Automation Maturity for Legacy FABs

Fresh out of the last SEMI meeting for the Smart Manufacturing Chapter – I like to share a short update.

In today’s manufacturing and automation world there is hardly any article not talking about AI, AI Agents, and how we will eventually achieve full autonomy.

The way to that ultimate goal is a long journey and especially for existing legacy FABs there are plenty of steps to go to get a good percentage of the operation automated – not to speak of the lofty autonomy end goal.

Semi has formed a working group to describe the different levels of automation in different domains. Over the past year a group of automation enthusiasts has worked with the help of SEMI to provide a framework for this journey.

The goal of this effort:

  • Provide a standardized industry matrix survey that enables fabs to confidentially assess their automation maturity – both internally and against peer facilities
  • Benchmark fab autonomy maturity against results from other fabs
  • Provide assistance in approaching higher levels of automation and autonomy
  • Support in calculation ROI to help fab leaders evaluate the impact of implementing automation capabilities

here are the 8 different domains in a high level overview:

for each domain exists a detailed description for these general maturity levels:

This framework has been successfully used with 14 different factories, and we are looking to have many more 200mm FABs participating ! With each interview we are able to refine and improve the framework.

Wait – what Interview ?

We invite interested FABs to participate in a 1.5 – 2h structured interview process which is lead by SEMI and will ensure confidentiality:

  • Confidential and IP safe to avoid any necessary legal engagement
  • SEMI’s commitment is to treat all information provided in the survey as strictly confidential
  • Fab name, location and any identifying details will be held on by SEMI
  • Any responses that may be shared will be anonymized, and no results will be traceable to any individual company, facility or person

If you are interested how your FAB stacks up against your peers – your data points could be added to this chart:

THE MAGIC QUESTION – what is in for me (my FAB) ???

Why should my FAB participate in this effort ?

First of all: this is completely on voluntary basis and is ment to be a help to get a more structured approach in the automation journey.

If your are not interested in increasing productivity and reducing cost per wafer via step by step automation and moving towards autonomy (and harvesting eventually the benefits of AI enabled technologies – ha now I used the magic AI word myself ) or have a very clear own roadmap and understanding how to achieve this – this might be not for you.

But if your FAB is interested in that and want to learn from peers and their combined knowledge, here are some of the benefits:

  • Support SEMI and the greater semiconductor industry by sharpening the data pool for the framework
  • Participating fabs get access to

    – complete domain level description including recommendations on how
      to get from one level to the next for each domain
     
    – an automation ROI calculation template to help quantify automation projects cost vs. benefits

    – aggregated anonymized benchmarking data from all participating FABs

    – access to automation experts to help start/accelerate the automation journey

If your are interested to learn more, please reach out to one of these contacts:

Anshu Bahadur (abahadur@semi.org)
Dennis Xenos     (dennis.xenos@flexciton.com)
Thomas Beeg (thomas.beeg@accenture.com) 

closing words:
I have the honor to serve as a co-lead for this working group and put a good amount of time into the effort – since I truly believe:

1. legacy FABs still play and also will play a significant role in the semiconductor industry eco system in the future – but the competition and cost pressure will increase – even in legacy FABs where automation seems very hard and costly – new technologies make things possible and might help to keep the FAB running for another 10-15 years.

2. Having a framework and guide to explore what is possible – combined with industry expert knowhow and ROI calculation models will help to start or accelerate the journey – at a minimum provide confidence for own decision making – reflected to industry standards and trends

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