Semiconductor plant
A semiconductor plant ( English Fab , short for semiconductor fabrication plant ), also known as a semiconductor or chip factory , is a factory in which integrated circuits (IC) for the semiconductor and microelectronics industries are produced.
construction
Considerable demands are made on production control. The central part of a semiconductor plant is the clean room , in which the smallest possible contamination of the air by particles is to be ensured , since these have a decisive influence on the yield . In addition, it must offer an area in which temperature and humidity can be regulated and also guarantee protection against vibrations. Since there is continuous production in a semiconductor factory, i.e. 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, these and other framework conditions (e.g. supply of consumables and electrical energy supply) must be guaranteed at all times. Production takes place in batches , which means that the actual “workpieces”, the wafers , are combined in one batch (usually 25 wafers) and processed together. The production time for a lot depends on the complexity of the product and ranges from a few days to a few months.
In the clean room there are production facilities for the numerous processes of semiconductor technology , with whose methods the integrated circuits are manufactured. These systems include steppers , etching systems , cleaning systems, ion implantation systems and measurement technology, such as ellipsometers , scanning electron microscopes or dark field microscopes . In a semiconductor factory, the systems are not like in other industries of mass production, z. B. the automotive industry, connected with an assembly line (see. Flow production ), but are usually in groups of the same plants or plants of the same production section together (see. Workshop production ). Increasing automation (including automatic delivery and removal of the lots) makes this grouping or the proximity to systems of preceding or subsequent production steps less relevant, so that this system arrangement has to be implemented less strictly.
costs
Due to the steadily increasing requirements and growing wafer diameters, the construction costs for a semiconductor plant have risen continuously for decades. The construction costs for a modern semiconductor plant for 300 mm wafers were several billion US dollars in 2012. For example, in 2012 put into operation cost Fab15 by TSMC in Taiwan around 9.3 billion USD. The high investment costs and the economic pressure continuously utilize the production, meant that especially in the last 15 years, former semiconductor manufacturers with their own works ( english integrated device manufacturer, IDM ) convert into pure design companies. The production for the companies without their own semiconductor plants (English fabless semiconductor company ) in turn take over companies that have specialized in the contract manufacturing of semiconductor products, so-called foundries . This concept also allows smaller, less financially strong companies to manufacture their products using current technologies.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Begins Construction on Gigafab In Central Taiwan . TSMC, July 16, 2010, accessed April 21, 2013.