Process Consulting

smartfabgroup™ Company is delivering the process consulting and the process support services for the semiconductor and the MEMS fabs in Europe and worldwide. Our core competence is photolithography and metrology processes, and is expanding towards diffusion, thin film and epitaxy as well as wet and dry etching.

Typical Services We Offer

• Troubleshooting existing process or equipment issues according to 8D methodology
• Developing, testing and optimizing photolithography process with new material (resist/developer/substrates) or new equipment (coater/exposure system/developer)
• Auditing existing process in order to save chemistry, reduce process time and improve yield
• Characterizing existing process in order to understand and improve process latitude
• Creating FMEA and Control plans for particular process
• Designing and manufacturing test masks, alignment keys and evaluation material
• Qualifying equipment and running short term projects in case of lack of human resources on customer site
• Analyzing and optimizing overlay performance of exposure system
• Analyzing and optimizing CD variability of photolithography process
• Developing automated Cp/Cpk analytic report
• Analyzing photolithography metrology equipment
• Training on photolithography, overlay and metrology
• Writing documentation, reports and manuals

Other Services

Listed above are only most common services we deal with, if you need a specific service feel free to contact us at info@smartfabgroup.com

Benefits

Independent Consulting

Independent consulting means that our only goal is to satisfy customer needs rather then sell additional products. We are fully devoted to support customer requirements. Unlike most process support coming from chemical or equipment manufacturers, there are no “extra-goals” we have to care about. Therefore our service is purely dedicated to customer satisfaction.

High Efficiency

Being the independent and external resource, we can work much more efficient than any other internal resource tied to fixed working hours, meetings and plurality of responsibilities. We can concentrate on one problem only and so achieve much higher efficiency.

Short Response Time

We fully understand what it means when the critical manufacturing process is stopped: piling up of the wafers, increasing number of the lots on-hold and internal pressure on process and service engineers unbearable. If the customer decides to ask for the external support, such situation requires an immediate response – not next week, not tomorrow, but now. We can deliver the market fastest response to the customer requirements. After all, the cost of loosing one additional day in HVM is too high. We are trouble shooting process issues according to 8D methodology, which became industry standard for addressing complex issues.

How smartfabgroup™ Consulting Works

Every customer project is highly specific but the most of them contains following steps:

Step 1: Contact and Issue Description
When the customer decides to use an external help, there is already an existing issue which needs to be solved, optimized or improved. Either there are not enough internal resources or the issue requires faster solution then available internally. The customer has to define the problem in measurable terms, internally clarify what is the current situation and what is the desired situation. A communication team from the customer and smartfabgroup™ Company personnel is established to exchange further information.

Step 2: Data exchange
Usually, the initial issue description is not sufficient to diagnose what the next steps need to be. Additional data are exchanged under NDA. A proper process documentation, historical data and results are the key factors for fast solving of the issue.

Step 3: Offer and Actions Plan
If it is in the competence of smartfabgroup™ experts to support the customer in solving the issue, an action plan and a quotation is offered. Based on these, the customer can decide how to proceed further.

Step 4: On-site support
The on-site support is the fastest and most efficient way of solving the problems, optimizing and consulting the process. The time frame and the on-site work varies significantly based on the customer request and the project. The key factor for the efficient on-site support is the availability of material (wafers), equipment and responsible team members from the customer site.

Step 4: Full Report and Further Recommendation
Each consulting project is closed by writing and presenting a full report documenting all experiments, steps and results. If required, further actions are suggested.

Free of Charge One Day Process Audit

In the manufacturing environment, every decision has to be based on the facts. If one decides to optimize the manufacturing process, it has to be clear what will be the outcome, what will be the savings and the costs. To help our customers to decide whether and what to optimize, we are now for limited time offering the free of charge (* the consultant travel costs have to be covered by the customer) one day process audit. Before and during the one day on-site visit our process expert will collect the relevant data to analyze what can be improved and what would be the impact of the improvements. He will work out a detailed process audit report and present the points with the highest potential for savings.

Benefits

• Low risk of investments
• Independent view of process expert
• Ready to use report and presentations for decision making