Rapid Thermal Multiprocessing For Micro Factories

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Abstract
Future success in microelectronics will demand rapid innovation, rapid product introduction and ability to react to a change in technological and business climate quickly. These technological advances in integrated electronics will require development of flexible manufacturing technology for VLSI systems. However, the current approach of establishing megafactories for mass manufacturing of chips will lead to a skyrocketing cost of more than 1 billion dollars to establish a factory by the end of this century. This could result in serious attrition of chip manufacturers. We propose new concepts of a programmable micro factory which may be characterized by more economical small scale production, higher flexibility to accommodate many products on several processes, and faster turnaround and learning. In-situ multi-processing equipment where several process steps can be done in sequence may be a key ingredient in this approach. For this environment to be flexible, the equipment must have ability to change processing environment, requiring extensive in-situ measurements and real time control. In-process and end-of-process measurements coupled with rapid learning through expert systems will facilitate faster innovation and better ability to react to a change.

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