• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.55-60
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• 2020

The hard mask photo-resist strip inspection system for the semiconductor wafer manufacturing process inspects the position of the circuit pattern formed on the wafer by measuring the distance from the edge of the wafer to the strip processing area. After that, it is an inspection system that enables you to check the process status in real time. Process defects can be significantly reduced by applying a tester that has not been applied to the existing wafer strip process, edge etching process, and wafer ashing process. In addition, it is a technology for localizing semiconductor process inspection equipment that can analyze the outer diameter of the wafer and the state of pattern formation, which can secure process stability and improve wafer edge yield.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.29-33
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• 2017

This paper presents a development of vision aligner with three channels for the wafer and plate bonding machine in manufacturing of LED. The developed vision aligner consists of three cameras and performs wafer alignment of rotation and translation, flipped wafer detection, and UV Tape detection on the target wafer and plate. Normally the process step of wafer bonding is not defined by standards in semiconductor's manufacturing which steps are used depends on the wafer types so, a lot of processing steps has many unexpected problems by the workers and environment of manufacturing such as the above mentioned. For the mass production, the machine operation related to production time and worker's safety so the operation process should be operated at one time with considering of unexpected problem. The developed system solved the 4 kinds of unexpected problems and it will apply on the massproduction environment.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.41-46
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• 2017

This study aims to select suitable co-solvents and to obtain optimal process conditions in order to improve process efficiency and productivity through experimental results obtained under various experimental conditions for the etching and rinsing process using liquid carbon dioxide and supercritical carbon dioxide. Acetone was confirmed to be effective through basic experiments and used as the etching solution for MEMS-wafer etching in this study. In the case of using liquid carbon dioxide as the solvent and acetone as the etching solution, these two components were not mixed well and showed a phase separation. Liquid carbon dioxide in the lower layer interfered with contact between acetone and Mems-wafer during etching, and the results after rinsing and drying were not good. Based on the results obtained under various experimental conditions, the optimum process for treating MEMS-wafer using supercritical CO2 as the solvent, acetone as the etching solution, and methanol as the rinsing solution was set up, and MEMS-wafer without stiction can be obtained by continuous etching, rinsing and drying process. In addition, the amount of the etching solution (acetone) and the cleaning liquid (methanol) compared to the initial experimental values can be greatly reduced through optimization of process conditions.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.18-21
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• 2020

Undetected wafer slip during the lift pin-down motion in semiconductor equipment may affect the center to edge variation, wafer warpage, and pattern misalignment in plasma equipment. Direct measuring of the amount of wafer slip inside the plasma process chamber is not feasible because of the hardware space limitation inside the plasma chamber. In this paper, we demonstrated a practice for the wafer lift pin-up and down motions with respect to the gear ratio, operating voltage, and pulse width modulation to maintain accurate wafer position using remote control linear servo motor with an experimentally designed chamber mockup. We noticed that the pin moving velocity and gear ratio are the most influencing parameters to be control, and the step-wised position control algorithm showed the most suitable for the reduction of wafer slip.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.77-81
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• 2020

Silicon wafer etching in micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication is challenging to form 3-D structures. Well known Si-wet etch of silicon employs potassium hydroxide (KOH), tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). However, the existing silicon wet etching process has a fatal disadvantage that etching of the back side of the wafer is hard to avoid. In this study, a wet etching bath for 150 mm wafers was designed to prevent back-side etching of silicon wafer, and we demonstrated the optimized process recipe to have anisotropic wet etching of silicon wafer without any damage on the backside. We also presented the design of wet bath for 300 mm wafer processing as a promising process development.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.5 no.2 s.15
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• pp.41-46
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• 2006

Wet etching process in recent semiconductor manufacturing is devided into batch and single wafer type. Batch type wet etching process provides more throughput with poor etching uniformity compared to single wafer type process. Single wafer process achieves better etching uniformity by boom-swing injected chemical on rotating wafer. In this study, etching characteristics of $SiO_2$ layer at room and elevated temperature is evaluated and compared. The difference in etching rate and uniformity of each condition is identified, and the temperature profile of injected chemical is theoretically calculated and compared to that of experimental result. Better etching uniformity is observed with single wafer tool with boom-swing injection compared to single wafer process without boom-swing or batch type tool.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.39-44
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• 2013

In the semiconductor heat-treatment process, the temperature uniformity determines the film quality of a wafer. This film quality effects on the overall yield rate. The heat transfer of the wafer surface in the heat-treatment process equipment is occurred by convection and radiation complexly. Because of this, there is the nonlinearity between the wafer temperature and reactor. Therefore, the accurate prediction of temperature on the wafer surface is difficult without the direct measurement. The thermal camera and the T/C wafer are general ways to confirm the temperature uniformity on the heat-treatment process. As above ways have limit to measure the temperature in the precise domain under the micro-scale. In this study, we developed the thin film type temperature sensor using the MEMS technology to establish the system which can measure the temperature under the micro-scale. We combined the experiment and numerical analysis to verify and calibrate the system. Finally, we measured the temperature on the wafer surface on the semiconductor process using the developed system, and confirmed the temperature variation by comparison with the commercial T/C wafer.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2023

Cluster tools are extensively employed in various wafer fabrication processes within the semiconductor manufacturing industry, including photo lithography, etching, and chemical vapor deposition. Contemporary fabrication facilities encounter customer orders with technical specifications that are similar yet slightly varied. Consequently, modern fabrications concurrently manufacture two or three different wafer types using a cluster tool to maximize chamber utilization and streamline the flow of wafer lots between different process stages. In this review, we introduce two methods of concurrent processing of multiple wafer types: 1) concurrent processing of multiple wafer types with different job flows, 2) concurrent processing of multiple wafer types with identical job flows. We describe relevant research trends and achievements and discuss future research directions.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.108-112
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• 2023

Precision manufacturing technology is rapidly developing due to the extreme miniaturization of semiconductor processes to comply with Moore's Law. Accurate and precise alignment, which is one of the key elements of the semiconductor pre-process and post-process, is very important in the semiconductor process. The center detection of wafer align marks plays a key role in improving yield by reducing defects and research on accurate detection methods for this is necessary. Methods for accurate alignment using traditional image sensors can cause problems due to changes in image brightness and noise. To solve this problem, engineers must go directly into the line and perform maintenance work. This paper emphasizes that the development of AI technology can provide innovative solutions in the semiconductor process as high-resolution image and image processing technology also develops. This study proposes a new wafer center detection method through variable thresholding. And this study introduces a method for detecting the center that is less sensitive to the brightness of LEDs by utilizing a high-performance object detection model such as YOLOv8 without relying on existing algorithms. Through this, we aim to enable precise wafer focus detection using artificial intelligence.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.16-21
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• 2020

How accurately reproducible energy is delivered to the wafer in the process of making thin films using PE-CVD (Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) during the semiconductor process. This is the most important technique, and most of the reaction on the wafer surface is made by thermal energy. In this study, we studied the method of monitoring the change of thermal energy transferred to the wafer surface by monitoring the temperature change according to the change of the thin film formed on the showerhead facing the wafer. Through this research, we could confirm the monitoring of wafer thin-film which is changed due to abnormal operation and accumulation of equipment, and we can expect improvement of semiconductor quality and yield through process reproducibility and equipment status by real-time monitoring of problem of deposition process equipment performance.