Can smart manufacturing make the whole fab more efficient?
To unlock the full potential of their manufacturing systems and personnel, companies in many industries are rapidly moving toward highly automated systems and digital data-driven methods and tools. Widely known as “smart manufacturing” or Industry 4.0, the resulting productivity improvements are often so dramatic that many people are calling this shift a new industrial revolution.
The semiconductor industry, already more highly digitalized than many others, has been an early adopter of Industry 4.0 technologies. One example is the SECS/GEM equipment interface protocol, introduced a number of years ago for equipment-to-host data communications in highly automated fabs.
However, significant gaps remain in Industry 4.0 implementations in semiconductor manufacturing. One area that has not typically been included in such efforts is the subfab—but that is beginning to change as fab output soars to meet strong demand for chips.
The subfab consumes more energy and resources than any other part of the production facility, so as output increases manufacturers are scrambling to find better ways to manage energy, water and chemical usage while still maintaining high levels of safety, reducing emissions and minimizing costs.
Read more here.
New market opportunities and global competitiveness are limited by qualified people.
Better algorithms and more data could bolster adoption, particularly at advanced nodes.
Showing that a processor core adheres to a specification becomes more difficult when the specification is extensible.
New approaches are competing for attention as scaling benefits diminish.
Deeper understanding of equipment behavior and market needs will have broad impact across the semiconductor supply chain.
This will go down as a good year for the semiconductor industry, where new markets and innovation were both necessary and rewarded.
Researchers digging into ways around the von Neumann bottleneck.
Experts at the Table, Part 1: Impact on the supply chain, who’s using advanced packaging, and the cost of packaging versus device scaling.
Companies battle it out to get artificial intelligence to the edge using various chip architectures as their weapons of choice.
30 facilities planned, including 10/7nm processes, but trade war and economic factors could slow progress.
New market opportunities and global competitiveness are limited by qualified people.
New architectures, packaging approaches gain ground as costs increase, but shrinking features continues to play a role.
Four industry experts talk about what’s changing, how quickly, and where the limits are with AI.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Leave a Reply