Patent Document ID: 5483636
Application ID: 08415081

Base Claim:
1. An automated method for isolating one or more causes of misprocessing in a semiconductor process comprising the steps of: a. processing a plurality of wafers; b. measuring a plurality of process parameters during said processing for each of said plurality of wafers; c. creating a wafer tracking database which contains said plurality of process parameters and a plurality of identifying information associated with each wafer; d. generating a first plurality queries wherein each query in said first plurality of queries corresponds to at least one of said plurality of process parameters; e. applying each query of said first plurality of queries to said wafer tracking database to obtain a set of observations for each query of said first plurality of queries; f. automatically determining from a pattern of each of said set of observations whether each query of said first plurality of queries is interesting for fault isolation; g. dividing said first plurality of queries into a second plurality of queries wherein said second plurality contains queries determined to be interesting for fault isolation; and h. displaying said second group of queries so that at least one cause of misprocessing can be determined.

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Claim 4:
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the step for determining whether each query of said first plurality of queries is interesting comprises determining whether each query contains trends.