Quick-turnaround-time improvement for product development and transfer to mass production

We describe equipment and facility operational methods in a production fab which are designed to achieve quick-turnaround-time (QTAT) manufacturing and ease product transfer from development to mass production. An advanced CIM system with precise lot management is introduced to keep the optimum balance of manufacturing TAT and throughput. Substantial end-user computing reduces the engineering holding time for handling development lots. In situ monitoring technologies are applied for the utilization enhancement of plasma-assisted equipment. A 9% manufacturing TAT reduction and a 14% throughput increase are estimated using a manufacturing simulator. The number of wafers in QTAT lots is reduced for processing time reduction. As a result, manufacturing TAT of QTAT lots with reduction from 24 wafers to three is reduced to 56% compared with that of normal lots in the production fab. This new production fab realizes QTAT development and agile product transfer from development to mass production with full process compatibility.