Research on Classification Algorithm of Silicon Single-Crystal Growth Temperature Gradient Trend Based on Multi-Level Feature Fusion

Sensors (Basel). 2024 Feb 15;24(4):1254. doi: 10.3390/s24041254.

Abstract

In the process of silicon single-crystal preparation, the timely identification and adjustment of abnormal conditions are crucial. Failure to promptly detect and resolve issues may result in a substandard silicon crystal product quality or even crystal pulling failure. Therefore, the early identification of abnormal furnace conditions is essential for ensuring the preparation of perfect silicon single crystals. Additionally, since the thermal field is the fundamental driving force for stable crystal growth and the primary assurance of crystal quality, this paper proposes a silicon single-crystal growth temperature gradient trend classification algorithm based on multi-level feature fusion. The aim is to accurately identify temperature gradient changes during silicon crystal growth, in order to promptly react to early growth failures and ensure the stable growth of high-quality silicon single crystals to meet industrial production requirements. The algorithm first divides the temperature gradient trend into reasonable categories based on expert knowledge and qualitative analysis methods. Then, it fuses the original features of actual production data, shallow features extracted based on statistical information, and deep features extracted through deep learning. During the fusion process, the algorithm considers the impact of different features on the target variable and calculates mutual information based on the difference between information entropy and conditional entropy, ultimately using mutual information for feature weighting. Subsequently, the fused multi-level feature vectors and their corresponding trend labels are input into a Deep Belief Network (DBN) model to capture process dynamics and classify trend changes. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively predict the changing trend of thermal field temperature gradients. The introduction of this algorithm will help improve the accuracy of fault trend prediction in silicon single-crystal preparation, thereby minimizing product quality issues and production interruptions caused by abnormal conditions.

Keywords: DBN; crystal growth; entropy; multi-level feature fusion.