Did You Know...
...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 6542830 | Process control system A process management system in accordance with the present invention includes inspection apparatuses for inspecting defects on a wafer, the inspection apparatuses being connected through a communication network, inspection information and image informatio... | 04/01/2003 |
| 6539271 | Quality management system with human-machine interface for industrial automation A quality management system and computer based process for managing quality are disclosed. The quality management system includes a set of networked operator stations for entering data including critical to quality customer information and information rel... | 03/25/2003 |
| 6535774 | Incorporation of critical dimension measurements as disturbances to lithography overlay run to run controller The invention, in its various aspects, is a method and apparatus for processing a semiconductor wafer. The method, in one embodiment, comprises processing a wafer lot through an exposure tool; identifying a disturbance in an overlay operation arising from... | 03/18/2003 |
| 6535775 | Processor system and method for integrating computerized quality design tools A processor system and method for integrating a quality function deployment tool with a critical to quality tool is provided. Each of the tools is a computer-enabled tool. The method allows for executing quality function deployment at each of a plurality ... | 03/18/2003 |
| 6535776 | Method for localizing and isolating an errant process step A method for localizing and isolating an errant process includes the steps of retrieving from a defect image database a selection of images each image having image content similar to image content extracted from a query image depicting a defect, each imag... | 03/18/2003 |
| 6535783 | Method and apparatus for the integration of sensor data from a process tool in an advanced process control (APC) framework A method and apparatus for integrating tool sensor data in an Advanced Process Control (APC) application. A sensor receives operational state data of a processing tool related to the manufacture of a processing piece. The state data is sent from the senso... | 03/18/2003 |
| 6532555 | Method and apparatus for integration of real-time tool data and in-line metrology for fault detection in an advanced process control (APC) framework A method and apparatus for providing near real-time fault detection in a manufacturing process is provided. The apparatus includes a processing tool adapted to manufacture a processing piece and an interface, coupled to the processing tool, for receiving ... | 03/11/2003 |
| 6530068 | Device modeling and characterization structure with multiplexed pads A multiplexed transistor characterization and modeling structure for testing a plurality of transistors, The characterization and modeling structure comprises a common substrate pad, a common source pad, a plurality of drain pads, and a plurality of gate ... | 03/04/2003 |
| 6529793 | Method of sorting a group of integrated circuit devices for those devices requiring special testing A method for sorting integrated circuit (IC) devices of the type having a fuse identification (ID) into those devices requiring enhanced reliability testing and those requiring standard testing includes storing fabrication deviation data, probe data, and ... | 03/04/2003 |
| 6522939 | Computer system for quality control correlation A production control system provides real-time monitoring of process parameters in an automated production line that manufactures contact lenses, the line and having a plurality of process stations with each process station having one or more process cont... | 02/18/2003 |
| 6516237 | System for and method of preparing manufacturing process specifications and production control system A system for preparing manufacturing-process specifications employs process data serving both for a production control system and a simulation system, and effectively uses a result of simulation. The system prepares the manufacturing-process specification... | 02/04/2003 |
| 6507766 | Method for defining system hierarchy An exemplary embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for defining a system hierarchy for a system including a plurality of variables. The method includes generating a first level system block corresponding to a first variable at a first level ... | 01/14/2003 |
| 6502294 | Transfer line workpiece inspection apparatus and method A transfer line apparatus for performing multiple machining operations on each of a plurality of workpieces in a transfer line. The apparatus includes a plurality of different kinds of machining units disposed at respective machining stations along a tran... | 01/07/2003 |
| 6505090 | Semiconductor device manufacturing method, manufacturing system, support system and recording medium storing program of and data for the manufacture method Semiconductor device manufacturing method for processing condition described as function of metrology process name, and performing semiconductor device measurement, generating new processing condition by linking the measurement result with the processing ... | 01/07/2003 |
| 6487511 | Method and apparatus for measuring cumulative defects In one aspect of the present invention, a method and an apparatus are provided for determining a cumulative defect measure for a wafer lot. A wafer lot is selected for inspection. At least one wafer from the lot for inspection is selected. The wafer compr... | 11/26/2002 |
| 6477432 | Statistical in-process quality control sampling based on product stability through a systematic operation system and method A system for managing quality control in a manufacturing plant for processing lots of work in process (WIP) for at least one product, comprises a manufacturing process which includes a manufacturing executive system (MES) which provides inspection data to... | 11/05/2002 |
| 6473703 | Method for controlling a manufacturing process utilizing control charts with specified confidence intervals The invention discloses methodology for qualitatively extending and exploiting the utility of presently known manufacturing control charts. The method introduces a separate control mechanism comprising establishing confidence intervals to already existing... | 10/29/2002 |
| 6469518 | Method and apparatus for determining measurement frequency based on hardware age and usage A processing line includes a processing tool, a measurement tool, and an automatic process controller. The processing tool is adapted to process articles. The measurement tool is adapted to measure a characteristic of selected articles at a measurement fr... | 10/22/2002 |
| 6463781 | System for drawing outer cylinder of rubber bush A system for drawing an outer cylinder of a rubber bush comprising an inner cylinder serving as a shaft member, the outer cylinder disposed around the inner cylinder and a rubber elastic body interposed between the inner cylinder and the outer cylinder, c... | 10/15/2002 |
| 6446022 | Wafer fabrication system providing measurement data screening A wafer fabrication system is presented including a measurement system which screens measurement data prior to dissemination. The measurement system may include an equipment interface computer coupled between a measurement tool and a work-in-process (WIP)... | 09/03/2002 |
| 6438454 | Robot failure diagnosing system A robot failure diagnosing system in which sound input by the user is interpreted/recognized by a command recognizing section in order to notify a request for a diagnosis to a self-diagnosis section. For example, the user can input a command which prompts... | 08/20/2002 |
| 6393604 | PROCESS FOR PREPARING DATA FOR DIRECT-WRITING BY A CHARGED PARTICLE RAY, PROCESS FOR VERIFYING DATA FOR DIRECT-WRITING BY A CHARGED PARTICLE RAY, PROCESS FOR DISPLAYING DATA FOR DIRECT-WRITING BY A CHARGED PARTICLE RAY, AND EXPOSURE DEVICE Plural patterns of cell projections made in an aperture are stored in a register. Cells in designed data are compared with the cell projections stored in the register by an interlayer operation, to judge whether or not a cell which coincides with any one ... | 05/21/2002 |
| 6389323 | Method and system for yield loss analysis by yield management system A method and system provide for yield loss analysis for use in determining the killer stage in the manufacture of a semiconductor wafer at a plurality of manufacturing stages. The method comprising the following steps. Inspect semiconductor devices on the... | 05/14/2002 |
| 6385497 | Remote maintenance system Factories (102-104) have host computers (107) for monitoring industrial equipments (106). Each host computer (107) is connected to a management host computer (108) on a vendor (101) side through the internet (105). The host computer (107) on the factory s... | 05/07/2002 |
| 6374398 | Efficient database for die-per-wafer computations A method and system thereof for efficiently computing the number of dies per wafer and the corresponding number of stepper shot counts. Dimensions for a die and the size of the wafer are received. The dimensions comprise a die element size that is a funct... | 04/16/2002 |
| 6353802 | Reject analysis Described herein is a method for reject analysis for use in any process where rejects occur. The method comprises using the application of multivariate statistical process control techniques, and allows the rejects from a process to be controlled in a sim... | 03/05/2002 |
| 6351680 | Method for quality function deployment An exemplary embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for performing quality function deployment for a system having a plurality of levels. The method includes obtaining a plurality of first level critical to quality parameters and obtaining a ... | 02/26/2002 |
| 6345259 | System and method for integrating business and manufacturing environments A system and method for integrating business and manufacturing systems provides a computer integrated manufacturing environment. Work orders are defined in the business transaction processing system and rules contained in a plant model database generate s... | 02/05/2002 |
| 6336055 | Method for controlling unit operating states of semiconductor fabricating equipment arranged in a processing line A method for controlling equipment in a semiconductor fabrication system includes automatically receiving operating data from equipment in a semiconductor fabrication system indicating operating conditions of units of the equipment. Reference data corresp... | 01/01/2002 |
| 6314547 | Method for improving the assignment of circuit locations during fabrication The method for improving circuit location assignment is capable of operating in the boolean, electrical and spatial (location) domains. Optimization of location assignment parameters can be performed simultaneously by determining a subset of nets or paths... | 11/06/2001 |
| 6311139 | Method for estimating yield of integrated circuit device The necessary information such as chip area A, number of elements, and defect density D is inputted to calculate element density TD and mean element density TDM. The inverse operation chip area A' is calculated from the estimation equation: Y=f(A) such as... | 10/30/2001 |
| 6301515 | System for establishing optimal critical characteristics of manufactured products A manufacturing process for establishing optimal operating limits, which are a percentage of a specified or blue-print tolerance, for the critical characteristics of manufactured products. The process begins a selection step for establishing an operating ... | 10/09/2001 |
| 6301516 | Method for identifying critical to quality dependencies A method of generating quality matrices indicating a relationship between critical to quality characteristics and key control parameters for levels of a process. A plurality of rows of a first matrix are designated as critical to quality characteristics a... | 10/09/2001 |
| 6301514 | Method and apparatus for configuring and synchronizing a wireless machine monitoring and communication system A method of configuring and synchronizing a wireless machine monitoring system that has at least one chain, that includes at least one machine monitor and at least one repeater is disclosed. The wireless machine monitoring system may further include a mas... | 10/09/2001 |
| 6295478 | Manufacturing process change control apparatus and manufacturing process change control method A process change control apparatus that performs a control function based on information from a manufacturing process is provided in a manufacturing process control system. The change control apparatus includes a recorder which records a change item for w... | 09/25/2001 |
| 6289257 | Method and apparatus for analyzing correlation for semiconductor chips A systematic yield Ysi is obtained from a yield Yi, Wafer data through are sorted in numeric order of a monitored quantity X, the sorted data is classified into m groups each having approximately equal number of data, the central value is obtained for eac... | 09/11/2001 |
| 6272391 | Self organizing industrial control system importing neighbor constraint ranges An industrial control system uses a number of autonomous control units, each associated with one piece of equipment in an industrial process. The autonomous control units include data indicating not only their constraints of operation but also reflecting ... | 08/07/2001 |
| 6259960 | Part-inspecting system There is disclosed a part inspecting system that can be easily operated by a human operator. This system has an inspected part information database holding part search information, preliminary inspection information, and review information. The part searc... | 07/10/2001 |
| 6243615 | System for analyzing and improving pharmaceutical and other capital-intensive manufacturing processes A method for displaying a visual process signature for ready visual recognition and communication of otherwise complex manufacturing process information. Process data may be stored in a plurality of data stores, each data store holding a plurality of reco... | 06/05/2001 |
| 6240329 | Method and apparatus for a semiconductor wafer inspection system using a knowledge-based system A method and apparatus for monitoring and reporting electrical test results for semiconductor wafer based on a knowledge base generated from user defined tables. A computer program fetches the test data from a wafer electrical tester, reads a test paramet... | 05/29/2001 |
