Manufacturing Changeover Time Reduction for Dry Etching Tools in Wafer Fabrication Industry Using Single-Minute-Exchange-of-Dies (SMED)

The paper presents the integration and utilization of Single-Minute-Exchange-Dies (SMED) helps to reduce dry etching tools changeover time in wafer fabrication industry through optimization of process changeover planning as previously encountered inconsistent output due to numerous changeover activities performed in the factory. Performance of etching tools are analyzed using live data collection according to number of usage as well as availability rate together with changeover element identification using X-site software. The data is used to create foundation according to SMED techniques, starting with clearly defining internal and external elements along with turning internal element into external element. By comparing the results before and after SMED implementation, successful rate of the implementation on three main etching tools used in dry etching process is validated. From the result, positive outcome was shown as SMED system able to helps to reduce dry etching tools changeover time about 42–62%. Tool availability rate and utilization also shown improvement as it increased to about 3% to 6.6% and 8% to 12%, respectively.