Economy of scale effects for large wafer fabs

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we present the results of a simulation study for semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities (wafer fabs) where we multiplied the number of tools per tool group and the number of operators. We were interested in the effects on the product cycle times when we keep the fab utilization constant while increasing the size of the tool groups by constant factors, i.e., forming so-called giga fabs. It turns out, that the drop in cycle time is considerable.

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