10.6084/m9.figshare.1396602.v3 Linmiao Zhang Linmiao Zhang Kaibo Wang Kaibo Wang Nan Chen Nan Chen Monitoring wafers’ geometric quality using an additive Gaussian process model Taylor & Francis Group 2015 manufacturing process agp wafer process model ABSTRACTThe 2015-11-17 14:06:30 Journal contribution https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Monitoring_wafers_8217_geometric_quality_using_an_additive_Gaussian_process_model/1396602 <div><p>ABSTRACT</p><p>The geometric quality of a wafer is an important quality characteristic in the semiconductor industry. However, it is difficult to monitor this characteristic during the manufacturing process due to the challenges created by the complexity of the data structure. In this article, we propose an Additive Gaussian Process (AGP) model to approximate a standard geometric profile of a wafer while quantifying the deviations from the standard when a manufacturing process is in an in-control state. Based on the AGP model, two statistical tests are developed to determine whether or not a newly produced wafer is conforming. We have conducted extensive numerical simulations and real case studies, the results of which indicate that our proposed method is effective and has potentially wide application.</p></div>