Clustering Ensemble for Identifying Defective Wafer Bin Map in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Wafer bin map (WBM) represents specific defect pattern that provides information for diagnosing root causes of low yield in semiconductor manufacturing. In practice, most semiconductor engineers use subjective and time-consuming eyeball analysis to assess WBM patterns. Given shrinking feature sizes and increasing wafer sizes, various types of WBMs occur; thus, relying on human vision to judge defect patterns is complex, inconsistent, and unreliable. In this study, a clustering ensemble approach is proposed to bridge the gap, facilitating WBM pattern extraction and assisting engineer to recognize systematic defect patterns efficiently. The clustering ensemble approach not only generates diverse clusters in data space, but also integrates them in label space. First, the mountain function is used to transform data by using pattern density. Subsequently, k -means and particle swarm optimization (PSO) clustering algorithms are used to generate diversity partitions and various label results. Finally, the adaptive response theory (ART) neural network is used to attain consensus partitions and integration. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed WBMs clustering ensemble approach. Several criterions in terms of sum of squared error, precision, recall, and F -measure were used for evaluating clustering results. The numerical results showed that the proposed approach outperforms the other individual clustering algorithm.