EDITOR'S PAGE

The Arizona Moto-cosm

My recent trip to Arizona brought home again how the region is a microcosm of the semiconductor industry. A strong supplier infrastructure supports a cluster of major fabs, while the research community boasts two of the leading institutions in the semiconductor realm, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. The big news on everyone's minds and lips is Intel's plans to build its volume 300-mm production plant in Chandler, a move that already has the vendor community scrambling and the other chipmakers in the area fearing further drains on the nearly tapped talent pool.

A key stop during my visit was Motorola's MOS-6. The 6-in. fab is in an expansion mode, doing the balancing act of increasing capacity through construction of additional manufacturing space while continuing to push product out. Several managers took time out to sit down and talk with me, discussing the "new" Motorola and the present and future state of the industry.

Like most thoughtful people in the chip realm, one of the main things on these engineers' minds is how to manage the maniacal up-and-down economic roller-coaster that the semiconductor world suffers and enjoys. As one of the guys put it, "how do you turn capacity on quickly and in a cost-effective manner?" Motorola SPS banks on "standardization of capacity" to help smooth out those troublesome business cycles. This strategy pushes uniform design rules as well as more-standard processing and tool sets, taking a page from Intel's "copy exactly" approach. Within Moto there's an equipment standardization council and efforts to standardize process modules, helping the reinvented industry giant to move more like a cheetah than an elephant.

Our conversations also included some prognostications on how fabs might look in 5 to 10 years. Some talking points seem more like a wish list, while others track perfectly with trends already in motion. Highly automated superfabs built by two or more companies in alliances or joint ventures will become more prevalent. Processes will be almost exclusively single wafer and take place in small-volume chambers. There will be more wafers per product run in terms of die volume even though the devices themselves will be more integrated. Much better process control mechanisms will be in place so that tool downtime and other persnickety production hiccups will become less of a problem for operations managers and their staffs.

Wafer processing will be much greener in the future, the Motorolans believe. Through better management of both incoming and outgoing materials, the goal of the zero discharge fab is not far-fetched. As one engineer put it, "you have to solve input to get at output," which means reducing the amount of chemicals used as well as increasing the use of dilute chemistries. One area currently lacking emphasis, according to one engineer, is gas use reduction, a hint to the supplier community of a possible niche to explore.

Totally "lights out" or peopleless fabs are not seen as realistic, even in 10 years, though the advent of 300-mm will bring it closer to fruition. The increase in automation has a couple of consequences. It requires different engineering expertise for tool support, necessitating more mechanical engineers to keep things running well. One manager also pointed out a side effect of automation he's already seeing among the operators or associates--boredom. Some of the rank and file who used to do much of the work the robots now perform have asked for transfers because of the lack of challenge and general mind-numbing repetition.

There's no lack of challenges and few repetitive tasks in the Motorola managers' jobs. But there is a danger of burnout and increasing talk of "exit strategies." This should come as no surprise. If you're working 80-hour weeks and your friends in other businesses make the same or better money with saner hours, wouldn't you consider your options outside the semiconductor industry?

Tom Cheyney
Editor

tom.cheyney@cancom.com
http://www.micromagazine.com

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