• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2010

Wafer Pre-Alignment is to find the center and the orientation of a wafer and to move the wafer to the desired position and orientation. In this paper, an area camera based pre-aligning method is presented that captures 8 wafer images regularly during 360 degrees rotation. From the images, wafer edge positions are extracted and used to estimate the wafer's center and orientation using least squares circle fitting. These data are utilized for the proper alignment of the wafer. For accurate alignments, camera calibration methods using high order polynomials are used for converting pixel coordinates into real-world coordinates. A complete pre-alignment system was constructed using mechanical and optical components and tested. Experimental results show that alignment of wafer center and orientation can be done with the standard deviation of 0.002 mm and 0.028 degree, respectively.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.47-51
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• 2010

This paper presents a wafer pre-alignment system which is improved using the image of the entire wafer area. In the previous method, image acquisition for wafer takes about 80% of total pre-alignment time. The proposed system uses only one image of entire wafer area via a high-resolution CMOS camera, and so image acquisition accounts for nearly 1% of total process time. The larger FOV(field of view) to use the image of the entire wafer area worsen camera lens distortion. A camera calibration using high order polynomials is used for accurate lens distortion correction. And template matching is used to find a correct notch's position. The performance of the proposed system was demonstrated by experiments of wafer center alignment and notch alignment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.410-413
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• 2009

Wafer pre-alignment is to find the center and the orientation of a wafer and to move the wafer to the desired position and orientation. In this paper, an area camera based pre-aligning method is presented that captures 8 wafer images regularly during 360 degrees rotation. From the images, wafer edge positions are extracted and used to estimate the wafer's center and orientation using least square circle fitting. These information are utilized for the proper alignment of the wafer.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.2366-2380
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• 2024

In this study, a high-speed template matching system is proposed for wafer-vision alignment. The proposed system is designed to rapidly locate markers in semiconductor equipment used for wafer-vision alignment. We optimized and implemented a template-matching algorithm for the high-speed processing of high-resolution wafer images. Owing to the simplicity of wafer markers, we removed unnecessary components in the algorithm and designed the system using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to implement high-speed processing. The hardware blocks were designed using the Xilinx ZCU104 board, and the pyramid and matching blocks were designed using programmable logic for accelerated operations. To validate the proposed system, we established a verification environment using stage equipment commonly used in industrial settings and reference-software-based validation frameworks. The output results from the FPGA were transmitted to the wafer-alignment controller for system verification. The proposed system reduced the data-processing time by approximately 30% and achieved a level of accuracy in detecting wafer markers that was comparable to that achieved by reference software, with minimal deviation. This system can be used to increase precision and productivity during semiconductor manufacturing processes.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.8 no.9
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• pp.812-817
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• 2002

This paper presents a development of high accuracy aligner and describes a method to find the orientation of a substantially circular disk shaped wafer with at least one flat region on an edge thereof. In the developed system, the wafer is spun one 360 degree turn on a chuck and the edge position is measured by a linear array to obtain a set of data points at various wafer orientation. The rotation axis may differ from wafer center by an unknown eccentricity. The flat angle is found by fitting a cosine curve to the actual data to obtain a deviation. The maximum deviation is then corrected for errors due to a finite number of data points and wafer eccentricity by calculating an adjustment angle from data points on the wafer fiat. After determining the flat angle the wafer is spun to the desired orientation. The wafer eccentricity can be calculated from four of the data points located away from the flat edge region. and the wafer is then centered.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.865-871
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• 2014

Paradigm shift to 3-D chip stacking in electronic packaging has induced a lot of integration challenges due to the reduction in wafer thickness and pitch size. This study presents a hybrid bonding technology by self-alignment effect in order to improve the flip chip bonding accuracy with ultra-thin wafer. Optimization of Cu pillar bump formation and evaluation of various factors on self-alignment effect was performed. As a result, highly-improved bonding accuracy of thin wafer with a $50{\mu}m$ of thickness was achieved without solder bridging or bump misalignment by applying reflow process after thermo-compression bonding process. Reflow process caused the inherently-misaligned micro-bump to be aligned due to the interface tension between Si die and solder bump. Control of solder bump volume with respect to the chip dimension was the critical factor for self-alignment effect. This study indicated that bump design for 3D packaging could be tuned for the improvement of micro-bonding quality.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.108-112
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• 2023

Precision manufacturing technology is rapidly developing due to the extreme miniaturization of semiconductor processes to comply with Moore's Law. Accurate and precise alignment, which is one of the key elements of the semiconductor pre-process and post-process, is very important in the semiconductor process. The center detection of wafer align marks plays a key role in improving yield by reducing defects and research on accurate detection methods for this is necessary. Methods for accurate alignment using traditional image sensors can cause problems due to changes in image brightness and noise. To solve this problem, engineers must go directly into the line and perform maintenance work. This paper emphasizes that the development of AI technology can provide innovative solutions in the semiconductor process as high-resolution image and image processing technology also develops. This study proposes a new wafer center detection method through variable thresholding. And this study introduces a method for detecting the center that is less sensitive to the brightness of LEDs by utilizing a high-performance object detection model such as YOLOv8 without relying on existing algorithms. Through this, we aim to enable precise wafer focus detection using artificial intelligence.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.222-228
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• 2000

A detector for monitoring carbon monoxide (CO) in ambient air by nondispersive infrared (NDIR) spectroscopy has been developed and investigated its sensitivity and stability. The essential parts of the absorption cell are three spherical concave mirrors so as to improve the sensitivity by increasing the light path length in the cell. The radius and center of curvature of mirrors and position in the cell was calculated by computer simulation in order that the light path length may be 16m into the 50cm cell. The number of traversals and optical path properties were confirmed by laser beam alignment in transparent absorption cell. The photoconductive type lead selenide (PbSe) was used as CO sensing material, which was cooled to increase the responsibility by thermoelectric cooling method. The detection limit and span drift of the developed CO detector was 0.24ppm and 0.03ppm(v/v) respectively.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.147-153
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• 2014

This paper describes a large area CMOS image sensor module Implementation using the precision align inspection program. This work is needed because wafer cutting system does not always have high precision. The program check more than 8 point of sensor edges and align sensors with moving table. The size of a $2{\times}1$ butted CMOS image sensor module which except for the size of PCB is $170mm{\times}170mm$. And the pixel size is $55{\mu}m{\times}55{\mu}m$ and the number of pixels is $3,072{\times}3,072$. The gap between the two CMOS image sensor module was arranged in less than one pixel size.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.63-66
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• 2013

This paper describes the highly productive process technologies of microprobe arrays, which were used for a probe card to test a Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chip with fine pitch pads. Cantilever-type microprobe arrays were fabricated using conventional micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) process technologies. Bonding material, gold-tin (Au-Sn) paste, was used to bond the Ni-Co alloy microprobes to the ceramic space transformer. The electrical and mechanical characteristics of a probe card with fabricated microprobes were measured by a conventional probe card tester. A probe card assembled with the fabricated microprobes showed good x-y alignment and planarity errors within ${\pm}5{\mu}m$ and ${\pm}10{\mu}m$, respectively. In addition, the average leakage current and contact resistance were approximately 1.04 nA and 0.054 ohm, respectively. The proposed highly productive microprobes can be applied to a MEMS probe card, to test a DRAM chip with fine pitch pads.