Measuring the Manufacturing Yield for Processes With Multiple Manufacturing Lines

Process yield is the most common criterion used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for measuring process performance. In the globally competitive manufacturing environment, photolithography processes involving multiple manufacturing lines are quite common in the Science-Based Industrial Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan, due to economic scale considerations. In this paper, we develop an effective method for measuring the manufacturing yield for photolithography processes with multiple manufacturing lines. Exact distribution of the estimated measure is analytically intractable. We obtain a rather accurate approximation to the distribution. In addition, we tabulate the lower conference bounds based on the obtained approximated distributions for the convenience of industry applications. We also develop a decision-making method for process precision testing to determine whether a process meets the process yield requirement preset in the factory. For illustration purposes, an application example is included.