The intelligent microelectronics factory of the future

It is projected that semiconductor device manufacturing near the year 2000 will be carried out on silicon wafers as large as 300 mm in diameter. Minimum geometries will approach 0.18 μm for the 1024 Mbit DRAM. Chip (device) sizes will be as large as 450 sq. mm. This will require a new manufacturing paradigm. It is projected that the factory of the future will come very close to actual intelligent microelectronic manufacturing. The factory computer will have dynamic planning and scheduling along with process/equipment diagnosis and prognosis. Cost-effective, highly reliable processing equipment will evolve based on a cluster concept. These computer-intensive, intelligent clusters of process equipment will be linked to the factory computer. The computer will download and change recipes for each wafer. Process control technology of the 1990s will used smart sensors in the equipment to drive the process to the target value. Model predictive process control with feedback and feedforward will replace traditional statistical process control