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QWiKS -- Increase Your Knowledge At Work!TM
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| Benefits of Using PHM System |
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Our PHM-Etest KM/SPC and PHM-Equip systems are designed to assist in analyzing E-test results and equipment health management with real-time information feedback. A built-in knowledge management system accumulates, retains and shares valuable technical knowledge.
| Benefits of using our system: Using our system will reduce scrapped wafers, increase production yield, increase productivity, facilitate technology transfer between R&D and the production line, and improve profit margins. In addition to the above benefits, the following three main risk factors can be tracked: |
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- Minimize the cost of a miss processing
- Minimize the probability of a miss processing
- Maximize the controllability or the ability to manage the miss processing
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| Increase productivity:
The task of performing WAT manually by an engineer can take many hours. Our product does that same task within 5 minutes. This allows the engineer to spend more time fixing and preventing problems and less time finding them. |
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| Real-time feedback:
A complete diagnostic report, with root causes and graphs, is also generated within those 5 minutes. The diagnostic report is then emailed to the WAT engineer, the module engineers and management so the production line can be stopped. This will ensure additional product in the line wonˇ¦t be affected. |
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| Continuous improvement:
As more and more knowledge is entered in to the knowledge-base, problems can be identified faster. Having management in the diagnostics feedback loop ensures problems will be fixed and prevented from re-occurring. Each engineer in the production line can access the knowledge-base to see what needs to be checked at his/her station and make sure all settings are correct before the product is processed.
Facilitate technology transfer, increase yields and profit margins:
Removing the processing problems through continuous improvement will allow this to happen. The less product scrapped, the more revenue generated. Thus, allowing the company to produce material at a lower cost. With process characterization knowledge stored in the KM system, the technology transfer process from R&D to production line will be dramatically improved. |
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| Customer ROI:
Increased productivity, higher yields, increased profit margins and a reduction of scrapped material. |
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| The above table, which is the internal study data from our development partner, demonstrates the savings in scrapped wafer using various methods of analysis. Just comparing the in-line monitor with the off-line monitor, a Real Time in-line monitor can save 2 scrapped lots (55 wafers) compared to WAT off-line monitor. The product will pay for itself very quickly. |
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| Semiconductor manufacturers sell product to generate revenue. They also need to meet customer product demands. So, scrapping wafers is a lose, lose situation. Revenue is lost from not being able to sell those scrapped wafers and customer satisfaction is lost by not meeting product demands. |
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| Major foundries charge $1000 to $4000 for each wafer. If, for example, each wafer is worth $2000 in the market and it is scrapped, it is treated as $2000 in lost revenue not just the cost of material. Now we can do the math, 1 lot would be worth $50K. Most of the companies have WAT off-line monitors. The average feedback time is 4 hours. During each quarter, if we assume there are 5 incidents, there will be 10 lots affected and scrapped. We are talking about $500K revenue lost. If the FAB implements the Real Time in-line WAT/WET monitor system, we can also say that $500K additional revenue is generated per quarter. |
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| Either of the 2 scenarios above should allow the FAB managers to easily justify the purchase of a Real Time in-line system like ours. |
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| It is quite surprising that few companies have tracked the costs of dc testing (systems, probers, operators, engineers, floor space, etc.). It is especially surprising when there is a potential for millions of dollars to be saved from the startup and operating expenses. A Cost of e-test survey showed that the industry average expenses for dc test are well over what should be considered acceptable levels. |
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