Besides the technical challenges for an efficient 300mm start up in time, quality and cost, three key success factors have been proven to be mandatory:

• team approach,

• appropriate management methods,

• preparation and application of the necessary tools.

After a smooth Start Up last year, Infineon Technologies SC300 is currently ramping the world’s first 300mm memory fab with 256M DRAM in 140nm technology to high volume at Dresden/Germany.

Seven Field Map THE Seven Field Map is a methodology, developed by BQI Consulting Limited, to describe and visualise business processes. It shows the responsibility for the main process and the relations to corresponding sub processes, it also provides the necessary information regarding the input, output and deliverables of each single process step. In addition, it links the overall controlling process to the sub processes. The Seven Field Map facilitates complicated tasks by providing transparency, to all involved parties, and highlighting different responsibilities along the process, t.

Team Approach

During the Start up phase interest conflicts in goal setting and resource availability are typical.

The general contractor has to finish base built and installation to achieve the milestone Ready for Equipment (RfE). The hook up management has to prepare the tool installation. Production and Facility people become familiar with the results of an extended planning, which had been performed months before. Clashes in the installation of base built and hook are inevitable. This is usually the time of conflict situations, which results in task forces, delays and additional costs,

The Fab of the Future team accumulated the experience of construction and Start Up of more than four 200mm Infineon and JV fabs in Europe, US and SEA in the 90th. This professional team included as well the consultants (SIBC, SHK) the general contractor (MWZ) for construction, infra-structure and hook up. A one team approach was defined from the very beginning, with a clear understanding of common and of mutual responsibilities. Despite all upcoming conflicts in the Start Up Phase, immediate solution oriented decisions and proceeding could be achieved.

But even assuming a perfect team has been assembled, the Start Up Phase also requires a set of management methods. These are clear common goals, full transparency of business processes, and tools to support the decision and controlling process.

Management Methods

Goal setting

Before groundbreaking the Fab of the Future team had defined all necessary milestones with detailed deliverable descriptions from construction/infra until the Start Up Phase. These (26) milestones were the unique base for a consistent set of goals for all activities during the whole project. The corresponding status reports using MTAs (Milestone Trend Analysis) were valid for all team members and partners, defining as well incentive and bonus programs.

Tool Alignment THE Automated Material Handling System provides FOUP storage, interbay transport between process areas across several building as well as intrabay transport (direct tool loading) into a subset of process areas via an OHT system. OHT for direct tool for equipment move in. To guarantee the exact equipment handshake between FOUP and loadport, the AMHS and the Equipment have to be aligned to plus minus 0.5 cm. A laser measurement based tool-alignment process was developed, allowing even to align a stepper of 20 tons weight within this very small tolerance. To manage this highly sensitive process, a lasergrid with a tolerance of 1mm over the whole fab has to be built up. This allows the alignment of all foundations, templates and equipments to the virtual tool alignment line. It is preferable to have the AMHS installed and running before the move in of the equipment. The tool alignment line is defined in the Semistandard E15.1.

Equipment Database THE Equipment Database is a Infineon proprietary online application to support the planning of the Equipment provision. It contains the backwards calculated planned dates for shipping, move in, hook up, process and hardware start up and compares those to the actual dates. Deviations and the resulting impact on the forward calculated ready for production date can be seen immediately. This tool allows to track the complete start up process along all the process steps with respect to the Project plan and – if necessary – to take the right corrective actions.

Business process approach

During the Start Up Phase of a big new Fab, usually more than 1000 people work under heavy time pressure in concurrent, interdependent and overlapping activities. To be able to manage this phase successfully, early planning and preparation work is essential. The 300mm Start Up Team has been installed nine months before the RFE-date. All necessary business processes have been defined and documented with the so-called Seven Field Maps (see Box Seven Field Map). This business process approach describes sequences, relationships, deliverables and responsibilities. The maps were defined with those responsible and communicated to all key participants. But to manage the interfaces between the process steps, an organised communication structure is mandatory.

Communication structure

The communication structure followed the Seven Field Map approach. Participants, input, output, content, goals, responsibilities, dependencies and frequencies of the meetings have been defined to build a self-controlling system. Three examples may demonstrate the principle:

1. With a well defined preparation, the so-called cascade meetings allowed to update all hook up relevant information in a database within two days for the total fab. Performed on regular time base, surprises during the Start Up process have been reduced to a minimum.

2. During the weekly move in meeting a two week forecast was frozen and communicated. A buffer storage for the incoming equipment always guaranteed a smooth move in.

3. Regular management project meetings of general constructor, consultants and Infineon ensured the focus to common goals with final decisions.

Hook up General Contractor Hook-up Organisation The project organisation had to match the team structure, which was set up for the entire project including the clients facilities and equipment engineers. To develop a ‘hook-up team spirit’ was an essential step in the right direction to finish this project successfully. A matrix organisation ‘set-up’ between equipment engineer, hook-up designer, facility engineer, hook-up supervisor and consultants was the key to succeed during the fast track ramp-up phase. Installation The installation process was divided into three Phases: Hook-up 0: Pre-fabrication in remote workshops. Because of limited space on site, the subcontractors had no opportunity to place storage and prefabrication containers directly on site. During the Hook-up 0 Phase, the first tool information have been handed over via design book by the client to the M+W Zander tagging master. Those documents enabled the base built design team to react and optimise the base built detail design. With the available tool information, a loading limit check through all systems was done in parallel. (Figure 1) Hook-up 1 Beginning of pre-installation in the clean room. In accordance to the ‘move in’ plan, M+W Zander located the subcontractor preinstallation areas in the sub-fab area. Prior to tool arrival, such installations like those shown in Figure 2, below, were already done. To realise a pre-installation for all major tools, a bright information loop between client, ‘move in’ team, M+W Zander and subcontractors was established. The main focus was that the 2D and 3D templates, to support the pre-installation, 2-4 weeks prior of ‘move in’ on site. Figure 2. Template 3D ASML Furnace.

Conflict prevention

In the Start Up Phase, unattended conflicts are expensive and delay the project. Having enough experience, it is very possible to preview potential conflicts before they happen. Two examples may demonstrate:

1. Monitoring the resource planning for dedicated hook up specialists weeks before work execution, it was possible to detect and resolve future capacity and schedule problems before they had any impact.

2. Equipment decisions had to be later in some cases than the base built installation definition. Therefore a consistent planning of base built and hook up installation was not possible ahead. But there was a small time window before prefacilitation to perform a mutual fit of both installations with little influence on time and cost.

In addition to the team approach with these and other management methods, specific Start Up tools are mandatory to handle the complexity. One major task of the Fab of the Future project from 1998 to 2001 was the evolution of existing hardware and software tools and the development of new tools for the 300mm Start Up Phase.

Tool preparation and application

From the 200mm experience the Equipment Data Base and hook up procedure have been adapted and further developed. Main new tools for 300mm are the Tool Alignment and the Media Consumption Measurement system (MCM).

Equipment Data Base

This tool is the planning and controlling base for all equipment activities and their scheduling (see Box Equipment Data Base) from planning start until the process qualification during the Start Up. It has matured with several new fabs.

An exchange server was installed, providing all equipment and project documents online for each accepted ‘user’. A link of all databases and tools and the summary of all relevant data under a practical User Interface called System Matrix was installed.

Hook up

Six months before RfE, the equipment list was defined and the layout was frozen. Matching this information, the media design could be checked in detail. A tagging list with all submain to tool correlations showed up the necessary adjustments. Before RfE all adjustments were ready. During the hook up period no major changes occured. (Frank Mattukat, Stephan Migge, MW-Zander, Micromagazine Facility Technology, September 2000 – see the panal entitled Hook up). With a pre-installation period of six weeks, hook up duration times were optimised. The stocker of the transport system were moved in four weeks before RFE.

Hook up (continued) Figure 3. Template 3D ASML Furnace. Figure 4. Space management Subfab Hook-up 2 During this phase of the project, services to the process equipment and their corresponding sub-tools will be finally connected to the facilities. This includes testing, commissioning, acceptance and release to the owner.

Tool Alignment

For a successful pre-installation two and three dimensional templates were used (see Pictures of ASM, TEL, CENTURA). Since the Automated Material Handling System requires an accuracy of plus/minus 0.5 cm per tool, a tool alignment process was developed. All fundamentals and templates have to be positioned exactly to this alignment line. (see Box Tool Alignment)

300mm Infineon Start-up with SemiSoft SemiSoft is fully integrated in the startup of the Infineon Technologies 300mm volume production in Dresden. The SemiSoft consultants and engineers started from the early beginning of the pilot line phase to investigate most realistic system consumption figures for 300mm equipment. The real consumption data was measured with sensors, such as mass flow meters or ultrasonic sensors in the Hook-up lines as well as transmitted via the SECS II interface of the equipment or generated from cumulated recipe date linked with the actual production data. An online data link to the manufacturing execution system (MES) allowed to understand the measured system consumption data in relation to the actual used production capacity for every single supply-system such as chemicals, gases and also power , exhaust or cooling water on every equipment. The data link to the various data sources are the basis for the worldwide first 300mm supply-system database with real measured consumption. Based on this unique data base the SemiSoft team could generate a very precise projection for the 300mm mass production line. With data links to the MES System, the process recipe database, the equipment move-in database and the CADLayout the SemiSoft team generated supply-system ramp up curves, supply-system layouts and supplysystem budget plans. Based on this information Infineon could design a optimized, custom-made supply system infrastructure. The SemiSoft products and services are also an important success factor for the fast track Start-up project. In the running Fab the SemiSoft SystemMatrix is in operation as supply-system database including energization tracking for every single Sub-main interface. SemiSoft® is the trademark project management, engineering and software design of SHK. SHK is a team of young, highly motivated specialists working to support their clients projects during the construction, ramp up, and mass production phases of leading edge wafer front-end production lines. For more information please refer to www.SemiSoft.de and www.SHK.com.

Media Consumption
Measurement System MCM

One focus of the 300mm Pilotline project was to generate information about the Media Consumptions of 300mm equipments. Several hundred sensors were installed and the data were administrated by SemiSoft SystemMatrix. This valuable data were used to calculate the Media consumption of the 300mm fab with the frozen equipment list. In combination with the tagging list this design check highlighted the few necessary adjustments before final installation. The MCM sensors have been installed now in the 300mm production to provide a full reference tool set. The SemiSoft SystemMatrix is in full operation and supports the ramp of the Fab. Media Consumption will be monitored to support planning, environment and productivity programs.

Conclusion

“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words:

people, products and profits.

Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”

Lee Iacocca

Using the above mentioned methods and tools, the team has successfully performed the first 300mm volume Start Up. The initial product, the world’s smallest 256M DRAM on the biggest wafers is qualified. The market conditions for memories have been tough. For the profits, 300mm has an intrinsic advantage of a productivity advantage up to 30%.