Semiconductor Equipment And Material Changes In The System Design And Implementation

As large variety of products is produced in factory with complex processes, it's a great challenge for a semiconductor manufacturer to achieve high quality, competitive cost with shortest cycle time. The first problem to be solved is how to measure, analyze and optimize the variation in HVM (High Volume Manufacture) factory.This paper introduces factory physics (Little's Law, CONWIP) into high volume manufacturing of semiconductors to identify constraint stations, and optimize static WIP goal based on historic data. Meanwhile, variation (CV, Coefficient of Variation) of utilization of semiconductor equipment was introduced as well, which is measured and analyzed by an automation system. This automation system also links the analysis result to the Continuous Improve Team. It enables highly data based Continuous Improvement Projects and High Precise Maintenance to reduce the variation of equipment utilization. And an automated CV assessment and improvement advise system was designed and implemented with database and Browser/Server software architecture. Field validation showed that, with the help of this system, the CV of equipment utilization reduced and factory cycle time demonstrated a significant improvement.