Defect control using an automatic killer defect selection method

In LSI mass production lines, it is very important to improve the detection accuracy of fatal excursions in defect trend charts in order to ramp up quickly and maintain good yield. It is for this reason that killer defects which could cause device faults should be monitored. We have developed an automatic killer defect selection (AKIDS) method to assist and improve the accuracy of this process. This method judges defects as killer or nonkiller by comparing defect sizes against killer defect judgement criteria. We applied AKIDS in the defect QC and sampling review processes, and found it to be effective in both detecting fatal excursions and selecting good review points for identifying the source of device faults.