1. Purpose and scope
A manufacturing tool earns its place in a fab years after the decision to build it, and only if it is ready when a customer develops the process step it serves. The purpose of this stage is to find out, with lead customers, which process steps, materials, substrate formats, throughput and cost a future tool must deliver, and when, and to write that down as requirements the whole programme can build and test against.
The stage has two outputs that matter most. The first is a customer roadmap assessment: which customers plan which process modules, how firm those plans are, and what the competing tools are. The second is the technology requirements specification, which states the process results, productivity, cost of ownership, safety and compliance, and factory automation needs as individual, testable requirements traced to a customer need or a public standard.
Interoperability and compliance start here. The requirements name the SEMI safety guidelines the tool must meet, such as SEMI S2 for environmental, health and safety and SEMI S8 for ergonomics, the factory host interface standards the customers' fabs use, such as the SEMI communication standards and the generic equipment model, the regional rules for the markets the tool will be sold in, and the export controls that may apply to the tool and its technology. The Hub's cross-lifecycle interoperability and compliance overlay gives the wider picture.
12 more sections for registered members.