About the Topic
Product and process complexity in semiconductor manufacturing continues to rise steadily. However, even highly automated fabs like Infineon suffer from unfavorable and growing variability and losses in production effectiveness. This leads to unscheduled and costly delays in deliveries to customers. One reason for this is a growing gap regarding adequate information modeling of the manufacturing process - even in highly automated fabs.
The focus of this work is to analyze the relationship between queues and WIP (Work in Progress). This is supported and enabled by a new, innovative information model, called the holistic information model (HIM). HIM provides, for the first time, all the necessary data structures to thoroughly explore this previously misunderstood relationship. Methods of causal inference should be defined and implemented as the work progresses. This may (but need not) include the use of new machine learning methods. SYSTEMA will provide a complete software framework, including the holistic information model HIM.1 Sample production data is available. More information on the current research together with Infineon.
