A Differential Burn-in Policy Considering Nonhomogeneous Distribution of Spatial Defects in Semiconductor Manufacturing

This paper proposes a differential burn-in policy that considers the spatial nonhomogeneous distribution of defects in semiconductor manufacturing. Due to the nonhomogeneous distribution of spatial defects, devices at different locations on a semiconductor wafer may exhibit different probabilities of being defective. Unlike conventional burn-in policies, which subject all devices to the same burn-in test, the differential burn-in policy can take different actions for different devices, i.e., acceptance without burn-in, rejection without burn-in, or burn-in with a certain duration. A mixed integer nonlinear programming model is developed to find the cost-optimal decisions. A numerical example is used to demonstrate the potential application of the proposed burn-in policy.