Industry experts exchange best practices and business strategies that shape manufacturing growth at ISMI Manufacturing Week

AUSTIN, USA: Nearly 400 technologists, fab engineers, and managers gathered to discuss high volume manufacturing effectiveness and productivity challenges at this year’s ISMI Manufacturing Week, featuring the ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness from October 17-21.

Held in Austin, TX, the five-day event included 12 short courses and workshops and attracted 34 exhibitors along with 13 sponsors. More than 80 dynamic, data-driven presentations were given by experts in fab and equipment productivity, yield and metrology, environmental design, simulation and modeling, statistical methods, and other critical areas. Poster sessions augmented conference session topics, and at the close of each day, a networking reception was held to provide attendees an opportunity to exchange information.

Kicking off the ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness, SEMATECH’s VP of manufacturing, Richard Young, provided an overview on the semiconductor market outlook and emphasized that industry challenges will require a collaborative response.

Paul Fego, VP and manager of worldwide manufacturing at Texas Instruments, told attendees in a keynote that semiconductor manufacturers can differentiate themselves and drive operational excellence through creating a collaborative environment that utilizes the talent of its workforce.

The following day, keynote presenter John Scoville, senior director of application engineering at Applied Materials, emphasized that “predictability” needs to be improved in order to achieve fab control of all systems according to common productivity and cost-reduction targets to realize the next level of manufacturing efficiency.

A few key highlights during this year’s Symposium included:
* During the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Workshop chip makers, equipment OEMs and solution providers discussed development and deployment of data-driven, automated, joint scheduling of maintenance and WIP. The popular symposium themes of improved fab performance through prediction and data-leveraged monitoring and control were discussed in the context of PHM, where equipment health is monitored and predicted then transformed into optimized scheduling of WIP and maintenance.

* Perspectives from consortia, chip makers, equipment OEMs, solution providers, and university researchers were presented.

In order to address parts obsolescence and confronting the risks of manufacturing capacity, ISMI hosted an Obsolete Parts workshop during Manufacturing Week, with over 30 representatives from every global manufacturing region in attendance. Every aspect of parts obsolescence was discussed and a roadmap of future actions was generated.

ISMI held a Supplier Leadership Workshop focused on bringing end users and equipment suppliers together to collaborate on reducing energy consumption in semiconductor manufacturing. IBM, Intel and GLOBALFOUNDRIES presented updates on their energy reduction programs and needs from suppliers. The group collaborated on implementing energy reduction strategies such as idle mode, high temperature process cooling water and tool energy monitoring. Additionally, equipment suppliers presented updates on their new developments in energy reduction.

A first-ever session on nanomaterials biosafety was chaired by Sara Brenner, MD, MPH, Assistant Vice President for NanoHealth Initiatives at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University of Albany, which is working with ISMI through the groundbreaking NanoHealth & Safety Center (NSC) to proactively address occupational and environmental health and safety concerns.

Discussion topics included the development of cutting-edge occupational exposure assessment techniques and protocols; development of biosensors for understanding the effects of cellular and organism-associated interactions with nanomaterials; and a presentation on developing “green” approaches to nanomanufacturing technologies to help reduce the environmental impact of large-scale foundries and nanofabrication facilities.