The integrated circuits have experienced continuous rapid growth due to constant improvements in the integration density of various electronic components (i.e., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.). For the most part, this improvement in integration density has come from repeated reductions in minimum feature size, allowing more components to be integrated into a given chip area. Manufacturing of integrated circuits requires usages of a number of processing and monitoring equipment (tools) for processes, such as deposition, etching, photolithography, implant, planarization, etc. To produce devices and interconnect with reduced sizes, the manufacturing processes need to be highly repeatable and produce substrates that meet the stringent specification to have good yield, electrical, and reliability performance.
Manufacturing equipment needs to be regularly shut down to be maintained for improving proves control and replacing old/failed parts. After maintenance, the manufacturing equipment needs to be started up again and be qualified to be in production. Restarting and qualifying a tool could be quite challenging and time-consuming for advanced manufacturing.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds