Enhancing Yield Using Critical Area Analysis

摘要

A simulation tool called critical area analysis (CAA) helps engineers better understand sources of probe yield loss due to random defects. In this installment of our series on yield management, Nick Atchison and Ron Ross of TI's Silicon Systems (Santa Cruz, Calif.) show how CAA can be used to forecast yield of new products and explain why some products in a given technology yield lower than expected. In conjunction with specially designed yield test structures, CAA also can predict defect-limited yield loss of a new design on a new technology.