By Debra Vogler, Senior Technical Editor
The tradition of the ISMI Manufacturing Symposium as an “in the trenches” conference, by and for the people doing the actual day-to-day work in the fabs, continued Oct. 24-25 in Austin, TX. Particular attention was given to topics on yield improvement/productivity methodologies, ESH, and sustainability. Specific talks included how to fix litho “hot spots,” cleaning wafer chucks without DI water or solvents, guidelines for detecting/preventing electrostatic discharge (ESD) events, and why process stability may be the deciding factor in the battle over 450mm wafers.