Singapore`s “Next Lap” Embraces Cost-effective, Proven Contamination Control
“…open to ships and vessels of every nation, free of duty, equally and all alike.”
By John Haystead
These were the words of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, first British Governor of Singapore when he set foot on the tiny island of 150 people in 1819. Today, as an independent nation, Raffles` hope and vision for Singapore appears to have been achieved. The McIlvaine research company (Northbrook, IL), now identifies Singapore as one of three possible “regional centers” in Asia for marketing cleanroom products and services–(the others being Japan and Hong Kong). Today, Singapore`s “Merlion” symbol continues the tradition of welcoming international commerce for the country`s current population of well over 3.5 million.
As a regional hub, Singapore is squarely in the midst of the booming Asian semisphere. According to Forbes Magazine, Asia`s contribution to global economic output has risen from 17 percent in 1980 to 25 percent today. In particular, the world`s disk drive industry is concentrated in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand and these three countries together produce nearly 50 percent of the world`s disk drives. The total installed square footage of disk drive cleanroom space in the three countries is already 2 million ft2 and is expected to grow to nearly 5 million ft2 by the year 2000.
Other high-tech manufacturers, such as semiconductor and pharmaceutical, are also locating themselves in Singapore and its environs. SGS-Thomson`s Ang Mo Kio plant in Singapore processes 100,000 4- and 5-in. wafers/month, and Singapore is also a possible site for Thomson`s new 200mm fab as well as new fabs for Chartered Semiconductor and TECH. Ultimately, however, as noted by Lim Lay Yew, CEO of Singapore cleanroom company, ESCO Technologies (Singapore), the disk drive industry still provides more than 25 percent of the gross national product of Singapore.
The Singapore of today, however, is a far cry from the Singapore of 1978, when Yew began his company and, in fact, built the first industrial cleanroom in Singapore for Siemens` Components. ESCO was ultimately also instrumental in introducing cleanroom technology into Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines as well. Although ESCO sold its cleanroom design and construction business years ago, to focus on its cleanroom equipment, supplies and laundry business, today, its customer base has expanded to include the semiconductor, pharmaceutical, disk drive, biotech and healthcare industries among others.
Disk drive capital
For all of Singapore`s high-tech manufacturing industries, yield is the number one concern. Whether the product is disk drives, wafers, pharmaceuticals or any of the myriad of other advanced-technology products produced here, successful manufacturing means continuous yield improvement–through better quality management, higher-tech productivity tools, and especially, effective contamination control techniques.
The disk drive industry is a particularly good indicator of the importance of contamination control to this part of the world. According to McIlvaine, Singapore alone will be operating 2.2. million ft2 of disk drive cleanroom space and employing 45,000 people by the year 2000. Room orders will rise to an investment level of $124 million in the same period, and the disposables market will increase to just over $151 million per year.
In neighboring Malaysia, the total investment in new disk drive cleanroom space will rise from $53 million in 1996 to $110 million in the year 2000 and the number of Malaysian employees in the disk drive industry will grow to 39,813. The market for disposables, clothing and supplies for this market sector will grow from $65 million in 1996 to just under $135 million in the year 2000.
Some of the hard disk drive manufacturers in Singapore include: Seagate, Maxtor, Micropolis, Western Digital, Quantum, Hewlett-Packard, Syquest, Ministor and Read-Rite. Media manufacturers include: Seagate, Hoya, Kobe, Western Digital (in progress), Komag and 10 to 20 other potential companies.
As expressed by Bill Kunde, director of cost avoidance for Western Digital PTE LTD (Singapore), there are two important focus areas for contamination control in the disk drive manufacturing industry. “With the tolerances required for drive manufacture today, attention to contam ination control is critical–particularly the types of contamination.” Kunde observes that his industry is now starting to experience the same kinds of contamination problems the semiconductor industry has dealt with for years. “Like semiconductor manufacturers, we`re down to looking at atomic level contamination–not necessarily how to fix it, but identifying the sources, whether materials, DI water, filtration systems, etc.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Kunde points to the need to improve worker and management understanding of basic cleanroom protocol and discipline concepts. “While we may recognize that people are the problem, we don`t do enough about it. We need to better educate people as to why we have a cleanroom in the first place.”
Says Kunde, the thinking often is, “Hey, I`ve got a cleanroom. That`s going to make all the contamination go away.”
As an example, Kunde points to his view that the disk drive industry needs to move to an improved cleanroom garment design, comparable to that of the semiconductor industry–“maybe not a full hood requirement, but pretty close.” To implement these kinds of measures, however, managers often run up against complex cost justification challenges, needing to demonstrate what such incremental levels of uncontrolled contamination will specifically cost an operation. As reported by Kunde, “the question often is `give me the cost justification for buying that cleanroom uniform when I can buy another at half the price.` “
So, prove it
While contamination control is seen as critical, investment decisions are also weighed carefully against other factors such as: cost of implementation, immediate and short-term benefits, methodology and tooling complexity and especially against any negative impact on throughput. Lee Chee Long, senior engineer at Hewlett-Packard`s Wafer Fab Support Facilities, Singapore, notes that although Singaporans are keen to move technology into their operations, “we must balance this against the immediate productivity concerns of our companies.” With such continual and intense pressures on productivity, time has become the most valuable commodity in this part of the world. Any time spent evaluating or implementing improvements must be quickly proven to generate significant and near-term results to justify the investment.
Says Western Digital`s Kunde, “we build tens of thousands of drives a day, and we can either build them all right or all wrong.” Given these kinds of risk levels, there is obvious pressure to do whatever it takes to build them right, but the demand for production volumes and to control costs are also powerful factors. It often presents a conundrum for plant managers. According to Kunde, many modestly priced, incremental improvements are shot down because, from the business side, they can`t be unequivocally justified to provide a hard and fast return on investment in 60 days, 6 months and 6 years. “But as soon as we have a con tamination problem and have to recall 40-50 thousand drives, or even a potential contamination problem, identified by a major OEM affecting customer satisfaction, we`ll spend ten times that amount to fix it.”
As noted by Ng Chyou Lin, senior project manager at Quest Technology (Singapore), an architectural design firm that does work for pharmaceutical companies as well as electronics firms, the focus on cost-effectiveness is not limited to the electronics industry. For example, since in Southeast Asia pharmaceutical regulatory bodies are generally the local nations` ministries of health, companies in Indonesia and the Philippines haven`t been driven to reach GMP levels yet. “It is cost-effective technology that is implemented first,” says Lin.
Another key determinant in equipping high volume manufacturing facilities, and well illustrated in the disk drive industry, is physical plant operating efficiency. Says Kunde, “we have to constantly evaluate the cost of running the production cleanroom. Utility and equipment costs aren`t going to get any cheaper.” One Western Digital facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia operates at a power usage ratio of 14W/ft2, and considerable time and effort was put into designing this facility for maximum operating cost efficiency.
An existing two-story building was basically gutted, including the removal of two inches of concrete from the floor, to help alleviate a ceiling height problem. The actual cleanroom is on the second floor of the building, with cleanroom air passing down through holes bored in the concrete floor to an air distribution system below. There it is HEPA filtered, etc., and sent back to the cleanroom. The result is a building that is entirely positive pressure and essentially totally air-conditioned with cleanroom air. Western Digital recently completed another 7000-ft2 Class 10 cleanroom which operates at 6W/ft2.
International opportunities & foibles
As observed by Jeremy Chia, managing director, Utopia-Aire PTE LTD, Singapore, “the (contamination control) opportunities here in Southeast Asia are tremendous. The number of fabs and other electronic high-tech facilities under construction is going up all the time.” Despite this apparent cause for optimism, however, Chia is not expecting a clean shot at all of the growing number of opportunities. This is because while the amount of new business in Singapore, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia may be plentiful, there is also already a lot more international competition trying to get a piece of it.
Says ESCO`s Yew, that`s partly because “doing business in Singapore is not difficult. For example, the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore has regional offices in San Francisco and elsewhere encouraging companies to do business here.” Another case in point comes from Dynamic Visions for Solutions (DVS) the Singapore-based process integration company that describes itself as a “distribution and service” company but provides turnkey process and facility solutions to wafer fab, disk drive, surface mount technology and other high tech industries. According to DVS` Director of Business Development, the company is keen to point out that “we are actively pursuing co-development partners in Southeast Asia.”
On the other hand, Utopia-Aire`s Chia points out that doing business in Asia is also not without its problems. “Many American vendors, for example, have failed to properly investigate the local customs and requirements and have gotten themselves into difficulties, sometimes major legal and governmental difficulties. They don`t recognize the importance of knowledgeable, local representation.”
Western Digital`s Kunde agrees, adding that the representatives of many foreign companies in Singapore “don`t have a clue what customer service is. Today, it is plain terrible. If you just want to get your products into Asia, you can always find some hungry local guy to distribute your product, but if you really want to get in and understand the market, it`s going to take more than that. You`re going to have to spend some time here and do some interviewing, reference checking for a track record specific to this industry.”
According to Kunde, many U.S. companies don`t properly monitor their local customer service. One common complaint, for example, is the long lead times required to get even basic supply items. This is due largely to the fact that local distributors often keep inventory levels very low, particularly for direct supplies. Says Kunde, “when I`m told it will take six weeks to get a uniform sample, or eight weeks for a 12-in. glove instead of the 9-in. we currently use, that guy`s off my vendor list. I know I can call my U.S. office and have them sent overnight. Suppliers have to be willing to take some risk to reap the business rewards.” n
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A view of the Westin Hotel in Singapore. With business booming, its no wonder that the total installed square footage of disk drive cleanroom space in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand is already 2 million ft2 and is expected to grow to nearly 5 million ft2 by the year 2000.
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Singapore alone will be operating 2.2. million ft2 of disk drive cleanroom space and employing 45,000 people by the year 2000, according to The McIlvaine Co.
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Singapore is identified as one of three possible “regional centers” in Asia for marketing cleanroom products and services– (the others are Japan and Hong Kong).