Integrated yield management system using critical area analysis

Critical area analysis (CAA) is indispensable in yield management and enhancement. Methodology of CAA is not a new one, but the efficiency of CAA has to be still increasing. To apply CAA for all products in a high-mix, high-volume production fab, an effective workflow and integrated yield management system using CAA have been developed. The system enables circuits designers and process engineers to pick out a product in problem easily from various products in a fab using Web. It also improves the efficiency of CAA both in the case of particle condition changes and the evaluation of circuit module level yield loss by the saving of probability of fail (POF) data. Over one hundred products have been applied CAA to evaluate this system for four months. Work hours for CAA have been reduced to one twentieth of conventional method by applying this system.