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• A Deep Learning approach for feature extraction in industrial big data is proposed. • DeepVM is completely plug-n-play and naturally deals with 2d data. • An extensive comparison of different autoencoders and regression methods is provided. • DeepVM efficacy is tested on a real Semiconductor Manufacturing dataset. • DeepVM outperforms classical feature extraction procedures in the Virtual Metrology task. Industry 4.0 encapsulates methods, technologies, and procedures that transform data into informed decisions and added value in an industrial context. In this regard, technologies such as Virtual Metrology or Soft Sensing have gained much interest in the last two decades due to their ability to provide valuable knowledge for production purposes at limited added expense. However, these technologies have struggled to achieve wide-scale industrial adoption, largely due to the challenges associated with handling complex data structures and the feature extraction phase of model building. This phase is generally hand-engineered and based on specific domain knowledge, making it time consuming, difficult to automate, and prone to loss of information, thus ultimately limiting portability. Moreover, in the presence of complex data structures, such as 2-dimensional input data, there are no established procedures for feature extraction. In this paper, we present a Deep Learning approach for Virtual Metrology, called DeepVM, that exploits semi-supervised feature extraction based on Convolutional Autoencoders. The proposed approach is demonstrated using a real world Semiconductor Manufacturing dataset where the Virtual Metrology input data is 2-dimensional Optical Emission Spectrometry data. The feature extraction method is tested with different types of state-of-the-art autoencoder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of industry 4.0 and data-intensive manufacturing makes advanced process control (APC) applications more relevant than ever for process/production optimization, related costs reduction, and increased efficiency. One of the most important APC technologies is virtual metrology (VM). VM aims at exploiting information already available in the process/system under exam, to estimate quantities that are costly or impossible to measure. Machine learning (ML) approaches are the foremost choice to design VM solutions. A serious drawback of traditional ML methodologies is that they require a features extraction phase that generally limits the scalability and performance of VM solutions. Particularly, in presence of multi-dimensional data, the feature extraction process is based on heuristic approaches that may capture features with poor predictive power. In this paper, we exploit modern deep learning (DL)-based technologies that are able to automatically extract highly informative features from the data, providing more accurate and scalable VM solutions. In particular, we exploit DL architectures developed in the realm of computer vision to model data that have both spatial and time evolution. The proposed methodology is tested on a real industrial dataset related to etching, one of the most important semiconductor manufacturing processes. The dataset at hand contains optical emission spectroscopy data and it is paradigmatic of the feature extraction problem in VM under examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]