SEMI yesterday honored five industry leaders at SEMICON West 2019 for their outstanding accomplishments in developing Standards for the electronics and related industries. The SEMI Standards awards were announced at the SEMI International Standards 1000th Standard Celebration.
SEMI Standards Excellence Award Inspired By Karel Urbanek
The SEMI Standards Excellence award is the most prestigious honor for participants in the SEMI International Standards program. The award is inspired by the leadership of Karel Urbanek, who led the program with dignity, diplomacy, fairness, honesty, and enthusiasm through the difficult early years of internationalization. The award has been presented since 1992 to outstanding program members epitomizing Mr. Urbanek’s fine qualities and dedication.
This year the Excellence Award is presented to Dr. James Moyne of Applied Materials and the University of Michigan.
As Standards and Technology Specialist for the Applied Materials Global Services Group, Dr. Moyne has been an active developer of advanced process control in the area of predictive feedback and a frequent presenter at ASMC. He received the 2015 ASMC best paper award for his discussion on the emergence of big data in the semiconductor industry.
As an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Michigan, he researches advanced process control technologies and systems as well as smart manufacturing concepts such as digital twin and predictive solutions.
His many efforts have provided the foundation for realizing smart manufacturing concepts in the microelectronics industries. He has made a major contribution by leading the development of standards that have enabled improvements in the quality and efficiency of high-volume semiconductor manufacturing.
Dr. Moyne is co-author of SEMI standards in the areas of process control (including E133 and E126), sensor bus (E54), and big data (E148 and E160). These standards are the basis for run-to-run control and fault detection and classification, key elements of advanced process control, where the microelectronics industry excels over other industries.
He has been a tireless supporter of advanced process control in SEMI Standards, and other microelectronics-related associations, chairing the IMA-APC Council and the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) Factory Integration focus group. He has also co-chaired the annual APC Conference in the United States for the past seven years. In addition, he is active in the SEMI Smart Manufacturing Technology Community and continuously looks for opportunities to introduce relevant SEMI Standards to the world outside of SEMI.
Dr. Moyne is currently a co-chair of the North America Information and Control Committee and leads the Sensor Bus Task Force and Process Control System Task Force. Most recently. He played a critical role in the formation of task forces in both Taiwan and North America that are taking on fab equipment and data security issues.
Merit Award
Eric Sklar (Safety Guru) leads the Energetic Materials Task Force and has led the improbable task of shepherding SEMI Document 5761, Safety Guideline for Use of Energetic Materials in Semiconductor R&D and Manufacturing Processes to publication as SEMI S30-0719.
Over 70 incidents have been reported related to the use of new energetic compounds, causing loss of life, significant facility damage, and production interruption. The fallout spurred several leading semiconductor device manufacturers, including GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, Intel, Samsung, SK Hynix, TI, and TSMC, to identify the need for a comprehensive, international, best-known-methods safety guideline for equipment and practices for process chemicals and byproducts that have or may exhibit energetic properties.
As many stakeholders are involved, deriving the best industry practices and safety guidelines that satisfy chemical suppliers, equipment manufacturers, consultants, third party evaluators, and others involved in the semiconductor field was extremely difficult.
The ballot was initially issued in 2015 but failed multiple times due to significant disagreement. Eric Sklar agreed to take up the activity as new task force leader, and the document went through additional revisions in 2017 and 2018, getting closer to industry consensus but ultimately failing with each re-ballot. In April 2019, on the sixth try, Document 5761 was approved by the EHS Technical Committee. Sklar took on a very complex problem at the task force level, won industry support, and drove the project to completion.
Sklar has been a SEMI Standards volunteer for more than three decades. Currently, he co-leads the SEMI S3 (Liquid Heating System) Revision, Fire Protection, and S10 (Risk Assessment) Revision task forces.
Leadership Award
Three members were recognized with the SEMI Standards Leadership Award for the publication of a significant back-end standard, SEMI 3D20-0619, Specification for Panel Characteristics for Panel Level Packaging (PLP) Applications.
While the precedent for wafer dimension standards was set long ago, this standard represents the first time the industry has standardized a panel size. The standard will help accelerate the adoption of PLP by eliminating the need to customize equipment and materials for a variety of panel sizes.
Cristina Chu (ASM-NEXX) spearheaded the formation of the Panel Level Packaging (PLP) Panel Task Force at the Fall 2017 Meetings. The task force is chartered to develop standards for panels used in panel level processing. Chu overcame the challenge of balancing the various interests of multiple groups by building a consensus through extensive teleconferencing, often twice a day, to accommodate members throughout the world. Through her leadership and diplomacy skills, Chu strengthened collaboration of stakeholders across the supply chain and within the international community.
Richard Allen (NIST) co-led the Panel Level Packaging (PLP) Panel Task Force with Cristina Chu. Allen’s extensive experience in the SEMI Standards Program was critical in determining the parameters to include in the ballot. Allen continues to be a key force in pushing topics through the SEMI Standards process. In addition to co-leading the task force, he has also chaired the 3D Packaging and Integration Technical Committee since 2010 and helped drive results on other task forces.
Stefan Radloff (Intel), a longtime SEMI Standards Program member, attended his first meeting in spring 1996. Radloff brought the voice of the customer to the effort to ensure end-user adoption of the task force’s proposals. After learning of SEMI activity around standardizing panel dimensions, Radloff joined the task force and was instrumental in driving the activity to completion. Radloff also served as the Physical Interfaces and Carriers North American Technical Committee Co-chair for several years and was previously involved in the development of the 300mm physical interface standards, next generation reticle carrier standards, and 450mm standards.
