PROCESS CONTROL BY DISTINGUISHING A WHITE NOISE COMPONENT OF A PROCESS VARIANCE

A method, system and medium is provided for enabling improved control systems. An error, or deviation from a target result, is observed for example during manufacture of semiconductor chips. The error within standard deviation is caused by two components: a white noise component and a signal component (such as systematic errors). The white noise component is, e.g., random noise and therefore is relatively non-controllable. The systematic error component, in contrast, may be controlled by changing the control parameters. A ratio between the two components is calculated autoregressively. Based on the ratio and using the observed or measured error, the actual value of the error caused by the systematic component is calculated utilizing an autoregressive stochastic sequence. The actual value of the error is then used in determining when and how to change the control parameters. The autoregressive stochastic sequence addresses the issue of the effects of run-to-run deviations, and provides a mechanism that can extract the white noise component from the statistical process variance in real time. This results in an ability to provide tighter control, for example in feedback and feedforward variations of process control.