積體電路（IC）的市場生命週期已逐漸從幾年縮短到幾個月。 如果IC供應商不能有效快速的縮減從 IC設計到IC大規模生產的週期時間，IC供應商將失去競爭力和市場，所有投資也將化為烏有。此外，根據國際半導體技術藍圖（International technology roadmap for semiconductor, ITRS），半導體產業為了開發新的IC功能有更快的處理速度和更低的生產成本，半導體製造技術也需要持續的創新和提高生產力。當 IC設計公司為了降低成本及提高IC處理績效而採用了新的半導體製造技術來完成的一個新的積體電路設計，故障率和設計週期的新技術將高於那些使用成熟的技術生產的IC。因此，想要利用新的製造技術增加處理速度與降低生產成本，同時又想要縮短IC設計週期來獲取市場益加變得困難。一個新的生產技術總是需要一定的學習周期來達到穩定的生產品質與效率，所以IC設計公司永遠面對一個難題 – 應用不成熟且設計周期較長的新技術開發新產品，但卻得面對產品生命週期越來越短的產品市場。目前還沒有有效的工作模式和系統來解決這一問題。本研究提出了新的工程鏈（engineering-chain, EC）的協同模式。文中先定義IC設計應用新式製造技術時的高故障率和冗長的IC設計週期問題，之後定義開發新式工程鏈管理系統（ECMS），以幫助實現工程鏈的目標，如改善IC設計成功率，縮短週期時間，增加收入。為了在半導體產業達到工程鏈的要求，我們需要擴大現有的電腦整合製造（CIM）的功能範圍從單一工廠的運行控制到跨產業生產運作的控制。為了達到有效整合目的，ECMS也採用新一代WebServices技術作為通信介面來協助完成系統框架。本研究可以在新式半導體生產環境中提供一個有效協助半導體產業界提高IC設計生產力同時又滿足市場生命週期需求的工程整合平台。

The life cycle of integrated circuit (IC) has gradually been shortened from years to months. IC suppliers will lose their competition and market if they could not cut the cycle time from IC design to IC mass-production. Furthermore, the semiconductor manufacturing technology to support new IC functions with higher speed and lower cost also improves significantly according to International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductor (ITRS). When an IC design house adopts a new semiconductor manufacturing technology for a new IC design, the failure rate and design cycle of the new technology are much higher than those of the mature technologies. As a result, to shorten the IC design cycle of a new technology becomes more difficult since a design house needs to use more complicated processes yet to finish the design in a shorter cycle time. Currently, no effective working model and system exist to solve this problem. This work proposes a novel Engineering-Chain (EC) collaboration model to formulate this high-IC-design-failure-rate and long-IC-design-cycle problem; and an Engineering Chain Management System (ECMS) to help achieving the goals of EC, such as improving IC-design success rate, reducing cycle time, and increasing revenue. To accommodate the EC requirements, it is required to extend the existing Computer-Integrated-Manufacturing (CIM) scope of a foundry from single-factor operating control to cross-industry operating control. A systematic approach has been adopted to design and implement the ECMS framework and the novel CIM platform. This work adopts the new-generation interoperable document-centric computing technology—webservices, as the enabling technology for the communication interface of the ECMS framework. It is believed that this work can contribute to efforts in the semiconductor industry to increase IC-design productivity and fulfill market demand for a new-era IC-product manufacturing.

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