FabTime Cycle Time Management
Newsletter Abstracts - Volume 11 (2 Issues - In Progress)
This is our 100th issue of the newsletter. Issue number
1.01 was sent out on April 14th, 2000, to 33 subscribers
from 17 different companies and universities (plus several
consultants). Some of those initial companies don’t even
exist anymore, while others have merged and split and
changed almost beyond recognition. It’s hard to keep
track. But we’re happy to still number some of those
initial subscribers among our current 2731 newsletter
recipients. And, given the year that the semiconductor
industry went through last year, we’re happy to still
be here. For our main article this month, we’ll be
revisiting the 10 years of newsletter issues, in a
bit of a 100th issue celebration.
In this issue, we also have a call for papers for
the 6th International MASM Conference and links to
several recent news articles that we thought that our
subscribers would find of interest. Our FabTime user
tip of the month is about using customized text in
email alerts.
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Return to newsletter subscription page to
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free each month)
In this issue, we have two community announcements, and
one response to a previously introduced subscriber
discussion topic. Our FabTime user tip of the month
is about using the new Forecast Arrivals Charts to
predict future arrivals to a particular tool or step.
In our main article this month we return to a topic
first discussed five years ago, the effect of product
mix on fab cycle time. Our return to this topic was
triggered by a question raised in discussion with a
friend: Is it inevitable that cycle time increases as
you add technology mix to an existing fab (because you
have more dedication, smaller tool groups, tools at
higher utilization, more setups, smaller batches, etc.)?
In light of this question, we have revised and expanded
our previous thoughts on product mix and cycle time, and
added some new suggestions for mitigating the negative
effects.
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