Yield Enhanced Reticle Design Considering Both Wafer Dicing and Statistical Model of Defects

Abstract

High mask cost increasingly motivates the use of Multiple Project Wafers (MPW). Prior to fabrication, dies chosen for an MPW program should be packed under certain constraints in a reticle, this is called reticle design. The goal of reticle design is using fewer wafers to get the required production volumes of all dies. In this paper, we proposed a yield enhanced reticle design algorithm which considers both wafer dicing and statistical model of defects. On the premise of ensuring required production volumes, the proposed algorithm gives improved average yield. During the reticle floorplan procedure, the die that needs larger production volume and has higher yield loss caused by random defect has higher penalty; therefore it will be placed at a proper position of the reticle automatically to avoid wafer dicing conflicts with the other dies. This approach results in better average yield which is in equivalence with fewer wafers.