Editorial: Reduce Time-to-Market by Considering Reliability Tradeoffs

Yield and reliability susceptibility would become obvious with the increase in the complexity of manufacturing technology. Yield and reliability enhancement is always our pursuit. However, tradeoffs between yield and reliability, or between Fab and assembly house, are often observed during the technology development (TD) phase, which will lengthen the production ramp-up period, and further affect the product profit. To shorten the time-to-market of a new technology, some practical experiences on solving tradeoffs in semiconductor manufacturing are reported; a generic procedure to handle the tradeoff problem is proposed, and the effectiveness was also proved. Early detection capability, baseline knowledge management, fully understanding customers' requirements, and effectively consolidating all parties' efforts are considered to play key roles in the procedure. It is believed that such a procedure can be also applied to solve the tradeoff problem in other industries.