This case study explores the usage of Process Functional Modeling (PFM) as a problem-solving tool in microchip manufacturing. PFM is an innovative way of thinking that involves breaking down a process into its components on multiple levels and generating innovative solutions. The tool enables us to move from general to specific, from process to operations, operations to components, and components to functions. In this article, we provide a real-life example of how a team applied PFM to the microchip manufacturing process. We want to demonstrate its effectiveness in creating a model of failure in the context of the whole process….

Have you ever tried to understand what an Innovation Platform is? Do we really need an Innovation Platform in the business? What is its position and function in the business system? In this post, we’ll try to answer these questions. As we have already proved in our previous blog (You can’t buy yourself an innovation), the innovation level of a company is not correlating with the R&D expenses. Here, we want to use the same data and look at this from a bit different angle. The top 40 innovative companies We picked 40 of some of the best and well-known…

The expenses on R&D is the most popular indicator of company innovation level. And many organizations are following that. They dump money on R&D with the hope to innovate more. But the question is, Is there a correlation between innovation rank and R&D expenses? There is a lot of related information you can find on the web, we, however, made our own analysis that confirmed that high R&D spending does not mean high innovation level of a company. In short, you can’t buy yourself an innovation. High innovation rank at low R&D cost should be the preferable target for a…

A microchip processing consists of only two types of operations to either deposit something or remove something. Nothing more than that. Modern microelectronic production is mainly based on processes using plasma. Even if we take into account diffusion and some other wet processes,  plasma remains the main instrument in microelectronic manufacturing. In this article, we want to analyze the plasma-based processes using 9 Windows and predict what will replace the plasma in microchip manufacturing. 9 Windows is an excellent tool that helps us think in space and in time. This tool helps us to predict the future. Analysis using 9…

Moore’s law drives all hi-tech and innovations. “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” This was published in 1949 in Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science. Computer manufacturing began in 1943. (Fig.1) This optimistic statement appeared because semiconductor transistor had already been invented and began aggressively replacing huge vacuum electronic tubes in all devices including computers. Computers became smaller because a transistor is much smaller than a vacuum tube. Nevertheless, nobody could imagine that in about 10 years, Integrated Circuit (IC) would be invented and high volume microchip manufacturing would begin its fast development….