Reducing variability in a semiconductor manufacturing environment

The main drivers in today's flash memory business are low cost and flexibility. Low cost requires high tool utilizations, whereas flexibility and ability to respond quickly to changing customer demands require short throughput times. There is, however, an inherent operational conflict with achieving both high utilization and short cycle time simultaneously. Intel's flash memory factory is striving for shorter manufacturing throughput times without reducing tool utilizations. One of the major components in throughput time today is queuing time caused partly by variability in the manufacturing environment. Being able to reduce this variability component could result in improvements in throughput time. In this work, Factory Physics methods are used to analyze variability in the manufacturing flow. First, potential high variability areas in the flow are identified. Second, manufacturing data is analyzed to find the main sources of variability. Third, ways to reduce variability are investigated. Finally, means to align manufacturing metrics with variability reduction efforts and the effect of metrics on organizational culture and change implementation are discussed. During the study it was found out that the lithography area reduces the overall manufacturing flow variability. It was also found out, that the area is highly utilized and is thus introducing non-value adding queuing time for the product throughput time.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Penttilä, Minja Johanna

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thomas Roemer and Roy E. Welsch.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34846

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34846