Six Sigma in Semiconductor: Continuous Improvement in Production Floor Area

Abstract

This study addresses the improvement of first pass yield on the production floor of ABC Semiconductor. ABC is a company running a multiple volume complex product in aligning with memory business in the operation. First pass yield refers to the proportion of fully built product that pass testing without the need for additional rework. The first pass yield (FPY) project showed steady progression for its first five years. But over the following one year, the primary yield metric which is first pass yield has stayed stagnant. The goal of the paper presented here is to analyze the reasons for the current performance and propose novel ways of improving the metric again using quality management tools. The most common is using 7QC tools method by categorizing failure pareto that will lead to targeted corrective action to reduce the recurrence of pre-identified failure modes. A DMAIC methodology is establish on how to define an efficient corrective action, along with a top three major defect on data acquired from ABC organization. From the exercise, the yield loss was able to be reduced from 17.4% to 3.52%.