Holiday Greetings

The year 2009 was a year we want to put behind us and move on. As an optimist 2010 will be a much better year in all respects!! We are looking forward to what is to come with great anticipations and high expectations.
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!!!!!

Dick Deininger and Becky Taylor

Remember:

Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is a mystery,
Today is a gift,
Enjoy and cherish it!

A Real Concern Today, The Economy

My real concern today is that the fundamental issues which exacerbated the crash have not been addressed. This is apolitical. We must fix the banking system and the stock market debacle first.
It will not cost a lot of money! It means changing the rules and re-establishing controls. 1. Put the Mark to Market rule on hold for a minimum of two years and longer if necessary. 2. Bring back the Uptick Rule to cut down on the market volatility. 3. Put a moratorium on short selling for at least two years to stop the speculators from manipulating the market. 4. Bring back Glass Siegle act to separate the commercial banks from the rest. 5. Re-regulate the banks ASAP. 6. Regulate the hedge funds to stop the market manipulation. NOW, when money is put into the banks they will be able to let it because their balance sheets will be in balance. These steps will slow down if not stop the wall street speculation/volatility.
My last recommendation is to ask the government to guarantee mortgage loans for primary home owners only, for 40 years at 4% fixed. I mean for every one who is a primary home owner. That should really slow mortgage foreclosures significantly. There are millions of people who were living on their investment income who have had that income reduced by 50% to 80%. This should buy some time for those people, including many seniors to recover.
Throwing money at the problems without addressing the rule changes that allowed us to get here will be ineffective. I see this as the commonsense approach to our problems.

The Long Winters Nap

Do you have unexplained losses in your Fab or manufacturing operation? Are there upgrades to your operation you always needed to do but never had time to do? Do you remember the last time you came out of a recession and wished that you had ? When was the last time you had the opportunity to make improvements but, did not because you were too busy? While the industry is napping maybe you should consider making some of those long overdue upgrades you never had time to do? But where do you start? We can help! Using some straight forward data analysis and simple modeling techniques, TDP can help you identify the low hanging fruit, which, when upgraded can provide almost immediate payback. We can put your operation in a better position to identify and help your reduce variability with the input parameters to the Fab. There is time now, to position yourself for the upcoming recovery with a more efficient, less costly and higher productivity operation. Let us help you now! GIVE US A CALL!

When to Make any Investments

When semiconductor companies emerge from a downturn, the increase is massive and very fast. The management has little time to think about anything other than increasing production. This is what history has shown to be true. Conclusion, make your productivity improvements when production demand is light, NOW! There is no better time to implement the fast payback wireless gauge readers on the critical unmonitored gauges currently installed throughout the Fab. When production comes back, the Fab efficiency will be higher. By covering those areas where you have been encountering the highest losses with the WGR's will provide the capability to reduce wafer losses and scrap, reduce facilities supplied materials, gasses, water, energy and thus reduce costs. This will be a case where a dollar spent today will save two tomorrow. You want to know how, contact us. We can walk you through the simple steps.

First Steps to Implement APC Applications

The first steps needed involve developing a plan regarding the areas you need to control. Select those areas which you believe will give you the greatest payback in the shortest time. Usually that involves looking at functions where the Fab is experiencing the greatest scrap or yield losses and looking at the parameters which can affect the outcome in that process or manufacturing step. This usually involves the photo and etch areas initially in a semiconductor Fab. The next step is to begin to capture real time critical parameter data about the functions to be controlled. This approach has been demonstrated in literally hundreds of manufacturing control applications.

At this point most people apply Statistical Process Control (SPC) rules to the data streams. This allows them to manually make parameter corrections to determine the most sensitive parameters to adjust. Fundamental to all of this is capturing the data. We will address the follow-on steps in more detail in our next blog.

Starting Advanced Process Control, APC

Each year we hear that more and more companies have implemented APC in their manufacturing operation, first at the tool level and then at the fab wide level. Now, there is another level to be considered, the facilities supplied gasses, water, etc.. The observed variation in these parameters makes it imperative that they be precision controlled to achieve precision processing in leading edge Fabs. All process manufacturing operations as well as Fabs want and need to improve productivity, reduce costs, save materials and improve their environmental impact. Further, it is now practical and economical to implement the first step in the implementation process, data acquisition, using non-invasive wireless technology for older tools as well as well facilities parameters. We intend to describe how to get started and achieve net saving in a short time
For older Fabs, the argument that APC is too expensive is heard over and over again. It is simply not true and it is possible to get started by inexpensively collecting data in key supply areas to indentify the magnitude and extent of the possible savings areas.
It is our intent over the next few weeks to discuss how to get started and where you might expect to save dollars, resources and make your process manufacturing operation more productive.
Dick Deininger