Advancements in diagnosis driven yield analysis (DDYA): A survey of state-of-the-art scan diagnosis and yield analysis technologies

For advanced technology, the current industry is seeing very complicated silicon defect types and defect distribution. It is very common for the yield of a new design to start at a very low level and it's critical to ramp up yield as quickly as possible to meet the market window. During manufacturing stage for volume production, yield excursions do occur and the yield needs to be improved to a stabilized level. It is also of a great interest for people to increase the stabilized manufacturing yield as high as possible so that they can improve the profit margin. In all these scenarios, silicon defect diagnosis and statistical analysis can be of great help to identify the root cause of the defects, which is critical for the success of yield improvements.