The present invention provides a method for detecting Anomalous Substrates in Automated Material-Handling Systems comprising the following steps. A substrate cassette having at least one substrate is provided. The substrate cassette is positioned within the material handling system. Each substrate has a top surface and a bottom surface. A first beam is emitted from a first emitter wherein the first beam is in optical communication with the top surface of the substrate. A second beam is emitted from a second emitter wherein the second beam is in optical communication with the bottom surface of the substrate. The first beam and the second beam are detected using at least one detector.

There is provided a method and a system configured to obtain an image of a one or more first areas of a semiconductor specimen acquired by an examination tool, determine data D.sub.att informative of defectivity in the one or more first areas, determine one or more second areas of the semiconductor specimen for which presence of a defect is suspected based at least on an evolution of D.sub.att, or of data correlated to D.sub.att, in the one or more first areas, and select the one or more second areas for inspection by the examination tool.

A control device includes a reception unit configured to receive a film characteristic at a plurality of positions of a film formed on a substrate by a film forming processing based on a processing recipe, an optimization processing unit configured to execute an optimization calculation of the processing recipe based on the film characteristic, a diagnosis unit configured to diagnose a validity of an in-plane shape of the film characteristic based on the film characteristic, and a determination unit configured to determine whether or not to notify a user of an encouraging action based on a diagnosis result by the diagnosis unit.

An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire information containing first process data indicating a result of a substrate process in a first process condition and second process data indicating a result of a substrate process in a second process condition different from the first process condition, and a display control unit configured to control a display on a display apparatus based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit, wherein the display control unit is configured to display, on the display apparatus, a first screen displaying a first data group in which the first process data is arranged chronologically and a second data group in which the second process data is arranged chronologically, the first screen displaying the first data group in a region and the second data group in another region.

An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire process information about a substrate process, the process information including process data and a process condition, and a display control unit configured to control a display on a display apparatus based on the process information acquired by the acquisition unit, wherein the display control unit selectively displays, on the display apparatus, a first screen that displays the process data of a lot including a plurality of substrates on a lot-by-lot basis and a second screen that displays the process data of a first lot on a substrate-by-substrate basis, the first lot being a lot designated by a user from the lot displayed on the first screen.

Systems and methods of optimizing wafer transport and metrology measurements in a fab are provided. Methods comprise deriving and updating dynamic sampling plans that provide wafer-specific measurement sites and conditions, deriving optimized wafer measurement paths for metrology measurements of the wafers that correspond to the dynamic sampling plan, managing FOUP (Front Opening Unified Pod) transport through the fab, transporting wafers to measurement tools while providing the dynamic sampling plans and the wafer measurement paths to the respective measurement tools before or as the FOUPs with the respective wafers are transported thereto, and carrying out metrology and/or inspection measurements of the respective wafers by the respective measurement tools according to the derived wafer measurement paths. Quantum computing resources may be used to solve the corresponding specific optimization problems, to reduce the required time, improve the calculated solutions and improve the fab yield and accuracy of the produced wafers.

Provided is an apparatus for exchanging an article of a semi-conductor process and a method for exchanging the article using the same. The apparatus for exchanging an article in a semiconductor process, comprising: a loading unit located at a finger coupled to a transferring means for loading the article'an operation controlling unit displaced at the loading unit and having a communicating means; and at least one vision unit.

The present disclosure provides a system and a method for controlling a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. The system includes an inspection unit capturing at least one image of a wafer, a sensor interface generating at least one input signal for a database server, and a control unit. The control unit includes a front-end subsystem, a calculation subsystem, and a message and tuning subsystem. The front-end subsystem receives the at least one input signal from the database server and performs a front-end process to generate a data signal. The calculation subsystem performs an artificial intelligence analytical process to determine, according to the data signal, whether damage marks have been caused by the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and to generate an output signal. The message and tuning subsystem generates an alert signal and a feedback signal according to the output signal and transmits the alert signal to a user.

A substrate processing apparatus is provided. The substrate processing apparatus for processing substrates includes a plurality of processing modules that perform predetermined processes on the substrates, and an information display that displays information about an error that occurred in the predetermined processes. The information display displays, in the same screen, a substrate on which a predetermined process in which the error occurred, a processing module which was performing the predetermined process in which the error occurred, the timing at which the error occurred, and a main cause of the error.

In the measurement of properties of a wafer substrate, such as Critical Dimension or overlay a sampling plan is produced defined for measuring a property of a substrate, wherein the sampling plan comprises a plurality of sub-sampling plans. The sampling plan may be constrained to a predetermined fixed number of measurement points and is used to control an inspection apparatus to perform a plurality of measurements of the property of a plurality of substrates using different sub-sampling plans for respective substrates, optionally, the results are stacked to at least partially recompose the measurement results according to the sample plan.