Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Product assembly or manufacturing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-22
2001-07-31
Butler, Dennis M. (Department: 2182)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Product assembly or manufacturing
C700S108000, C700S110000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06269279
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control system for controlling manufacturing equipment such as equipment for manufacturing semiconductor devices and equipment for manufacturing liquid crystal panels, for example, and relates more particularly to a control system having a function for integrally managing a plurality of substrate processing units.
2. Discussion of the Background
In recent years, along with large-scaled systems for processing semiconductor wafers and liquid crystal panels, there has been an increasing demand for integrally managing a number of manufacturing units for performing various types of processing to substrates, such as a CVD processing, a sputtering processing, an etching processing, a thermal oxide processing, etc.
According to a conventional control system having a function for integrally managing a plurality of processing units, the processing units for performing various processing to a substrate are controlled individually by an ECC (Equipment Controller Concept) controller. The ECC controller has an HCI (Host Communication Interface) as a logical interface with a host computer, and various data transactions with the host computer are carried out through a data transmission system such as TCP/IP or the like by this HCI. The host computer performs a tracking processing of various processing units through various data transactions with the ECC controller of each processing unit, stores process data received from each processing unit as hysteresis in a data base, stores this content in a monitor, and performs correction of various parameters and detection of abnormal conditions of the processing units based on this data base.
At the time of a process data transfer from the ECC controller of each processing unit to the host computer, the HCI selects only one part of minimum required data for the tracking processing, parameter correction and abnormality detection from the whole process data generated by the ECC controller, and then transmits this selected data to the host computer.
According to the integral management system based on this control system, however, the process data stored in the host computer is limited and information obtainable from the process data displayed in the monitor as a status of various processing units is also limited. Further, in many cases, changes of process data reflecting secular deterioration status of characteristics of the processing units cannot be detected by simply referring to the process data displayed in the monitor. Under these circumstances, it has been practically difficult to detect securely and at an early stage abnormalities and characteristic deterioration of the processing units.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a control system capable of contributing to an early detection of abnormalities and characteristic deterioration of processing units by achieving an integrated monitoring of detailed process data.
Further, it is another object of the present invention to provide a control system capable of improving maintainability by managing a plurality of processing units in detail and in integral.
Further, it is still another object of the present invention to provide a control system capable of contributing to an early detection of abnormalities and characteristic deterioration of processing units by managing a number of processing units in integral and detail from results of analysis of the process data.
Further, it is still another object of the present invention to provide a control system for achieving an automatic optimization of process conditions of each processing unit.
The present invention provides a control system comprising: a plurality of controller units for individually controlling a plurality of processing units for carrying out predetermined processes to a substrate; and a control unit including a server unit having a storage for fetching and storing process data generated by each control unit, and a client unit having an editor section for fetching the stored process data from the server unit and editing the process data and a display section for displaying the edited data obtained by the editor section.
In the present invention, the server unit of the control unit stores the process data read from each control unit. The client unit reads the process data stored in the server unit, converts this data into data of a format usable in own client unit and displays this data. The process data stored in the server unit are the process data of each processing unit, and this system enables an integrated monitoring of further detailed process data as compared with a conventional system for integrally monitoring the process data on a host computer. This system also enables an early detection of abnormalities and characteristic deterioration of the processing units. Further, since the hardware of the control unit for collecting and displaying the process data is divided into the server unit and the client unit so as to disperse the control load for the collection and display of the process data, it becomes possible to increase the number of processing units that can be connected.
Further, the present invention provides a control system, comprising: a plurality of controller units for individually controlling a plurality of processing units for carrying out predetermined processes to a substrate in association with a host computer; and a control unit having a plurality of server units provided corresponding to each predetermined group of the processing units and each having a memory for fetching and storing the process data generated by each controller unit, and a client unit having an editor section for reading stored process data from the server unit and editing the process data and a display section for displaying the edited data.
Further, the present invention provides a control system, comprising: a plurality of controller units for individually controlling a plurality of processing units for carrying out predetermined processes to a substrate; a host computer for controlling each controller unit based on a part of process data generated by each controller unit; and a control unit having a plurality of server units each provided corresponding to a group of processing units for which the same process conditions are set and having a storage for fetching and storing the process data generated by each control unit, and a client unit having an editor section for fetching the stored process data from the server unit and editing the process data and a display section for displaying the edited data.
According to the present invention, since a server for storing process data is provided for each predetermined group of processing units, for example, for each processing unit to which the same process conditions are set, the number of connectable processing units can be increased further, and it becomes not necessary to stop the operation of groups of processing units under management of other servers when updating the version of the functions of individual server units or when carrying out a maintenance inspection.
The present invention provides a control system, comprising: a plurality of controller units for individually controlling a plurality of processing units for carrying out predetermined processes to a substrate; a host computer for controlling each control unit based on process data received from each control unit; and a control unit for collecting process data received from each control unit, analyzing the collected process data and outputting a result of the analysis, wherein each control unit has a section for generating process data, a section for transmitting a part of process data preset from among the generated process data to the host computer, and a section for transmitting the process data generated to the control unit.
In other words, according to the present invention, as the control unit analyzes the process data generated by the control unit of each processing unit and outputs a result
Matsuda Katsuhiko
Nakama Kazuhisa
Todate Shigenori
Butler Dennis M.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
Tokyo Electron Limited
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