the series of historic mask complexity factors; and a Do value which is a baseline microelectronic fabrication product defect density determined through correlation with the series of historic microelectronic fabrication product defect densities; and calculating an estimated yield for the new microelectronic fabrication product using the equation: Est Yield=1/(1+( Do *( resiX/ 25.4)*( resiY/ 25.4))) N where resiX and resiY are chip's reference size X dimension and y dimension.