Eliminating waste: A roadmap for semiconductor industry productivity growth

The historical growth of the semiconductor industry is the result of a relentless, collaborative, industry-wide drive to decrease device costs. Much of the cost reduction that has been achieved over the last decade can be attributed to the vast productivity enhancement of device geometry reduction. However, further scaling is becoming increasingly complex and expensive; therefore, the semiconductor industry needs new methods for productivity improvement. This paper approaches productivity from the perspective of waste reduction. This new perspective reveals untapped opportunities for productivity improvement. New metrics are defined for evaluating fab waste. These metrics can then be used to quantify the value of potential solutions, as well as to define a roadmap for industry waste reduction.