In the prior art system of FIG. 1, a host tool 10 includes a processor 11 managing a semiconductor process performed in a process chamber 30 on a semiconductor wafer 31 according to a process recipe stored in memory 12. Although shown as separate items in the figure, the process chamber 30 is commonly integrated with or in the host tool 10. Material sources 53 and 54 provide materials directly to the process chamber 30. For these materials, the processor 11 causes main flow control valves 73 and 74 respectively in flow lines 63 and 64 to open by activating control lines 83 and 84 with appropriate signals through input/output (I/O) ports 16 and 17 at the appropriate times according to the process recipe. Precursor material sources 51 and 52, on the other hand, provide precursor materials to a radio frequency (RF) inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch 21 of an ancillary tool 20. For these precursor materials, the processor 11 causes main flow control valves 71 and 72 in flow lines 61 and 62 to be opened by activating control lines 81 and 82 with appropriate signals through input/output (I/O) ports 14 and 15 at the appropriate times according to the process recipe, while providing controls through bus 40 to the ancillary tool 20 so that the RF ICP torch 21 generates a product such as a chemical species from the precursor materials and provides the product to the process chamber 30 through flow line 90 for processing the semiconductor wafer 31.
In addition to managing the processing of the semiconductor wafer 31, the host tool 10 may have other important tasks to perform. Therefore, it is useful to distribute the semiconductor processing so that the ancillary tool 20 generates the product and provides it to the process chamber 30 with minimal to no supervision from the host tool 10, while at the same time, performing such function at the appropriate time according to the process recipe. When the ancillary tool 20 is manufactured and distributed by a different vendor than the host tool 10, however, the two tools may be designed for different operating systems and/or communication protocols, thus complicating the task of interfacing the two tools with each other.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds