Proceedings of Symposium in Production and Quality Engineering Kasetsart University, 4-5 June 2002, pp.104-111.

A Simulation Approach for Productivity Improvement of an IC Factory

Prameth Tantivanich Prapaisri Sudasna-na-Ayudthya Industrial Engineering Department Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand Abstract The aim of this study is to develop a simulation model to intimate a real world IC assembly line in order to identify alternatives for productivity improvement. The model is developed under ARENA simulation software. Simulation methodology has been conducted to verify and validate the model before applications to the case study. Introduction Today semiconductor manufacturers face worldwide competitions so that they attempt to reduce capital costs and shorten process cycle time while still ensure quality of their products. Intense competition has resulted in semiconductor manufacturers to initiate drives to improve their market responsiveness. The vendor who gets to market before another may grab the share of the market. For a manufacturing standpoint, productivity improvement is most often interpreted as: faster cycle time, lower cost, maximized machine utilization, and also maximized floor space utilization. Since the need to reduce assembly cost has become significant in the last few years, productivity must continue to improve in the assembly house. So the role of design will become more critical. Simulation has become a popular design technique for developing production schedules and dispatch lists in a manufacturing environment. With simulation we can deal real world problems with stochastic elements where no analytical solutions are available with sufficient accuracy, estimate the performance under projected operating conditions, compare alternative system designs, maintain experimental conditions well under control, and we can conduct long time frame study. For manufacturing systems, simulation can determine the bottleneck and optimization, at the same time it can be used to determine the best alternative by using comparison and sensitivity analysis. Compared to direct real experimentation, the computer simulation approach has the advantages, such as lower costs, shorter time, greater flexibility and much small risk. This research work emphasizes on evaluating the impact of the factors simultaneously on the productivity by using simulation techniques. The sensitivity analysis and experimental design will be conducted to investigate the effect in the productivity and cycle time when the assumptions on factors are changed. In this study, simulation is used to model semiconductor assembly lines and attempt to improve it by using sensitivity analysis.

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Problem Statement Effective method for improving the productivity is one major factor for success in business. Organization is often faced with decision on the appropriate number of machine, task assignments, and production plan. By reducing the bottleneck problem in some operations in assembly lines and finding appropriate setting of parameters at each operation in the system, the total process cycle time will be decreased. Since the operations in assembly lines at this plant are 17 operations and there are a lot of numbers of machines in each operation. Scheduling and queuing technique can used to solve this problem, but the flexible assembly system and the scheduler has limited freedom in constructing the schedule to measure equipment utilization. Another technique to solve the problem is using simulation. Simulation allows testing the designs without committing resources to acquisition. Simulation also allows understanding the interaction among the variables that make up complex system such as the modern factory floor which is impossible to consider all the interactions taking place at this moment. Research Objectives Regarding of the above problem, The objectives of this study are as indicated below. - Determine the significant factors that affect on the productivity of the system. This may lead to reduce process cycle time, and operation cost. In addition to the throughput or productivity of the system can be increased. - Develop new models of assembly lines and find the appropriate setting for input data that give the highest productivity within the assumption and limitation of the company. Delimitation The delimitation of this research for constructing the simulation model are shown below 1. The consideration is emphasized only on macro-scope of the system in term of operation relationship by focusing on twelve IC assembly operations. 2. Five main products that are 80% of the company demand are considered. 3. Sets of downtime information for each machine and loading plan information are given as stochastic demand. For processing time of five main products on each machine model and transferring time between each operation are given as constant demand. 4. Schedule of preventive maintenance for each operation is given, and preventive maintenance time is using an average value among each operation. 5. Sets of downtime information for Die Attach Cure, Post Mold Cure, Third Optical Inspection, and Forth Optical Inspection are not available. 6. There are unlimited of work in process carriers and Urgent lots are out of consideration. 7. Rejected products from inspection operation are scrapped. 8. Loading procedure for Die Attach Cure, and Post Mold Cure are calculated from the biggest size of work in process carrier. Place of the study : This study was conducted at Semiconductor plant located on HiTech Industry in Ayutthaya and analyzed at Kasetsart University.

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Methods The study and development process of this research can be classified into 5 phases as follows: 1. Information gathering phase All information were separated into two groups as the following. 1.1 Sets of data for the whole assembly line - Processing time for each product on each operation from the standard processing time were obtained from the Industrial Engineering department of the study plant. - Loading plan or arrival time for each product from Production Control department. Every time when the raw materials (Wafer) were sent to the first operation (Wafer Saw), the time were recorded as an arrival time which used for the simulation model. - Average transferring time between each operation. - Schedule of preventive maintenance for machines in each operation, and average preventive maintenance time. - Number of machines to be used in the system. 1.2 Sets of data for each operation The data in this group are the time for each action that causes machine stop running (inactive). These data were recorded by the computer system for six months since July to December 2000. 2. Data Analysis phase After collecting the relevant raw data from the existing problems by tracking from the computer system. The sets of data needed to change into the probability distribution form because if the average data were used, some variation during the simulation run would occur. In order to get the probability distribution form of each data, there are two important activities from standard techniques of statistical inference for fitting the appropriate probability distribution form to the data. These are hypothesizing families of distribution, and determining the distribution. There are two widely used techniques for goodness of fit test. The first one is Chisquare test, and the second one is Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. From these two methods, we can apply used to fit the distribution with the sets of raw downtime data that tracking from the computer system. 3. Constructing Simulation model phase After data collecting, the simulation package that used for modeling the IC assembly lines was Program Arena 4.0 commercial version. There are two steps for constructing the simulation model of IC assembly lines. The first one is Structure of creating each product, and the second one is Structure of each machine operation. The information in detail of each module was described as follow: 3.1 Structure of creating each product. In order to generate the structure of creating each product (entity) in the simulation model, the Create module was used to generate arrivals of each product. The Assign module was used for the characteristics of each product. The picture of Create module which the label is MSOP (products name) and Assign modules picture were shown in figure 1.

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MSOP

Assign 1

Figure 1 Create module and Assign module. 3.2 Structure of each machine operation When each product reaches each operation, the logic for selecting the available machine models was assigned to the Decide module. In order to represent the processing of a product at the machine, the Process module is used. The pictures of Decide module, Process module, and transfer module were shown in figure 2.
W S_MOD1

0
Decide 1

True

0
WS TO DA

False

Figure 2 Decide module, Process module, and Delay module. W S_MOD2 4. Model Verification and Validation phase Model verification is a process of determining that a model operates as intended. Throughout the verification process, we try to find and remove unintentional errors in the logic of the model. Steps for model verification are as follows: 1. Walkthrough procedure involves gathering a small group for a review of the models logic. 2. Using the test cases by modifying experiment list such as replacing sets of data in probability distribution form with sets of data in constant form. 3. Tracing by using animation to examine in detail the movement of entities through the system. Model validation is the process of reaching an acceptable level of confidence that the inference drawn from the model is correct and applicable to the real-world system being represented. Steps for validating the model are as follows: 1. All model assumptions were reviewed correctly. 2. All fitted input probability distributions were tested for correctness. 5. Analysis of Output phase Since the study plant is a non-terminating system, when analyzing the steady-state performance, we must deal with two important problems. The first one is the bias from the starting condition. The second problem involves estimating the variance of the mean response in order to develop a confidence interval for the mean. For solving the first problem, the best technique that is appropriate and widely used is Discarding the data during the initial portion by plotting the graph. This technique necessitates selecting a truncation point which all previous observations are discarded. The results for the simulation are based only on observations recorded after the truncation point. In order to estimate the variance of the mean, we applied the method of Batch means. Because this method is the easiest and most practical for interpreting output of a non-terminating system. This method is parallel to the method of independent replications used for terminating system. Steps of Batch means method are as follows:
0

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1. 2. 3.

Make a single long run and discard the initial transient phase. Divide the remaining observations into n equal each of size m. Define that xj for j = 1, , n denotes the mean of the observations in the jth batch.

Using this notation, we can directly use the results from the terminating case to write the confidence intervals. The key to make the Batching method work well is to select the appropriate batch size. If the batches are sufficient large, the means of the two adjacent batches will be approximately independent regardless of the observations at the end of batch j are correlated with the observations at the beginning of batch j+1st. Variance Reduction Technique There are many techniques for variance reduction in non-terminating system which depends on the analysis approach. If the truncated-replications approach was used, Common Random numbers or Antithetic Variates can be applied. For this simulation model, the method of Batch means was used so that the technique for reducing variance of mean was a single long run until the half width of the resulting confidence interval satisfied small criterion. By specifying the criterion for the termination, the simulation will be run until the condition satisfied. For the short-term improvement, the condition of less than ten percent of the original half width was performed. On the other hand, the long-term improvement was performed with the condition of less than fifty percent of the original half width. Result and Discussion 1. Bottleneck analysis The important response being studied in this research is the cycle time of each product, which is impact directly on the productivity. And the objective is to determine the bottleneck operation that is significantly affecting these responses. In order to solve these problems, sensitivity analysis was conducted by adding a machine in each critical top three operations. Since there are more than one machine model in each operation, the principle for adding a machine was identified by selecting the one that caused the long waiting time. Solution 1 This solution was to add one machine at DTF_MOD2 in DTF operation. The reason for adding this machine is that this machine model had the highest average waiting time for SC70_5L. Since this solution was adding the machine at the second model of DTF operation which can produce product SC70_5L only so the average cycle time for this product was decreased by 10.55% while the cycle time for the other products were similar to the original one. Due to the lower waiting time and lower cycle time, the throughput per year for product SC70_5L was increased by 6.56% (139 lots). The result shown that Mold operation had the highest average waiting time especially for the MO_MOD3. So the next solution, for solving the bottleneck problem, was adding a machine at MO_MOD3 in Mold operation. Solution 2 This solution was to add one machine for MO_MOD3 at Mold operation and one machine at DTF operation. The reason for adding a machine at this machine model in Mold operation was that this model had the highest average waiting time.

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This solution was adding the machine at the second model of DTF operation, which can produce only product SC70_5L. This solution also added a machine at the third model of Mold operation, which can produce SO_JM8L and SOT23_5L. So the average cycle time for product SC70_5L, SO_JM8L were decreased by 10.91%, and 5.8% respectively while the cycle time for the other products were similar to the original one. Due to the lower waiting time and lower cycle time, the throughput per year for product SC70_5L, SO_JM8L, SOT23_5L were increased by 6.56%, 2.92%, and 0.81% respectively. Regarding to the cycle time and throughput for product SOT23_5l that was not significantly improved because the adding machine model was set the first priority to product SO_JM8L. However, the show that Form operation had the highest average waiting time especially for F_MOD2. So the next solution, for solving the bottleneck problem was to add a machine at F_MOD2 in the Form operation. Solution 3 This solution was to add one machine at Mold operation, one machine at DTF operation, and one machine for F_MOD2 at Form operation. The reason for adding a machine at this machine model in Form operation because this model had the highest average waiting time. This solution was to add the machine at the second model of DTF operation which can produce only product SC70_5L, one machine at the third model of Mold operation which can produce SO_JM8L and SOT23_5L, and one machine at the second model of Form operation which can produce only SO_JM8L. So the average cycle time for product SC70_5L, and SO_JM8L were decreased by 7.88%, and 12.47% respectively while the cycle time for the other products were similar to the original one. Due to the lower waiting time and lower cycle time, the throughput per year for product SC70_5L, SO_JM8L, and SOT23_5L were increased by 6.56%, 7.11%, and 0.81% respectively. Since the consideration is to improve the bottleneck problem on three critical operations, the sequential effect from the last solution results in increasing the average waiting time for Forth optical operation by 373.21% (from 8.51 minutes to 40.27 minutes). This operation performs visual inspection for all packages defects. There are twenty inspection operators per shift. That means we have to prepare more operators for the Forth optical operation in case of the last solution is applied so that we can delivery the product quicker. 2. Experimental design In order to find out which of possibly many parameters have the greatest effect on a performance measures (cycle time and throughput per year for each product), the experimental design terminology was conducted. In experimental design, the input parameters and structural assumptions composing a model are called factors, and the output performance measures are called response. The important responses being studied for this step are the cycle time for each product and the average throughput per year of each product. The experiments were performed for all five products (MSOP8L, PDIP8L, SC70_5L, SO_JM8L, SOT23_5L). The study factors were listed in Table 1 and their codes were listed in Table 2 and Table 3.

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Table 1 Description of the five factors in the experiments Coded Variable Factor A Number of machine in DTF operation B Number of machine in Molding operation C Number of machine in Forming operation D Setup time for each machine E Repair time for each machine Table 2 Two level factors Coded Variable A B C

Low Level Original number of machines Original number of machines Original number of machines

High Level Adding one DTF machine Adding one Molding machine Adding one Forming machine

Table 3 Three level factors Coded Low Level Variable D Original setup time data E Original repair time data

Medium Level 20% decreasing 20% decreasing

High Level 40% decreasing 40% decreasing

The reasons for setting the first three factors at two levels is that these factors concerned with the number of machine so adding one machine will cost the company a large amount of investment so we try by adding one machine first. The next two factors were set at three levels because these factors concerned with the finished time for the machines. So three level designs were appropriate for studying the behavior of setup and repair time. From these setup, the 32* 23 factorial design was conducted in order to identify factors that have large effects. The response results (cycle time and throughput) from the experiment that run on the seventy-two different setting were classified by product. In order to evaluate the response result from the simulation model, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be conducted and the results were analyzed by using Statistica software. The most influence factors concerned with the improvement of cycle time and throughputs are shown in Table 4. Table 4 Summary of the influence factors that affect on cycle time and throughput Product MSOP8L PDIP8L SC70_5L Factors that affect on cycle time -Setup time for each machine -Repair time for each machine -Setup time for each machine -Repair time for each machine -Number of machine in DTF operation -Setup time for each machine -Repair time for each machine Factors that affect on throughput -Setup time for each machine -Repair time for each machine -Setup time for each machine -Repair time for each machine -Number of machine in DTF operation and setup time for each machine -Number of machine in DTF operation and

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SO_JM8 L

SOT23_5 L

-Number of machine in Molding operation and Number of machine in Forming operation -Number of machine in Molding operation and setup time for each machine -Number of machine in Forming operation and repair time for each machine -Setup time for each machine and repair time for each machine -Setup time for each machine and repair time for each machine

repair time for each machine -Number of machine in Molding operation and Number of machine in Forming operation -Number of machine in Molding operation and setup time for each machine -Number of machine in Molding operation and repair time for each machine -Number of machine in Forming operation and setup time for each machine -Number of machine in Forming operation and repair time for each machine -Number of machine in Molding operation and setup time for each machine -Number of machine in Molding operation and repair time for each machine

Conclusion The main purpose for this study was to construct an efficient simulation model for IC assembly lines and finding the significant factors that affect on the productivity. In other words, the new model will build based on the appropriate setting for input data that gives the highest productivity and appropriate cycle time within the limitations of the study plant. In order to improve the productivity and the cycle time within the limitations of the study plant, the appropriate setting factors are 1. Adding one DTF machine 2. Adding one Molding machine 3. Adding one Forming machine 4. 40% decreasing for setup time 5. 40% decreasing for repair time. However, adding the machines will significantly invest for the company compared to the increment in productivity. Therefore, the company should do the Benefit-to-Cost Analysis or the Payback period study in order to implement. Recommendations The simulation model of IC assembly lines can be applied with the other assembly lines. The result from the simulation model showed that significant factor that should be implemented first is to add a machine at Forming operation. And in case of the third solution is applied, preparing more operators for the Forth optical operation is necessary. In order to decrease the setup time and repair time for machines in each operation, the second recommended action is to improve the skills of the technicians. References Prameth Tantivanich, A Simulation Approach for Improving Productivity in IC Assembly Line, Masters Thesis, International Graduate Program in Industrial Engineering, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10903, Thailand.

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