Automated Material Handling Systems: System of Systems Architecture Examination Semiconductor Manufacturing Perspective

In semiconductor manufacturing, as the silicon wafer diameter continued to increase, the challenges of handling the wafers in a manufacturing environment were manageable until the wafer size was transitioned from 200mm to 300mm diameter. For 300mm, handling wafers manually was deemed unmanageable at high volume due to wafer size, weight of the fully loaded carrier, safety and ergonomics, and fab productivity. Consequently, the industry architects in the mid-1990s leading up to first 300mm fab in 2000, defined a very well thought out vision and strategy of introducing Automated Material Handling Systems (AMHS) that are pervasive throughout the fab.The 300mm AMHS System of Systems was unprecedented and required an industry wide effort to make it a reality. Hence, to enable such a system, industry standards and a fully integrated architecture needed to be developed. This effort required hardware and software components and systems from multiple domains throughout the industry. This paper examines the System of Systems (SoS) architecture concepts of AMHS, the attributes that it delivers, and new capabilities that must be deployed to ensure that the SoS can continue to deliver on the objectives of the client in a volatile requirements and demand profile overtime, given that semiconductor fabs have a long life span of more than two decades.