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June 23, 2022 - Robert Quinn

Why does it take so long to make more chips?

Blog # 007
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According to US Secretary of State, Gina Raimondo, chip shortages are likely to last through 2023. Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger, went as far as to predict shortages will last through 2024 in April. As many in the industry know, building new fabs to ramp up production is not a quick task – it can take 3-5 years to build a new fab. Expanding capacity of existing fabs is also not a “quick fix.” To truly understand why ramping up chip production is a problem without an immediate solution, it’s helpful to understand on the day-to-day level what is involved in installing new equipment in a fabrication center – from build to running full production.

The process of ordering semiconductor equipment to run full production at the customer fab can be a long, timely process. Besides the chips themselves, semiconductor manufacturing machines can be some of the most difficult equipment that we manufacture on a large-scale production manufacturing line. To take the equipment from a custom configuration order to running full production in a fab can take years based on the type of equipment you are ordering.

There are two methods of manufacturing and testing equipment. One is Integrated Final Test (IFT) and the other is the Module Final Test(MFT). IFT is when all of the different modules like chambers and mainframes are manufactured,integrated, and tested as a whole unit completely from back to front just like it would be set up in the fab. IFT is a more efficient way to test the unit but many fabs for the sake of time and money are going to modular final test (MFT). MFT is where individual units like the chambers, the factory interface, and the mainframe are built and tested separately, then a more detailed IFT test is run in the customer fab after all the parts are integrated. This method is cost-efficient for OEMs, especially when OEMs have separate modules made in different parts of the world.

After a tool is shipped to its customer, the tool is unpacked, inspected, wiped down, and brought into the fab, and, depending on the type of tool, this could mean just rolling it in and plugging it into the wall outlet or carefully floating in the tool to the specific location on a specially designed hovercraft that prevents any bumps or shocks to the fragile internal equipment. After setting the tool or separate modules on a template with all the floor cutouts and sometimes shock absorption platforms, the process of integrating all the chambers, factory interface, mainframes, cables, gas lines, and sub-fab support equipment to the tool begins. Depending on the tool type and the type of install speed the customer ordered and paid for, the installation process of the tool can take days up to many months to complete the full integration of a tool. But once the tool is finally integrated and fully connected to all the facilities it is now ready for power-up and test. Many people would assume this means flipping on a switch and turning on the machine, but this is far from what really has to be done. Some of the first testing includes running virus checks, connecting the tool to the fab mainframe / AMHS, and making sure it is talking to all the other systems. Other important systems checks include running leak rates, training robots, verifying configurations, and other facilities connected to the tool. Other testing includes the operations checking of all the different components and support equipment, running particle count wafers to be sure there are no internal particle issues, uploading recipes, and running dummy wafers to be sure all the robot handoffs are correct. After days or months of testing and bringing the tool online, the next stage of running the full process on test wafers begins.

What is a full process test? This depends on the tool and the process. Some of the equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing uses extreme temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun and pressures that can pump down to a vacuum of 1x10-9 Torr, relatively close to the vacuum of deep space that is 1x10-6 to <3x10-17 Torr.The final stage of bringing a tool online to running full production includes the final tuning, testing recipes, and verifying this tool can run full production for every wafer identically every time it runs the process.

As we can see, the process of ordering a tool, to running full production is complex. With equipment shortages and delays leading to lead times of up to 18 months from OEMs before a tool even arrives at the fabrication center, it is easy to see how the process of expanding capacity could take not months, but years.

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