An Extended IDM Business Model to Ensure Time-to-Quality in Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry

Semiconductor manufacturing industry (SMI) has shifted from an IDM (integrated device manufacturer) to a fabless structure where technology is developed in an alliance to share high R&D costs and address time to market and time to volume challenges. In this fabless structure, EDA (electronic design automation) has emerged as a key stake holder to model increasing design and manufacturing interface complexities and its integration within design flow, but collaboration within alliances have resulted information sharing and technology transfer as the key challenges. We argue that IDM model is superior to a fabless structure due to its inherent ability for faster/superior knowledge capitalization. We benchmarked and analyzed a world reputed IDM with use-case and SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) analyses to identify the limiting factors that led this transformation and found data and statistics as the core issues. We have proposed an extended IDM business model where engineering information systems (EIS) are tuned for design for manufacturability (DFM) compliance to achieve time to quality (time to volume, time to market) and yield ramp up rate at low cost but effective R&D efforts.