Techniques for qualifying for use in an overall manufacturing process items produced by a bulk manufacturing process that has a plurality of batch effects are presented. The techniques can include obtaining a collection of items produced by a bulk manufacturing process that has a plurality of batch effects; measuring a quantifiable property of a sample of items from the collection of items; developing a linear mixed model for the quantifiable property based on the measuring; determining a statistical process control standard deviation for the collection of items based on the linear mixed model; computing a statistical process control parameter from the statistical process control standard deviation; determining that at least a portion of the collection of items conform to the statistical process control parameter; accepting at least a portion of the collection of items; and using at least a portion of the collection of items in the overall manufacturing process.

A plant control system includes a plant system and a control system controlling the plant system. Runtime conditions of an operating point of the plant control system are received. The runtime conditions include a runtime state of the plant system, a runtime output of the plant system, and a runtime control action applied to the plant system. Reference conditions of a reference point corresponding to the operating point are determined. Stability radius measures of a state difference, an output difference, and a control action difference are computed. One or more of an observability anomaly indicator, health observability indicator, tracking performance anomaly indicator, tracking performance health indicator, controllability anomaly indicator, and controllability health indicator are determined based on respective spectral correlations between two of the stability radius measure of the output difference, the stability radius measure of the state difference, and the stability radius measure of the control action difference.

A plant control system includes a plant system and a control system controlling the plant system. Runtime conditions of an operating point of the plant control system are received. The runtime conditions include a runtime state of the plant system, a runtime output of the plant system, and a runtime control action applied to the plant system. Reference conditions of a reference point corresponding to the operating point are determined. Stability radius measures of a state difference, an output difference, and a control action difference are computed. One or more of an observability anomaly indicator, health observability indicator, tracking performance anomaly indicator, tracking performance health indicator, controllability anomaly indicator, and controllability health indicator are determined based on respective spectral correlations between two of the stability radius measure of the output difference, the stability radius measure of the state difference, and the stability radius measure of the control action difference.

A lithographic process is performed on a plurality of semiconductor substrates. The method includes selecting one or more of the substrates as one or more sample substrates. Metrology steps are performed only on the selected one or more sample substrates. Based on metrology results of the selected one or more sample substrates, corrections are defined for use in controlling processing of the substrates or of future substrates. The selection of the one or more sample substrates is based at least partly on statistical analysis of object data measured in relation to the substrates. The same object data or other data can be used for grouping substrates into groups. Selecting of one or more sample substrates can include selecting substrates that are identified by the statistical analysis as most representative of the substrates in their group and/or include elimination of one or more substrates that are identified as unrepresentative.

The present invention provides methods and systems for manufacturing process control of photovoltaic products. Some embodiments relate to a method for tracking wafers for photovoltaic products with respect to which production tool processed them and their position within that production tool. Some embodiments relate to measuring and characterizing the critical-to-quality parameters of the partially-finished photovoltaic products emerging from the production tool in question. Some embodiments relate to display and visualization of the measured parameters on a computer screen, such that the parameters of each production unit can be directly observed in the context of which production tools processed them, which location within a specific production tool they were located in during processing, and which batch, or in the case of continuous processing, what time, the unit(s) was/where processed.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provides a method for detecting variation value comprising selecting a numerical value in a first time interval as a comparison basis; selecting a numerical value in a second time interval as a inspection interval; statistically identifying the numerical value of the inspection interval and the numerical value of the comparison basis are to detect a variation value.

A system for monitoring and analyzing data in a distributed process control system is provided. The system includes a user interface having a set of user controls for selecting and configuring data blocks to create a data diagram representing a data model. The data blocks are associated with data operations, such as data analytics functions, and may be configured by the user for particular instances of general blocks. The data blocks are interconnected by wires conveying outputs or inputs of the blocks, which may also connect data sources to the data blocks. The data sources may include on-line data (i.e., data streams) or off-line data (i.e., stored data) from the process control system. Additional user controls may be used to evaluate the data diagram or convert the data diagram from an off-line to an on-line version.

A system for monitoring manufacturing includes one or more sensors and a controller in communication with the one or more sensors. The controller may include one or more processors that determine a quality metric represented by machine data collected from one or more machine data sensors and identify a correlation value between the machine data and environmental data collected from one or more environmental data sensors. The controller may further include determine if the correlation value exceeds a predetermined threshold value, and if the correlation value exceeds the predetermined threshold value, report at least one of the correlation value and the quality metric.

A product quality management system includes a production facility that produces a product having a target resulting parameter, estimation circuitry that estimates an active parameter for controlling the production facility in producing the product under a predetermined passive parameter condition, and control circuitry that controls the production facility based on the active parameter estimated by the estimation circuitry.

A plant control system includes a plant system and a control system controlling the plant system. Runtime conditions of an operating point of the plant control system are received. The runtime conditions include a runtime state of the plant system, a runtime output of the plant system, and a runtime control action applied to the plant system. Reference conditions of a reference point corresponding to the operating point are determined. Stability radius measures of a state difference, an output difference, and a control action difference are computed. One or more of an observability anomaly indicator, health observability indicator, tracking performance anomaly indicator, tracking performance health indicator, controllability anomaly indicator, and controllability health indicator are determined based on respective spectral correlations between two of the stability radius measure of the output difference, the stability radius measure of the state difference, and the stability radius measure of the control action difference.