An analysis of the ceiling height requirement for a large-scale semiconductor fab

Abstract

This paper proposes the proposition that the fab ceiling height may become a bottleneck for throughput in a large-scale semiconductor fab. To justify the proposition, we propose a systematic approach for the design of the fab ceiling height. In this approach, we develop a queuing network model to evaluate the cycle time performance of a fab design under a target throughput. This queuing network model is adapted from Connor et al. [1996. A queueing network model for semiconductor manufacturing. IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, 9 (3), 412–427] by additionally treating the transportation facilities as finite-capacity resources. Numerical experiments were carried out. The results indicate that a large-scale fab with an inappropriate ceiling height may limit the installation of transportation capacity, which, in turn, limits the utilisation of tool capacity, and thus lowers the fab throughput that can be achieved.