Direct writing technology on the silicon wafer surface is used to reduce the size of the chip as the miniature trend in electronic circuit. In order to improve the productivity and efficiency, the real time quality estimation is very important in each semiconductor process. In laser marking, marking quality is determined by readability which is dependant on the contrast of surface, the line width, and the melting depth. Many researchers have tried to find theoretical and numerical estimation models for groove geometry. However, these models are limited to be applied to the real system. In this study, the estimation system for the line width during the laser marking was proposed by process monitoring method. The light intensity emitted by plasma which is produced when irradiating the laser to the silicon wafer was measured using the optical sensor. Because the laser marking is too fast to measure with external sensor, we build up the coaxial monitoring system. Analysis for the correlation between the acquired signals and the line width according to the change of laser power was carried out. Also, we developed the models enabling the estimation of line width of the laser marking through the statistical regression models and may see that their estimating performances were excellent.
