Optimum productivity in a modern multi-product semiconductor manufacturing line is only attainable if one is able to tune the design, manufacturing, testing, packaging and failure analysis parameters simultaneously and perfectly. However, this is an ideal scenario. In practice, this is not always feasible because of many reasons. One reason is that the manufacturing technology is very dynamic and customer expectations changes quickly. Secondly, each of the above mentioned domains were created in order to handle the inordinate complexity of successful manufacturing. In the process the interfaces between these domains had to be codified in terms of rules and best practices which often cannot keep pace with the ever changing nature of manufacturing environments, design styles, testing strategies and failure analysis processes. In order to investigate the inter-domain relationships and the dynamic nature of the fabrication line we conducted a research to model the yield as a function of time - yield forecasting. This ongoing research, which was initiated in 1991, resulted in a software tool called Y4 (Yield Forecaster), a Ph.D. thesis, and several papers and presentation. The purpose of this web page is to disseminate current information on the status and evolution of this research and provide access to the relevant publications.
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