Real life challenges of enabling automated operations in a technology development environment

Paradigm changes in 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing have placed an emphasis on automated operations in both technology development (TD) and high volume manufacturing (HVM) facilities. Intel has addressed the challenges of automated operations through incremental, phase development of capabilities, culminating in Automated Continuous Processing. The automation goal for Intel's 90 nm process generation is to enable continuous lot processing. This paper will discuss the challenges involved and solutions implemented to remove equipment: user interactions and enable automated processing.