Reading_wafers_OCR Reading Wafers OCR

: Microscan Reading Wafers Ocr reading_wafers_OCR industrysolutions

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©2009 Microscan Systems, Inc. 07/09

Product Line Card

Electronics Industry

Application Case Study

Problem: 

Manual reading of OCR leads to mis-processed 150 mm

wafers

Project: 

Identify a simple low cost OCR solution to integrate into

current database / recipe management systems

Solution: 

Microscan Quadrus® MINI imager with OCR reading

capability embedded in wafer turntable

Result: 

Eliminate mis-processed wafers and potential ROI of $20

million

A typical semiconductor head wafer manufacturing facility

produces 500,000 units per day. With fabrication yields of

η = 50%, and 20,000 heads per wafer on a 150 mm wafer,

this drives the need to start approximately 50 wafers per

day. A typical processing boat will contain anywhere from 1

to 15 lots requiring separate processing recipes by lot.

To estimate the value of such a project, below is a simpli ed

list of necessary costs related to manufacturing:

• Average wafer cost: $600

• Manual process: 35 reads per wafer

• Scrap per quarter: $1 million or 20% of η

The facility attributes approximately $4 million scrapped

wafer costs annually to the process of manually reading

wafer IDs and entering the data into the system to pull

the correct process recipe for the given lot. Since a single

processing boat can hold multiple lots, the operator must

read multiple codes and set up multiple recipes to run.

Since only complex wafer handling solutions were explored,

and investment in high end capital equipment is cost

prohibitive, the process remained manual. With the

development of low cost 2D imagers, such as Microscan’s

Quadrus® MINI, with the ability to easily read ID characters

(OCR, or Optical Character Recognition), a simple, fully

integrated solution became possible.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Successful installation of Quadrus® MINI imagers within the

wafer turntables allowed automatic data entry of the wafer

ID into their systems, and recovery of 15% of the yield lost

to mis-processing. The HD head fabricator has estimated

that if they maintain their output and simply reduce the

WSPD as a result of the improved yield, a 4-year ROI of $8

million (10% IRR) and a breakeven point of 3 quarters will

result. If they can sell the incremental units produced at a

 xed WSPD, their ROI becomes greater than $20 million.

Tracking Semiconductor Wafers

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