Patent Document ID: 9176183
Application ID: 13651974
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for predicting quality of wafers produced by production equipment that includes multiple chambers in each of which multiple wafers are simultaneously processed, comprising: measuring process variables of each of the wafers; sending the process variables to a central database; receiving the process variables of each of the wafers and historical measurements; representing respective sides of the multiple chambers as wafer quality predictive modeling tasks based on the historical measurements; grouping the wafer quality predictive modeling tasks according to heterogeneous relatedness of the production equipment, said grouping step including, for each chamber in which multiple wafers are simultaneously processed, grouping wafer quality predictive modeling tasks for all of the respective sides of the each chamber, each chamber of the multiple chambers being treated as a group of one or more wafers quality predictive modeling tasks; partitioning the process variables into two sets; generating a prediction model that accommodates the grouping of the wafer quality predictive modeling tasks from the grouping step and the partitioned process variables from the partitioning step; predicting a quality of each of the wafers produced in individuals sides of the multiple chambers based on the prediction model generated in the generating step; sending the predicted quality of each of the wafers to an advanced process controller and the central database; measuring an actual quality of at least one sample of the wafers; sending the actual quality of at least one sample of the wafers to the advanced process controller and a virtual metrology machine; updating the virtual metrology machine with the actual quality of at least one sample of the wafers; determining a feedback control by the advanced process controller; and processing the wafers by the production equipment in accordance with the feedback control, wherein the receiving, representing, grouping, partitioning, generating, and predicting steps are executed by a virtual metrology machine implemented on a computer, and wherein for each chamber in which multiple wafers are simultaneously processed, each side of the each chamber processes only one wafer at a time.