Silicon Crystal Termination

An Application of ANOM for

Percent Defective Data
LOWELL H. TOMLINSON
ROBERT J. LAVIGNA

Western Electric Company, Allentown, Pennsylvania 18103

The late Dr. Ellis R. Ott has erected his own memorial by providing quality control practitioners
with a useful tool for the direct g raphical comparison of means. This paper discusses the
application of his technique to the first processing step in semiconductor manufacturing. In
particular, a simple dichotomous parameter is selected for analysis to demonstrate that significant
gains can be realized when this appealing statistical procedure is coupled with quality team
involvement.

Introduction Summary Applications

HE analysis of means (ANOM) for percent de
Tfective data developed by Lewis and Ott (1960)
was employed extensively by Dr. Ellis R. Ott for
trouble shooting with attribute data. Examples are
included in Ott's book (1975) and numerous articles,
e.g., Ott (1955) . In order to employ the analysis,
some limited data collection would typically be
initiated involving the manipulation of factors. In
many industrial situations where data collection
has already been initiated on an operation by op
eration basis, ANOM can also be useful to more
fully glean all the information that the data has to
offer, as Ott (1952) has demonstrated with machine
vs. shift performance data.
In cases where data is simply gathered in a log
book, application of the graphical analysis of means
obviously enhances the usefulness of the data. Even
in cases where plotting is being employed using on
line control charts, ANOM can be used to summa
rize historical data and highlight overlooked areas
in need of improvement.
Mr. Tomlinson is a Senior Engineer in the Reliability and
Quality Control Engineering Department. He is a Senior Mem
ber of ASQC.
Mr. Lavigna is a Senior Engineer in the Semiconductor Ma
terial Engineering Department and was formerly the Silicon
Growing Shop Section Chief.
KEY WORDS: Analysis of Means, Attribute
Data, Crystal Growing, Termination
U sing the analysis of means for percent defective
data as a summary device is particularly applicable
in multiple machine situations where p-charts are
employed. In addition to their regular use, p-charts
can be reviewed periodically at formal quality meet
ings. According to Small (1956), quality meetings
should be chart-centered. However, the side by side
comparison of more than a few p-charts invites
confusion. Presentation of percent defective accu
mulated over a chosen time period on an ANOM
chart, on the other hand, provides a concise com
parison of machines that quickly reveals those with
more of a tendency to run out of control. In Figure
1 the ANOM has been used to compare eleven
encapsulation machines used in the can welding of
transistors. The variable plotted is the percentage
of glass cracks. For Figure 1 and other graphs
contained in this article, no ordinate scale appears
due to data confidentiality requirements.
Control charts were used to monitor the encap
sulation operation with adjustments made imme
diately after the discovery of any out-of-control
condition. The ANOM chart shows that even with
this type of attention, two welding machines had
levels of glass cracks significantly higher than the
group. Reacting to the plot, the shop supervisor
immediately shut down both machines and called
for a maintenance overhaul. In a subsequent
ANOM, both overhauled machines were plotted
below the lower decision line.

Journal of Quality Technology 26 Vol. 15, No. 1, January 1983

 SILICON CRYSTAL TERMINATION-AN APPLICATION OF ANOM FOR PERCENT DEFECTIVE DATA 27

ANOVA from the viewpoint of an engineer are

(f)
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U covered by L. S. Nelson (1974). To facilitate its use,
fL
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U ANOM has been computer programmed as de
(f)
(f) scribed by Tomlinson (1978), Sheesley (1980),
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Schilling, Schlotzer, Schultz, and Sheesley (1980),
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As a specific detailed example of how the analysis
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of means for percent defective data can contribute
to improved performance in semiconductor device
: manufacturing, an operation at the very beginning
of the device manufacturing process, crystal grow
W:LDER IlJMDER
ing, has been chosen.
FIGURE 1. Encapsulation ANOM for Can Welding
The overwhelming majority of semiconductor de
of Transistors
vices, from "old" technology transistors to "leading
edge" technology computers on a chip, are based
Just as the need for action was readily understood upon the element silicon. In order for silicon to
by the shop supervisor, production employees who make good devices it must be in a very particular
are familiar with control charts have no difficulty physical form called single crystal form, and it must
in interpreting the ANOM for percent defective have certain electrical characteristics dependent on
data, which is a logical extension of the p-chart. On the particular device for which it is intended. It is
one occasion a supervisor was trying to convince an in the crystal growing operation that baseline elec
employee who was doing an intricate lead wire trical properties and the single crystal form are
attachment operation to seek another work assign imparted to the silicon.
ment. He associated no stigma to the operator's
There are several processes used to grow single
inability to make the production rate pointing out
crystals of silicon. Most single crystal silicon for
that ". . . different people are cut out for different
semiconductor devices is grown by the Czochralski
things." The operator responded that the reason for (CZ) process, and it is the CZ process with which
the low rate was due to the attention she paid to this example of ANOM deals. In the CZ process for
quality, an aspect of the job she purported to be
single crystal silicon a material charge consisting of
neglected by the other operators. The supervisor
polycrystalline silicon and a small amount of an
pulled out his most recent ANOM plot and asked, intentional impurity element (which determines the
"Can you find yourself on there?" "Yes," she an electrical characteristics of the resulting crystal) is
swered. He then inquired, "How's your quality?" loaded into a specialized high temperature con
With some discouragement but without hesitation trolled ambient furnace. This charge, contained in
came the reply, "About average."
a fused silica crucible, is heated above the melting
The graphical approach with its similarity to point of silicon (1420C) thus allowing distribution
standard control charts makes ANOM a technique of the intentional impurity and destruction of the
whose results are readily accepted by those in the polycrystalline nature of the silicon. The now mol
best position to take action. An old Chinese saying ten charge of silicon is then resolidified in a con
was recently amended by Gross (1977) to make the trolled manner into a roughly cylindrical shape
point more apropos to the quality field: "A picture called a single crystal ingot. This is accomplished
is worth 1,000 words and 10,000 numbers." Re by first contacting the melt surface with a small
sponse to ANOM "pictures" has led to quality single crystal of silicon called the "seed" crystal and
improvement whenever it has been employed by reducing the melt temperature to the melting point
this paper's authors. Applications of ANOM in the of silicon. Under the proper thermal conditions
manufacture of solid state devices are numerous. resolidification of the molten silicon will commence
They include machine and operator comparisons on the seed crystal. As silicon atoms leave the liquid
like those cited above, as well as ANOM's use as a to join the solid seed crystal, they will arrange
tool to keep the eyeballs of visual inspectors cali themselves in a replication of the atomic arrange
brated. The appealing features of ANOM vs. ment in the seed crytal, i.e., the single crystal form.

Vol. 15, No.1, January 1983 Journal of Quality Technology

28 LOWELL H. TOMLINSON AND ROBERT J. LAVIGNA
Continued formation of the single crystal is ef
fected by slowly translating the growing crystal
vertically relative to the melt while maintaining
proper thermal conditions in the furnace. This proc
ess is continued until almost the entire original melt
is converted (solidified) into the roughly cylindrical
shaped single crystal form.
Termination of CZ Silicon Single
Crystal Growth
When the molten contents of the crucible are
almost completely depleted, i.e., converted into sin
gle crystal silicon, the growth of that ingot must be
terminated. At this stage the growing ingot should
not be simply separated from the melt to terminate
growth. Such an action would create thermal gra
dients in the grown ingot that lead to stresses which
modify or damage the single crystal nature of a
portion of the already grown crystal. That portion
of the crystal is then unusable for device manufac
ture. The preferred method of terminating the
growth of a CZ silicon crystal to minimize thermal
stress-induced damage is to gradually reduce the
diameter of the growing ingot from its "body" di
ameter ideally down to point contact with the melt,
at which time separation from the melt occurs. This
gradual, or tapered, termination allows the body of
the ingot more time to cool down to a temperature
range where it is less susceptible to thermal gra
dient-induced stresses. The tapering also produces
less severe thermal gradients in the crystal body as
compared with a premature, abrupt separation from
the melt.
The gradual, tapered termination of a CZ-grown
silicon ingot is typically effected by a combination
of furnace temperature and crystal growth rate
increases which are controlled by the furnace op
erator. Product quality is critically affected by the
ingot termination procedure in which the operator
plays a significant role. This part of the crystal
growing process, then, was an ideal candidate for
the kind of statistical analysis that would lead to
improvement in the relative performance of individ
ual operators.
Two things were essential for the generation of
the raw data for the analysis. Each ingot termina
tion was assigned an attribute measure and proper
operator identification. The termination attribute
selected was "unacceptability." The ingot termina
tion was considered unacceptable if the diameter of
the crystal at the instant of separation from the
melt was greater than 0.75 inches. Figure 2 depicts
actual ingots with acceptable and unacceptable ter
minations.
Journal of Quality Technology
FIGURE 2. Ingots with Acceptable and Unaccept
able Terminations
ANOM for Unacceptability
Since ingot termination is highly operator-de
pendent, one can look at the product at hand and
comment about what went wrong or right with the
last ingot. However, for the desired operator com
parisons, data summary over some period of time
provides the best approach to light the way toward
improvement. A convenient time period is that
between regular quality review meetings, one
month in this case. Choice of a time interval should
include the consideration that to appropriately ap
ply the ANOM for percent defective data the pro
portions must satisfy the requirements for using the
normal approximation to the binomial as discussed
in Schilling (1973), Sheesley (1980), and Ramig
(1983). The requirement is that both ngp and ng(1
- jj) be greater than five, where ng is the sample
size for each grower and p the average proportion
unacceptable.
Data compilation for an unacceptability analysis
simply consists of counting the total number of
terminations and the number of unacceptable ter
minations during the designated time period for
each operator, or in this instance each grower. The
quotient of the latter and the former for each grower
provides points to be plotted on the ANOM grid.
For this application, a shop display of ANOM re
sults is desired which can be readily interpreted by
operators accustomed to viewing fixed limits p
charts. Limits and center line determination pro
cedures are contained in Ramig (1983). Factors to
be used in ANOM calculations are tabled and dis
cussed in L. S. Nelson (1983a).
An illustrative analysis actually performed for
termination diameter unacceptability is shown in
Figure 3. Several operators are shown to have ter
mination diameter unacceptability results higher
than the group average,p. Acenter line determined
Vol.15, No.1, January 1983
 SILICON CRYSTAL TERMINATION-AN APPLICATION OF ANOM FOR PERCENT DEFECTIVE DATA 29

as described in Ramig (1983) serves to roughly

divide any group of data, so that about half of any "
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group will always be on the wrong side of the f-
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average. To those who would use a center line to H
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divide good and poor operators, Deming (1977) I- @
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warns that before telling an operator he is worse U
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than average, remember that it does more harm Z
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than good to point out a defective condition to an a:
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operator when a state of statistical control exists. r:l
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The ANOM determines which operators are sig f
(C
CENTER
LINE
Z
nificantly different from the group with a specified H
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risk of making an erroneous identification. Because 1.1
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of the sensitivity of operators to such identification LDL .0'

and the caution voiced by Deming, the authors _. _. . _ ......

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prefer the more conservative choice of the 0.01 OPERATOR NlIIBER

alpha risk.
FIGURE 5. The Succeeding Month's Termination
Diameter Un acceptability ANOM

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In Figure 3, three operators are identified as being
significantly high. In subsequent analyses shown in
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Figure 4 and 5, Operators number 35 and number
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with the group for one reason or another. This in
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itself should encourage the downward movement of
the unacceptability parameter. Qualification of op
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erators for the assigned task is a legitimate consid
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eration when accompanied by a thorough training
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LDL ment in a subsequent analysis shown in Figure 5.
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Quality Team Contribution

Or'ERRTOf-l NUMBER
Quality program planning and implementation
FIGURE 3. An Illustrative Termination Diameter
are best achieved as a team function. Quality teams
Un acceptability ANOM
consisting of the first line supervisor, the product
engineer, and the quality control engineer personify
the fact that quality is a shared responsibility. Such
teams are described in detail by Small (1956). In
the case of termination diameter unacceptability,
>- the ANOM charts provided by quality engineering
::;
@ furnished a strong impetus for action. However, it

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was the contributions from the other two vertices
1.1
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5
improvements in the unacceptability level.
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In addition to the fact that a few operators per
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tion diameter unacceptability was deemed to be too
Nmm-NmmmQ_Nmmmm_N.mmm_ru
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program which would both deliver an overall im

OPERATOR NUMBER provement and be readily amenable to the retrain
FIGURE 4. A Subsequent Termination Diameter ing needs of operators subsequently identified as
Unacceptability ANOM being beyond the upper ANOM decision line. Prod-
30 LOWELL H. TOMLINSON AND ROBERT J. LAVIGNA
uct engineering undertook the project of developing
such a program.
The final educational package included a combi
nation voice-slide instruction program dealing with
proper termination technique, enhanced standard
written "shop instructions" concerning termination,
and pertinent visual aids (photographs and draw
ings) showing acceptable and unacceptable termi
nations as well as the material losses associated
with unacceptable terminations. This kind of in
structional effort not only heightened the operators'
awareness of the importance of good terminations
but also provided the operators and shop supervi
sion with resources for new operator training and
experienced operator retraining.
Such efforts by quality control and product en
gineering are of little value unless effectively used
by shop supervision. In this case both the statistical
and educational tools were fully utilized. As each
monthly repetition of the termination ANOM was
generated and delivered to shop supervision by
quality control it was prominently displayed in the
shop area. Using the graphical analysis, shop super
visors routinely discussed performance individually
with operators. All operators were addressed re
gardless of their relative performance. Typically
what was pointed out to each operator was his or
her performance relative to the total universe of
growing furnace operators as displayed on the
ANOM plot. In addition to the identification of
training needs, this afforded an opportunity to ex
press appreciation to operators who ran within the
decision lines. Many operators commented to su
pervision that they looked forward to this perform
ance discussion and appreciated the feedback,
whether good or bad. Those operators performing
significantly below the norm were allotted sufficient
time to avail themselves of the educational and
training resources provided by product engineering.
All operators, regardless of performance, were ex
posed to the voice-slide instruction program which
had been prepared with a view toward overall op
erator performance.
Operator interest in the display of results, and in
turn the quality of the product, was so keen that
when operators in the plant were offered an oppor
tunity to form quality circles at their Western Elec
tric Company (1982) location, growers from the
silicon materials area were the first to volunteer. As
their training in quantitative methods proceeds, one
would anticipate their own calculation, plotting,
and use of ANOM charts to improve other crystal
growing parameters.
Results
The desired movement in the unacceptability
index could be noticed in the comparison of
monthly analyses where the center lines generally
exhibited downward movement and increased
compression of the points appearing below the cen
ter line. In a subsequent analysis shown in Figure
4, the points plotted above the upper decision line
represent a variety of problems. Operator number
41 is a new grower still on the learning curve.
Operator number 28 is also a new grower but with
insufficient data to circle the plotted point to indi
cate a significant difference from the group average.
Criteria may differ, e.g. Larson (1969), but the cri
terion used here is that of Small (1956): the sample
size for Operator number 28 is less than half the
average sample size. Operator number 33 is one who
usually turns in much better results than shown
here. Some aspect of retraining may be indicated
by the outage. Operator number 20, on the other
hand, represents a persistent problem indicated in
other analyses not shown here. An extraordinary
training effort would be required to effect an im
provement for this operator.
Figure 5 shows the results for the succeeding
month. All operators shown to be significantly
above average have improved during the month.
This is especially encouraging in the case of Oper
ator number 20. Operator number 12, although
plotted above the upper decision line, is not iden
tified as a significant problem due to a low number
of crystals completed during the month. Operator
number 28, who was in that situation in the previous
month is now identified as an outlier, a reflection of
the need for more learning time. Operator number
36 is shown to be above the upper decision line,
indicating the need for a training review.
In applying the ANOM for the percent defective
data, one should also consider points plotted below
the lower decision line. With the lower decision
lines at zero in the termination analyses, this was
not possible. However, such an instance is illus
trated in Figure 1 for transistor capping where two
points appear below the lower decision line. Al
though welding machine number 8 was not circled
due to an insufficiently large sample size, the sig
nificance of welding machine number 1 could pro
vide an excellent opportunity. Points such as this
could be indicative of a processing approach which
if incorporated across the board would lead to much
faster improvement than through the rectification
of worst-case conditions.
 SILICON CRYSTAL TERMINATION-AN APPLICATION OF ANOM FOR PERCENT DEFECTIVE DATA 31

ANOM can also be used to track monthly im The analysis of straight production data is not a
provement to determine when an improvement pro cure-all, however. The parameter examined here
gram is beginning to make a difference. See Figure was highly operator dependent. This is not always
6. Additional monthly data shown in Figure 7 re the case. The authors generally support the conten
veals an obvious trend. While this improvement tion of Deming (1977) that problems in manufac
was certainly welcomed by the quality team, it led turing are only 15 percent operator-oriented.
to some concern over the decision to continue ANOM used in summary applications represents a
monthly review because p was becoming too low to beginning. It can diminish variability such that
satisfy the conditions for the normal approximation. when levels of a processing variable are altered it
This could have been remedied by doing less fre makes it easier to demonstrate differences when
quent analyses, thus increasing ng, or by transform they exist in trouble shooting type experiments. As
ing the data as described in L. S. Nelson (1983b) . previously mentioned, ANOM can also be employed
for such analyses.
The achievement of a near zero defect level for
termination unacceptability is anticipated with the
> acquisition of a new generation of microprocessor
f
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H
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f -------------- UDL.01
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w for as long as the present generation of growers
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IX
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improvement while at the same time providing a
reinforcement for existing control chart programs.

MONTH Acknowledgments
FIGURE 6. Monthly Plot of Results Using ANOM First and foremost the authors acknowledge their
debt to Dr. Ellis R. Ott for providing a technique
that is easy to use and interpret and, most impor
tantly, conveys the meaning of data with sufficient
impact to cause people to act. Additionally, the
authors acknowledge the work of David L. Johnson
who developed much of the educational material
used in the training of silicon crystal growers at the
Allentown Works of Western Electric.

[[
H
References
Q

Z DEMING, W. E. (1977). "Some Hazards of Great Ideas". Presen

f
[[ tation to the Lehigh Valley Section of the American Society
Z
H for Quality Control. Allentown, Pennsylvania.
L
0' GROSS, A. M. (1977). Comment contained in unpublished class
W
f- room instruction on data analysis. Bell Telephone Laborato
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- N Ul rn ro m - ru 00 m G - N
- - - - - - - - - - N N N N N
LARSON, K. E. (1969). "Plotting p and np Charts," Journal of
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MONTH
LEWIS, S. and OTT, E. R. (1960). "Analysis of Means Applied to
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results of its use with a coordinated quality team Analysis of Means". Journal of Quality Technology 15, pp.
approach can produce significant improvements. 40-44.
32 LOWELL H. TOMLINSON AND ROBERT J. LAVIGNA
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