Welcome to Volume 25, Number 2 of the FabTime Cycle Time Management Newsletter. This is the first full newsletter issue since FabTime was acquired by INFICON (though I did send a Cycle Time Tip e-mail last month). Thanks for being here with us on this new stage in the FabTime journey. I’m happy to report that the FabTime team is doing well and has been made welcome by the team at INFICON.
This issue also includes an announcement about the upcoming Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference, as well as the usual highlights from my LinkedIn. Our software tip of the month is about creating a question for display in the FabTime charts menu from a chart. This month’s subscriber discussion forum has feedback from subscribers about box plots, standby-WIP-waiting time and test wafer ratios, as well as a question from me about cycle time challenges in assembly and test factories. I’m looking for input in the hope of writing about back-end factories in a future issue.
In our main article this month, we discuss the benefits of educating people on your team about the fundamentals of cycle time management. We share some history about how our cycle time class came to be, as well as an overview of the topics that we have chosen to include, and why. We close with some of our favorite things to teach, and a few success stories. We welcome your feedback.
Welcome to Volume 25, Number 1 of the FabTime Cycle Time Management Newsletter. We hope that your 2024 is off to a great start! In this issue, we have an announcement about the release of the new version of FabTime’s software to early adopter sites, as well as the usual highlights from Jennifer’s LinkedIn (Lots of wafer fab-related news has been circulating over the past couple of months). Our software tip of the month is about using the new version of FabTime to generate box plots (a long-time goal of Frank’s). In our subscriber discussion forum, we have detailed responses to last month’s main article about cycle time improvement for 300mm fabs and to a recent subscriber question about managing cycle time for external processes. We so appreciate these subscribers for taking time out of their busy schedules to contribute.
In the previous subscriber discussion forum, we introduced a new metric, requested by a prospective customer, for quantifying the impact of hot lots on regular lot cycle time. After we discussed this metric with our user group, it became clear that a more detailed explanation was needed. In our main article this month we have started with the example from the previous issue and expanded it into a more comprehensive discussion. We think this metric is important because it offers a way to show management the cost of ever-increasing quantities of hot lots in the fab.
Copyright ©1999-2024 FabTime Inc.