Computer Integrated Manufacturing In Semiconductor Manufacturing

Semiconductor manufacturing industry is one of the most advanced industries in the world. But, it is weak and becoming a key industry in China in 21st centuries. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is one of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world providing wafer fabrication of 200mm and 300mm wafers at 0.35-micron to 0.09-micron technologies. Established in 2000, SMIC has ramped up 3 FABs and a 0.13 micron copper backend line in Shanghai in less than 3 years, and become the top semiconductor manufacturing company in the world. Now, it has two 300mm FABs both in Beijing and Wuhan that are ready now. The department of CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) plays a very important role in FAB automation system. This paper is to explain how CIM works in the FAB automation system.At first, this project is to introduce the history and organization of the CIM Department, the semiconductor manufacturing process flow chart, and the knowledge that an IT engineer must have. Then, it briefly describes the whole picture of the FAB automation system including tools, brook's STATIONworks and FACTORYworks, and work relationships among them. The STATIONworks provides the communication interface between tools and host interfaces, and the application to design host interfaces. The FACTORYworks is also called Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that offers the communication interface between host interfaces and MES, and builds a bridge between host interfaces and DB. At last, this project is to implement a host interface for KLA CDSEM, a metrology tool, with ASYST SMIF, SMART-TAG ST-8400 as an example to explain the FAB automation system in details.