Preventing production problems on gearing up

✍ Scribed by Alec Reader; John Hennessy

• Book ID: 104365950
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 482 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0961-1290
• DOI: 10.1016/s0961-1290(02)85163-8

✦ Synopsis

As compound semiconductor production volumes and expected yields increase, manufacturers are being faced with a whole new set of issues to solve. Until recently, processing and metrology equipment has largely been of the R&D type. The stress has been on versatility: equipment has had to produce and check the widest variety of samples, Alec Reader and fr om nitride LED structures to quantum John Hennessy, cascade lasers. This is the normal function Philips Analytical of R&D. but the flexibility comes at the expense of device volumes -processing and metrology equipment can only turn out very Low quantities. However, the signs are that compound semiconductor volumes will soon -finally -be ramping up to levels approaching those of some silicon fabrication iines. Compound semiconductor manufacturers face a unique set of challenges in taking production volumes to the next level; however, there are some lessons to be learned from the evolution of the silicon industry.