The expanding plant of GlobalFoundries in Singapore has an advanced technology known as an overhead automated material handling system. What it does is promote a safe working environment, assuaging potential employees' anxieties about the perceived hazards of manufacturing occupations.
Dan Steele, senior director of Global Environmental, Health, Safety, and Security Operations at GlobalFoundries Singapore, stated that by investing in robots, they were able to automate repeated operations, freeing up humans from monotonous work.
Daily front-opening unified pod (FOUP) transfers can be performed by the overhead automated material handling system. "Much of manufacturing today has moved beyond the type of labor-intensive, low-cost production that informs traditional manufacturing stereotypes," Steele noted in an interview with Manufacturing Asia.
Steele stated that the company has invested in sophisticated detection capabilities for harmful gasses to further protect its employees. Employees are evacuated if such gasses are found in the workplace, which is monitored in real time. "Our gas detection limits are set at tighter restrictions far below the required level based on authority guidelines," Steele went on to say.
He also stated that they have an environmental safety team that conducts regular fire drills and emergency response training to prepare personnel for crises.
Close to campus
The expansion fabrication plant, about 23,000 square meters, was erected near GlobalFoundries' base in Woodlands Wafer Fab Park. "Being located next to our existing facilities also allows us to easily tap into and share resources across fabs," said Tan Yew Kong, Senior Vice President and General Manager of GlobalFoundries Singapore.
"Choosing this location over setting up in a separate green field also aligns with our global expansion strategy and how we continue to build incremental capacity at our existing sites for greater economies of scale," he said. The factory, which is scheduled to operate in September 2023, cost the business $4 billion. Over 1,000 high-value positions will be created, with equipment technicians, process technicians, and engineers accounting for 95% of the required talent.
Other Industry 4.0 technologies included in the expansion facility include AI deep learning wafer pattern recognition, an in-house invention that "helps to increase productivity through AI deep learning and pattern recognition to auto-classify and spot defects in wafers, reducing human hours required to do the same task," according to Tan.
It also includes a Machine Learning Predictive Maintenance feature, which is used to "determine when a tool is due for maintenance based on real-time parameters, which will help minimise downtime, improve wafer quality, extend production time, and predict potential tool failures."
The AI Computer Vision Tool Fingerprint Search is another Industry 4.0 technology that can recognise and match wafer faults with tool fingerprints, making it easier to pinpoint the errant tool in question. It expedites troubleshooting, reducing downtime and any quality event exposure.
Factory goals
The new fab will produce 450,000 wafers (300mm) per year, bringing GlobalFoundries Singapore's total capacity to more than 1.5 million wafers (300mm) per year. According to Steele, the expansion plant is also intended to produce environmental performance. From reusing and recycling water to phasing out fossil fuels, the facility incorporated technologies that will increase overall energy efficiency and water recycling rate.
"Both the Administration and Manufacturing buildings earned Green Mark Gold status from Singapore's Building and Construction Authority," Steele said in a statement. The factory heats water with electricity-powered heat pumps, which eliminates exhaust emissions and lowers overall energy demand.
The facility also has advanced abatement systems on manufacturing tools, such as a thermal oxidizer system designed to handle volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the exhaust. The concentration of VOCs is projected to be reduced by 90% to 99.5%.