Tool reliability, cycle times, other productivity metrics must improve in increasingly complex fabs

摘要

As chipmaking fabs evolve, their systems must become more integrated, tying together everything from the components and subsystems to the process equipment to the factory itself. With the advent of 300-mm processing and its unprecedented levels of automation and control, the old unit-based approaches no longer work. Tool and fab must interact and communicate in ever-more sophisticated ways in order to achieve the productivity levels necessary to meet the immediate-gratification demands of the consumer gadget revolution. As the introduction to the Factory Integration chapter of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors says: "All the factory components need to efficiently produce the right products in the right volumes on schedule while meeting cost targets."