Inline monitoring system for process defects during manufacturing
AssigneeThe Florida International University Board of Trustees
InventorsMarkondeyaraj Pulugurtha, Satheesh Bojja Venkatakrishnan, John Volakis, Peeyush Awasthi, Anthony Giordano
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods are provided for inline process monitoring (e.g., remote inline process monitoring) for scalable and precision high-yield manufacturing. Antenna probes, such as millimeter (mm) wave (mmWave) antenna (mWA) probes, can be introduced into fabrication equipment to reveal the nature of hidden conductor and/or dielectric defects, as well as via-pad and/or device pad-trace misalignments, going beyond automated optical inspection (AOI) or contact probing.
Claims20
A system for inline monitoring of a manufacturing process, the system comprising:
- a first antenna sensor disposed on a first side of a substrate of an electronic device being manufactured during the manufacturing process, the first antenna sensor being configured to operate as at least one of a transmitter and a receiver;
- a processor;
- and
- a machine-readable medium in operable communication with the processor,
- the first antenna being configured to generate a dataset of S-parameter data from the substrate and to transmit the dataset to the machine-readable medium,
- the machine-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the processor, perform the following steps:
- receive the dataset from the first antenna;
- analyze the dataset to identify a defect in the substrate by comparing the dataset to reference data;
- and
- provide process corrections to a user of the system to address the identified defect in the substrate.
A system for inline monitoring of a manufacturing process, the system comprising:
- a first antenna sensor disposed on a first side of a substrate of an electronic device being manufactured during the manufacturing process, the first antenna sensor being configured to operate as a transmitter;
- a second antenna sensor disposed on a second side of the substrate opposite the first side of the substrate, the second antenna sensor being configured to operate as a receiver;
- at least one defect monitoring structure formed on the substrate;
- a processor;
- and
- a machine-readable medium in operable communication with the processor,
- the first antenna and the second antenna being configured to generate a dataset of S-parameter data from the substrate and to transmit the dataset to the machine-readable medium,
- the machine-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the processor, perform the following steps:
- receive the dataset from the first antenna and the second antenna;
- analyze the dataset to identify a defect in the substrate by comparing the dataset to reference data;
- and
- provide process corrections to a user of the system to address the identified defect in the substrate,
- the first antenna sensor being a millimeter (mm) wave (mmWave) antenna (mWA),
- the second antenna sensor being an mWA,
- the at least one defect monitoring structure comprising a ring resonator with multiple resonance-using grooves,
- the first antenna sensor and the second antenna sensor each having a dual patch topology, a patch topology, a horn topology, a spiral topology, or a Yagi topology,
- the substrate comprising at least one via structure and at least one pad structure,
- the analyzing of the dataset to identify a defect in the substrate comprising using a machine learning model to analyze the dataset,
- the machine learning model being trained using the reference data,
- the defect comprising at least one of a line discontinuity, a line width change, and a via-pad shift of at least 5 microns,
- the first antenna having first grooves configured for multiple resonances, and
- the second antenna having second grooves configured for multiple resonances.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.