I spent 2 years working as a process engineer in UAT, handling the photolithography process for 300mm wafers. Like many things in life, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the chaotic. Implementing change for the better is a responsibility for every engineer. But the authority to make those changes was absent, especially when you're still considered a green leaf (which I agree with, 2 years isn’t much). But with no seniors in my department, someone had to fill those shoes, whether they liked it or not.

The Good...

You get to learn everything about wafer bumping, and everyone’s on board to support you whenever you have an idea to improve the process. After all, who wouldn’t like the idea of pushing wafers out of the line as fast as possible?

Pretty much it.

The Bad...

The way I see it, is that we lack the proper documentation and clear guidelines when third-party vendor, whether for equipment, software, or materials, come in to support us. Second-hand machines, for example, lack documentation showing what's has been modified from its original versions, causing confusion among the engineers.

And who’s left to explain that to the customer or our own managers? Us. The engineers. Who weren’t even there when the changes were made.

And the Chaotic.

I realized how important automation is and how badly it was lacking.

  • Every new machine was locked behind complicated SECS/GEMS protocols.
  • The RMS (Recipe Management System) was limited when collecting process data.
  • Old machines were just patched up with standalone PLCs.

Good systems on their own, yes, but together? A total mess. No synergy. No proper integration. If they had done it right from the start, one process engineer could probably handle everything instead of five. But hey, just my 2 cents (not that it matters).

It is what it is…

Let’s just say things are the way they are. Then who’s responsibility to:

  1. Manage integration between machines and the RMS, MES, FDC?
  2. Maintain documentation above?
  3. Ensure the systems work well, and improvement can be done in the future?
  4. Enforce the proper usage of the systems by the people working on the line?

I am not saying “this isn’t within my job scope, therefore I won’t bother” but this is another level of job scope that should exist on its own.

My final take: Localized IT/OT department

If I could choose one thing that should be change, it would be creation of localized IT/OT department within UAT itself (not Unisem). Their responsibility would be to take over the ownership of the automation integration between:

  1. Machine & RMS, for the sake of process team.
  2. Machine & MES, for the sake of operation and equipment team.
  3. Machine & FDC, for the engineers.

They are the guys to seek help from (or to blame) on the recipe management and data collection system. They should also improve the MES machine documentation from time to time e.g. machine parameter changes or modification history (no tribal knowledge please). They need to understand both process and equipment, at least on the surface. They should act as enforcer (give QA team a break) and make sure people actually use the systems (no bypass/ offline work).

That’s how we move toward fully automated machines that work without operator intervention (a vision or hallucination?).

My request for this team? For a start, I want all flowrate logs from my machine, displayed on a dashboard, in real time, per wafer and including staging time between processes. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But this isn’t your typical Arduino/ Raspberry Pi project. We are talking about SECS/GEMS which I can’t be bothered about when my actual process work is already piling up.

Let the process team focus on analyzing the best process parameters. Let the equipment team focus on PM/CM, especially when converting machines. And let the IT/OT team support both, by handling data collection and machine documentation.

It was fun until it wasn't

I sent my resignation on the 4th of July 2024. The main reason I left was to pursue an opportunity to join a 2-month PLC course. Another reason is that this industry, at least in the wafer bumping segment, involves highly routine work.

And when that routine work lacks proper automation, it means you end up spending more time repeating tasks instead of solving complex problems that actually require time, thought, and creativity. For someone like me, who believes that being stagnant is no different than being dead, that, my friend, is the perfect recipe for burnout.

It’s not that the people aren’t smart. They are, especially the ones who work directly with wafers; the operators, technicians, and supervisors. What’s missing is the structure.

When there’s no structure, and when push (customers) comes to shove (higher-ups), people drown in chaos, even when they’re doing everything right.

This post isn’t meant to point fingers. It’s just something I wish someone told me before I joined. Maybe someone reading this is going through the same thing. And maybe they will be the one to finally say,

"Hey, maybe we should fix this."