Strategic alliances for equipment reliability improvement in a dynamic startup environment

For the AMD Fab 25 start-up in Austin, TX, it was critical to achieve high availability and low defectivity performance for all critical equipment early on. The economics of the project required that process maturity be reached within hundreds of lots rather than thousands of lots, which can only be done with a reliable equipment set. However, it also required the capability of extending the technology many years into the future. This meant that the tools selected for the fab generally were the most advanced with small installation bases and, as a result, little background experience. Because of this it was imperative that we achieve rapid cycles of learning on these tool sets early in the start-up. The Novellus Concept Two Sequel and Altus were selected as the major CVD tools for use in Fab 25. An equipment Continuous Improvement Team (CIT) was formed prior to installation of the equipment. This team consisted of representatives from both Novellus and AMD. The focus was on key reliability metrics required to facilitate maturation of the fab: availability, Mean time between failure (MTBF), and cost-of-ownership. A strategy for achieving our goals was devised. Critical to this process was partnering with Novellus Systems. The alliance between AMD and Novellus was designed to optimize learning on this tool set. Interaction occurred at all levels including engineering, manufacturing, maintenance, and management from both parties. All data was continuously and rigorously reviewed and validated. Knowledge was transferred in both directions. The CIT focused on critical problems during the start-up, rapidly addressing them. The fab startup has been broken down into three phases: Learning Phase, Training Phase, and Improvement Phase. During the phases, criteria success factors were been carefully monitored to evaluate the progress. Performance metrics were reviewed and action plans were created. Beta-site system improvements were tested and upgrades were installed. The results of this partnership were greatly beneficial to both AMD and Novellus.