ADAPTABLE IC MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY

The semiconductor industry is currently facing a number of challenges. The capital costs of IC factories and the cost of developing technolo gy are increasing at a faster rate than the revenues. In addition, dem and for ICs is fragmenting into lower volume and more differentiated m arkets. The current chip manufacturing approach is establishing megafa ctories for slow mass production of commodity products. To remain comp etitive alternative design and manufacturing techniques will have to b e developed with flexible factories for rapid production of multiple p roducts in different technologies. At Stanford University we have buil t a large interdisciplinary program aimed at exploring radically diffe rent semiconductor manufacturing opportunities. The approach is to bui ld a highly flexible computer controlled manufacturing facility - the Programmable Factory and in parallel with this factory, a suite of sim ulation tools the Virtual Factory which emulate all functions of the r eal factory. Economic modeling suggests that such approach may offer m ore economical small or large scale production, higher flexibility to accommodate many products on several processes, and faster turnaround to hasten product innovation.