Utilizing production data to increase factory capacity

The amount of data that is captured by any semiconductor manufacturing shop floor control system is massive. Unfortunately, much of the production data that is collected is rarely used. One way to determine a factory's capacity is to determine the capacity of the factory's bottleneck tools. If the capacity of the bottleneck tools can be increased, then the factory's capacity will also increase. This paper demonstrates how production and equipment state data that is usually collected can be used to determine where factory bottleneck tools are. Further investigation of this data with a productivity analysis framework called CUBES will identify and prioritize productivity inefficiencies with their accompanying tool capacity increases. This analysis, when implemented across the manufacturing line, should increase factory capacity.