December 5, 2007 – SEMATECH has laid out general info about its 300mm “next generation factory” program, describing new and updated projects within its efforts to help the industry find ways to lower costs and reduce cycle times for 300mm wafer manufacturing, and establish a “proving ground” for concepts relevant to 450mm wafer-size manufacturing.

The two new projects, First Wafer Delay/Setup Reduction and Small Lot Size, aim to respectively reduce the time between lot delivery to a process tool and when the first wafer begins processing, and define equipment and manufacturing specs to enable small lot sizes for high-mix or accelerated cycle time production.

Three other projects within the 300mm NGF program are receiving updates, as follows:

– Predictive Preventative Maintenance (PPM): Refocused to establish member company requirements, guidelines, and feasibility for using data to improve equipment availability and productivity;

– Equipment Data Quality: establish member company requirements, guidelines, and best practices for the availability and delivery of high-quality data;

– Fab-wide EDA proliferation: enable current and future analysis of large amounts of data transferred in real time, widened to support other projects including PPM, data quality, and equipment chamber matching.

These programs are part of SEMATECHs’ larger focus on 300mm semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure, work that includes 300mmPrime and other programs in continuous improvement, 450mm manufacturing, metrology, and environment/safety/health.

While a major part of the work is to develop a “proving ground” for concepts and technologies applicable for 450mm chipmaking, much of the work is applicable to existing 300mm sites, and some is transportable to older 200mm and 150mm factories as well, noted ISMI director Scott Kramer, in a statement.

“Current 300mm fab productivity is just as important as the eventual transition to 450mm manufacturing, and the NGF program is a critical enabler to the 450mm program,” he stated. “Our aim is to achieve significantly higher manufacturing productivity for all of our member companies and the industry, in the near future and beyond.”