In order to foster the competitiveness of the European semiconductor industry, 35 European partners have formed the – Implementing manufacturing science solutions to increase equipment productivity and fab performance (IMPROVE) – joint research project. The project runs from 2009 to the end of 2011 and targets the increased productivity of semiconductor manufacturing as well as reducing costs and processing time. The project’s aim is to strengthen the European semiconductor industry through the enhanced efficiency of production sites and offers the opportunity for creating new jobs.
The European IMPROVE project includes software enterprises, semiconductor companies with production sites in Europe, chip fab equipment providers and academia from Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Portugal. Infineon Technologies AG has a leading role among the chip manufacturers and coordinates the activities of the German partners.
The ever-increasing functionality of new chips leads to high complexity in their fabrication, along with longer production times due to additional processing steps and development times. Today, making a complex chip requires an average of 550 individual process steps, which take approximately 12 to 16 weeks. The typical production run is 50 to 100 wafers after which manufacturers have to reset production tools for the next product. This makes condition monitoring and predictive maintenance essential in order to stay competitive. The monitoring of semiconductor production tools and processed wafers over the whole fabrication line, combined with innovative data-analysis strategies will maximize the output of high-quality wafers.
The IMPROVE project has a total budget of approximately €37.7 M, half of which is carried by the partners. The other half is publicly funded by the European Commission and by national funding of the participating nations through the joint undertaking of the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC) as part of the sub-program – SP4 Nanoelectronics for Energy & Environment. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is also supporting the project with €3.5 M within the Informations und Kommunikationstechnologie 2020 (IKT 2020) funding programme.