• Title/Summary/Keyword: semiconductor manufacturing process

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Machine Scheduling Models Based on Reinforcement Learning for Minimizing Due Date Violation and Setup Change (납기 위반 및 셋업 최소화를 위한 강화학습 기반의 설비 일정계획 모델)

  • Yoo, Woosik;Seo, Juhyeok;Kim, Dahee;Kim, Kwanho
    • The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.19-33
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    • 2019
  • Recently, manufacturers have been struggling to efficiently use production equipment as their production methods become more sophisticated and complex. Typical factors hindering the efficiency of the manufacturing process include setup cost due to job change. Especially, in the process of using expensive production equipment such as semiconductor / LCD process, efficient use of equipment is very important. Balancing the tradeoff between meeting the deadline and minimizing setup cost incurred by changes of work type is crucial planning task. In this study, we developed a scheduling model to achieve the goal of minimizing the duedate and setup costs by using reinforcement learning in parallel machines with duedate and work preparation costs. The proposed model is a Deep Q-Network (DQN) scheduling model and is a reinforcement learning-based model. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed model, we compared it against the heuristic model and DNN(deep neural network) based model. It was confirmed that our proposed DQN method causes less due date violation and setup costs than the benchmark methods.

TIR Holographic lithography using Surface Relief Hologram Mask (표면 부조 홀로그램 마스크를 이용한 내부전반사 홀로그래픽 노광기술)

  • Park, Woo-Jae;Lee, Joon-Sub;Song, Seok-Ho;Lee, Sung-Jin;Kim, Tae-Hyun
    • Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.175-181
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    • 2009
  • Holographic lithography is one of the potential technologies for next generation lithography which can print large areas (6") as well as very fine patterns ($0.35{\mu}m$). Usually, photolithography has been developed with two target purposes. One was for LCD applications which require large areas (over 6") and micro pattern (over $1.5{\mu}m$) exposure. The other was for semiconductor applications which require small areas (1.5") and nano pattern (under $0.2{\mu}m$) exposure. However, holographic lithography can print fine patterns from $0.35{\mu}m$ to $1.5{\mu}m$ keeping the exposure area inside 6". This is one of the great advantages in order to realize high speed fine pattern photolithography. How? It is because holographic lithography is taking holographic optics instead of projection optics. A hologram mask is the key component of holographic optics, which can perform the same function as projection optics. In this paper, Surface-Relief TIR Hologram Mask technology is introduced, and enables more robust hologram masks than those previously reported that were formed in photopolymer recording materials. We describe the important parameters in the fabrication process and their optimization, and we evaluate the patterns printed from the surface-relief TIR hologram masks.

Application of CMP Process to Improving Thickness-Uniformity of Sputtering-deposited CdTe Thin Film for Improvement of Optical Properties (스퍼터링 증확 CdTe 박막의 두께 불균일 현상 개선을 위한 화학적기계적연마 공정 적용 및 광특성 향상)

  • Park, Ju-Sun;Lim, Chae-Hyun;Ryu, Seung-Han;Myung, Kuk-Do;Kim, Nam-Hoon;Lee, Woo-Sun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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    • 2010.06a
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    • pp.375-375
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    • 2010
  • CdTe as an absorber material is widely used in thin film solar cells with the heterostructure due to its almost ideal band gap energy of 1.45 eV, high photovoltaic conversion efficiency, low cost and stable performance. The deposition methods and preparation conditions for the fabrication of CdTe are very important for the achievement of high solar cell conversion efficiency. There are some rearranged reports about the deposition methods available for the preparation of CdTe thin films such as close spaced sublimation (CSS), physical vapor deposition (PVD), vacuum evaporation, vapor transport deposition (VTD), closed space vapor transport, electrodeposition, screen printing, spray pyrolysis, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and RF sputtering. The RF sputtering method for the preparation of CdTe thin films has important advantages in that the thin films can be prepared at low growth temperatures with large-area deposition suitable for mass-production. The authors reported that the optical and electrical properties of CdTe thin film were closely connected by the thickness-uniformity of the film in the previous study [1], which means that the better optical absorbance and the higher carrier concentration could be obtained in the better condition of thickness-uniformity for CdTe thin film. The thickness-uniformity could be controlled and improved by the some process parameters such as vacuum level and RF power in the sputtering process of CdTe thin films. However, there is a limitation to improve the thickness-uniformity only in the preparation process [1]. So it is necessary to introduce the external or additional method for improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film because the cell size of thin film solar cell will be enlarged. Therefore, the authors firstly applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin films with a G&P POLI-450 CMP polisher [2]. CMP process is the most important process in semiconductor manufacturing processes in order to planarize the surface of the wafer even over 300 mm and to form the copper interconnects with damascene process. Some important CMP characteristics for CdTe were obtained including removal rate (RR), WIWNU%, RMS roughness, and peak-to-valley roughness [2]. With these important results, the CMP process for CdTe thin films was performed to improve the thickness-uniformity of the sputtering-deposited CdTe thin film which had the worst two thickness-uniformities of them. Some optical properties including optical transmittance and absorbance of the CdTe thin films were measured by using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer (Varian Techtron, Cary500scan) in the range of 400 - 800 nm. After CMP process, the thickness-uniformities became better than that of the best condition in the previous sputtering process of CdTe thin films. Consequently, the optical properties were directly affected by the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film. The absorbance of CdTe thin films was improved although the thickness of CdTe thin film was not changed.

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Sol-gel deposited TiInO thin-films transistor with Ti effect

  • Kim, Jung-Hye;Son, Dae-Ho;Kim, Dae-Hwan;Kang, Jin-Kyu;Ha, Ki-Ryong
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2010.02a
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    • pp.200-200
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    • 2010
  • In recent times, metal oxide semiconductors thin films transistor (TFT), such as zinc and indium based oxide TFTs, have attracted considerable attention because of their several advantageous electrical and optical properties. There are many deposition methods for fabrication of ZnO-based materials such as chemical vapor deposition, RF/DC sputtering and pulsed laser deposition. However, these vacuum process require expensive equipment and result in high manufacturing costs. Also, the methods is difficult to fabricate various multicomponent oxide semiconductor. Recently, several groups report solution processed metal oxide TFTs for low cost and non vacuum process. In this study, we have newly developed solution-processed TFTs based on Ti-related multi-component transparent oxide, i. e., InTiO as the active layer. We propose new multicomponent oxide, Titanium indium oxide(TiInO), to fabricate the high performance TFT through the sol-gel method. We investigated the influence of relative compositions of Ti on the electrical properties. Indium nitrate hydrate [$In(NO^3).xH_2O$] and Titanium isobutoxide [$C_{16}H_{36}O_4Ti$] were dissolved in acetylacetone. Then monoethanolamine (MEA) and acetic acid ($CH_3COOH$) were added to the solution. The molar concentration of indium was kept as 0.1 mol concentration and the amount of Ti was varied according to weighting percent (0, 5, 10%). The complex solutions become clear and homogeneous after stirring for 24 hours. Heavily boron (p+) doped Si wafer with 100nm thermally grown $SiO_2$ serve as the gate and gate dielectric of the TFT, respectively. TiInO thin films were deposited using the sol-gel solution by the spin-coating method. After coating, the films annealed in a tube furnace at $500^{\circ}C$ for 1hour under oxygen ambient. The 5% Ti-doped InO TFT had a field-effect mobility $1.15cm^2/V{\cdot}S$, a threshold voltage of 4.73 V, an on/off current ratio grater than $10^7$, and a subthreshold slop of 0.49 V/dec. The 10% Ti-doped InO TFT had a field-effect mobility $1.03\;cm^2/V{\cdot}S$, a threshold voltage of 1.87 V, an on/off current ration grater than $10^7$, and a subthreshold slop of 0.67 V/dec.

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Double-Gauss Optical System Design with Fixed Magnification and Image Surface Independent of Object Distance (물체거리가 변하여도 배율과 상면이 고정되는 이중 가우스 광학계의 설계)

  • Ryu, Jae Myung;Ryu, Chang Ho;Kim, Kang Min;Kim, Byoung Young;Ju, Yun Jae;Jo, Jae Heung
    • Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.19-27
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    • 2018
  • A change in object distance would generally change the magnification of an optical system. In this paper, we have proposed and designed a double-Gauss optical system with a fixed magnification and image surface regardless of any change in object distance, according to moving the lens groups a little bit to the front and rear of the stop, independently parallel to the direction of the optical axis. By maintaining a constant size of image formation in spite of various object-distance changes in a projection system such as a head-up display (HUD) or head-mounted display (HMD), we can prevent the field of view from changing while focusing in an HUD or HMD. Also, to check precisely the state of the wiring that connects semiconductor chips and IC circuit boards, we can keep the magnification of the optical system constant, even when the object distance changes due to vertical movement along the optical axis of a testing device. Additionally, if we use this double-Gauss optical system as a vision system in the testing process of lots of electronic boards in a manufacturing system, since we can systematically eliminate additional image processing for visual enhancement of image quality, we can dramatically reduce the testing time for a fast test process. Also, the Gaussian bracket method was used to find the moving distance of each group, to achieve the desired specifications and fix magnification and image surface simultaneously. After the initial design, the optimization of the optical system was performed using the Synopsys optical design software.

Fabrication and Electrical Insulation Property of Thick Film Glass Ceramic Layers on Aluminum Plate for Insulated Metal Substrate (알루미늄 판상에 글라스 세라믹 후막이 코팅된 절연금속기판의 제조 및 절연특성)

  • Lee, Seong Hwan;Kim, Hyo Tae
    • Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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    • v.24 no.4
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    • pp.39-46
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    • 2017
  • This paper presents the fabrication of ceramic insulation layer on metallic heat spreading substrate, i.e. an insulated metal substrate, for planar type heater. Aluminum alloy substrate is preferred as a heat spreading panel due to its high thermal conductivity, machinability and the light weight for the planar type heater which is used at the thermal treatment process of semiconductor device and display component manufacturing. An insulating layer made of ceramic dielectric film that is stable at high temperature has to be coated on the metallic substrate to form a heating element circuit. Two technical issues are raised at the forming of ceramic insulation layer on the metallic substrate; one is delamination and crack between metal and ceramic interface due to their large differences in thermal expansion coefficient, and the other is electrical breakdown due to intrinsic weakness in dielectric or structural defects. In this work, to overcome those problem, selected metal oxide buffer layers were introduced between metal and ceramic layer for mechanical matching, enhancing the adhesion strength, and multi-coating method was applied to improve the film quality and the dielectric breakdown property.

Highly Efficient Thermal Plasma Scrubber Technology for the Treatment of Perfluorocompounds (PFCs) (과불화합물(PFCs) 가스 처리를 위한 고효율 열플라즈마 스크러버 기술 개발 동향)

  • Park, Hyun-Woo;Cha, Woo Byoung;Uhm, Sunghyun
    • Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.10-17
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    • 2018
  • POU (point of use) scrubbers were applied for the treatment of waste gases including PFCs (perfluorocompounds) exhausted from the CVD (chemical vapor deposition), etching, and cleaning processes of semiconductor and display manufacturing plant. The GWP (global warming potential) and atmosphere lifetime of PFCs are known to be a few thousands higher than that of $CO_2$, and extremely high temperature more than 3,000 K is required to thermally decompose PFCs. Therefore, POU gas scrubbers based on the thermal plasma technology were developed for the effective control of PFCs and industrial application of the technology. The thermal plasma technology encompasses the generation of powerful plasma via the optimization of the plasma torch, a highly stable power supply, and the matching technique between two components. In addition, the effective mixture of the high temperature plasma and waste gases was also necessary for the highly efficient abatement of PFCs. The purpose of this paper was to provide not only a useful technical information of the post-treatment process for the waste gas scrubbing but also a short perspective on R&D of POU plasma gas scrubbers.

Formulation and ink-jet 3D printability of photo curable nano silica ink (광경화 나노 실리카 잉크의 합성 및 잉크젯 프린팅 적층 특성평가)

  • Lee, Jae-Young;Lee, Ji-Hyeon;Park, Jae-Hyeon;Nahm, Sahn;Hwang, Kwang-Taek;Kim, Jin-Ho;Han, Kyu-Sung
    • Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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    • v.29 no.6
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    • pp.345-351
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    • 2019
  • Recently, ink-jet printing technology has been applied for various industries such as semiconductor, display, ceramic tile decoration. Ink-jet printing has advantages of high resolution patterning, fast printing speed, high ink efficiency and many attempts have been made to apply functional materials with excellent physical and chemical properties for the ink-jet printing process. Due to these advantages, research scope of ink-jet printing is expanding from conventional two-dimensional printing to three-dimensional printing. In order to expand the application of ink-jet printing, it is necessary to optimize the rheological properties of the ink and the interaction with the substrate. In this study, photo curable ceramic complex ink containing nano silica particles were synthesized and its printability was characterized. Contact angle of the photo curable silica ink were modified by control of the ink composition and the surface property of the substrate. Effects of contact angle on printing resolution and three-dimensional printability were investigated in detail.

Calcium Removal from Effluent of Electronics Wastewater Using Hydrodynamic Cavitation Technology (수리동력학적 캐비테이션을 이용한 전자폐수 처리수에 함유된 칼슘저감에 관한 연구)

  • Park, Jin-Young;Kim, Sun-Jip;Lee, Yong-Woo;Lee, Jae-Jin;Hwang, Kyu-Won;Lee, Won-Kwon
    • Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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    • v.29 no.6
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    • pp.715-721
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    • 2007
  • Residual calcium concentration is high, in general, at the effluent of the fluoride removal process in the electronics industry manufacturing semiconductor and LCD. To increase the stability of the membrane process incorporated for reuse of wastewater, the residual calcium is required to be pre-removed. Hyperkinetic Vortex Crystallization(HVC) process was installed in the electronics industry manufecturing semi conductor as a pilot scale for accelerating calcification of calcium ion. Compared to the conventional soda ash method, the 31% higher calcium removal efficiency was achieved when HVC was applied at the same sodium carbonate dosage. In order to maintain the economic calcium removal target of 70% preset by manufacturer, the dosing concentration of the soda ash was 530 mg/L based on influent flowrate. The seed concentration in the reactor was one of the critical factors and should be maintained in the range of $800\sim1,200mg$ SS/L to maximize the calcium removal efficiency. The calcite production rate was 0.30 g SS/g $Na_2CO_3$ in the average. The economic HVC passing time of the mixture was in the range of $2\sim5$ times. Relatively, stable calcium concentration was maintained in the range of $30\sim72$ mg/L(average 49 mg/L) although the calcium concentration in the feed was severely fluctuated with $74\sim359$ mg/L(average 173 mg/L). The HVC process was characterized as environment-friendly technology reducing chemical dosage and chemical sludge production and minimizing maintenance cost.

Development of Korean Green Business/IT Strategies Based on Priority Analysis (한국의 그린 비즈니스/IT 실태분석을 통한 추진전략 우선순위 도출에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Jae-Kyeong;Choi, Ju-Choel;Choi, Il-Young
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.191-204
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    • 2010
  • Recently, the CO2 emission and energy consumption have become critical global issues to decide the future of nations. Especially, the spread of IT products and the increased use of internet and web applications result in the energy consumption and CO2 emission of IT industry though information technologies drive global economic growth. EU, the United States, Japan and other developed countries are using IT related environmental regulations such as WEEE(Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), RoHS(Restriction of the use of Certain Hazardous Substance), REACH(Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of CHemicals) and EuP(Energy using Product), and have established systematic green business/IT strategies to enhance the competitiveness of IT industry. For example, the Japan government proposed the "Green IT initiative" for being compatible with economic growth and environmental protection. Not only energy saving technologies but energy saving systems have been developed for accomplishing sustainable development. Korea's CO2 emission and energy consumption continuously have grown at comparatively high rates. They are related to its industrial structure depending on high energy-consuming industries such as iron and steel Industry, automotive industry, shipbuilding industry, semiconductor industry, and so on. In particular, export proportion of IT manufacturing is quite high in Korea. For example, the global market share of the semiconductor such as DRAM was about 80% in 2008. Accordingly, Korea needs to establish a systematic strategy to respond to the global environmental regulations and to maintain competitiveness in the IT industry. However, green competitiveness of Korea ranked 11th among 15 major countries and R&D budget for green technology is not large enough to develop energy-saving technologies for infrastructure and value chain of low-carbon society though that grows at high rates. Moreover, there are no concrete action plans in Korea. This research aims to deduce the priorities of the Korean green business/IT strategies to use multi attribute weighted average method. We selected a panel of 19 experts who work at the green business related firms such as HP, IBM, Fujitsu and so on, and selected six assessment indices such as the urgency of the technology development, the technology gap between Korea and the developed countries, the effect of import substitution, the spillover effect of technology, the market growth, and the export potential of the package or stand-alone products by existing literature review. We submitted questionnaires at approximately weekly intervals to them for priorities of the green business/IT strategies. The strategies broadly classify as follows. The first strategy which consists of the green business/IT policy and standardization, process and performance management and IT industry and legislative alignment relates to government's role in the green economy. The second strategy relates to IT to support environment sustainability such as the travel and ways of working management, printer output and recycling, intelligent building, printer rationalization and collaboration and connectivity. The last strategy relates to green IT systems, services and usage such as the data center consolidation and energy management, hardware recycle decommission, server and storage virtualization, device power management, and service supplier management. All the questionnaires were assessed via a five-point Likert scale ranging from "very little" to "very large." Our findings show that the IT to support environment sustainability is prior to the other strategies. In detail, the green business /IT policy and standardization is the most important in the government's role. The strategies of intelligent building and the travel and ways of working management are prior to the others for supporting environment sustainability. Finally, the strategies for the data center consolidation and energy management and server and storage virtualization have the huge influence for green IT systems, services and usage This research results the following implications. The amount of energy consumption and CO2 emissions of IT equipment including electrical business equipment will need to be clearly indicated in order to manage the effect of green business/IT strategy. And it is necessary to develop tools that measure the performance of green business/IT by each step. Additionally, intelligent building could grow up in energy-saving, growth of low carbon and related industries together. It is necessary to expand the affect of virtualization though adjusting and controlling the relationship between the management teams.