Method in an integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process for identifying and redirecting IC's mis-processed during their manufacture

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION As shown in FIG.
2, an inventive method 20 for manufacturing integrated circuits (IC's) from a group of semiconductor wafers 22 includes the step 24 of fabricating the IC's on the wafers 22.
It will be understood by those having skill in the field of this invention that the present invention is applicable to any IC devices, including Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) IC's, Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) IC's, Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) IC's, processor IC's, Single In-line Memory Modules (SIMM's), Dual In-line Memory Modules (DIMM's), and other Multi-Chip Modules (MCM's).
It will also be understood that although the present invention will be described below in the context of a wire bond/lead frame assembly process, the present invention is applicable to any IC assembly process, including, for example, Chip On Board (COB), flip chip, and Tape-Automated Bonding (TAB) processes.
After fabrication, the IC's are electronically probed in a probe step 28 to evaluate a variety of their electronic characteristics, and data from the probe step 28 identifying bad and good IC's are noted and stored as wafer maps 30, as described above.
During the probe step 28, IC's fabricated on the wafers 22 are programmed in the manner described above with a fuse identification (ID) unique to each IC.
The fuse ID for each IC is then stored in association with the wafer maps 30 such that each die location on each wafer map 30 is associated with the unique fuse ID of a particular IC.
The fuse ID may identify, for example, a wafer lot ID, the week the IC's were fabricated, a wafer ID, a die location on the wafer, and a fabrication facility ID.
It will be understood, of course, that the present invention includes within its scope IC's having any ID code, including those having fuse ID's.
It will also be understood that the IC's may be programmed with their fuse ID's at steps in the manufacturing process 20 other than the probe step 28.
Once programmed, the IC's proceed through an assembly process 32 to an opens/shorts test 34 as described above