TABLE OF CONTENTS As mentioned previously, the vast majority of quantitative evaluation of electronics manufacturing processes is accomplished via computers, rather than by hand calculations. Not only is this more efficient, but in todays economy, it is essential. The fabrication of electronic systems can be quite expensive. In fact, the last decade has seen electronics manufacturing become so capital-intensive that small companies often find it too expensive to support their own manufacturing operations. This has led to the rise of a large contract manufacturing industry. A typical state-of-the-art high-volume manufacturing facility today costs several orders of magnitude more than the cost of a comparable facility twenty years ago.
As a result of rising costs, the challenge before manufacturers today is to offset such large capital investments with a greater amount of technological innovation in the fabrication process. In other words, the objective now is to make use of the latest developments in computer hardware and software technology to enhance manufacturing methods, which have become prohibitively expensive. In effect, this effort in computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is aimed at optimizing the cost effectiveness of electronics manufacturing in the same manner in which computer-aided design (CAD) has dramatically impacted the economics of circuit design.
Under the overall heading of reducing manufacturing cost, several sub-tasks have been identified. These include increasing chip fabrication yield, reducing product cycle time, maintaining consistent levels of product quality and performance, and improving the reliability of processing equipment. Since fabrication processes often consist of hundreds of sequential...
