Anomaly detection using signal segmentation and one-class classification in diffusion process of semiconductor manufacturing

This paper proposes a new diagnostic method for sensor signals collected during semiconductor manufacturing. These signals provide important information for predicting the quality and yield of the finished product. Much of the data gathered during this process is time series data for fault detection and classification (FDC) in real time. This means that time series classification (TSC) must be performed during fabrication. With advances in semiconductor manufacturing, the distinction between normal and abnormal data has become increasingly significant as new challenges arise in their identification. One challenge is that an extremely high FDC performance is required, which directly impacts productivity and yield. However, general classification algorithms can have difficulty separating normal and abnormal data because of subtle differences. Another challenge is that the frequency of abnormal data is remarkably low. Hence, engineers can use only normal data to develop their models. This study presents a method that overcomes these problems and improves the FDC performance; it consists of two phases. Phase I has three steps: signal segmentation, feature extraction based on local outlier factors (LOF), and one-class classification (OCC) modeling using the isolation forest (iF) algorithm. Phase II, the test stage, consists of three steps: signal segmentation, feature extraction, and anomaly detection. The performance of the proposed method is superior to that of other baseline methods.