The Forgotten Story of How IBM Invented the Automated Fab
taylorvich writes:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductor-fabrication
In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce integrated circuits in less than one day. Not only was such a goal gutsy 54 years ago, it would be bold even in today's billion-dollar fabs, where the fabrication time of an advanced IC is measured in weeks, not days. Back then, ICs, such as random-access memory chips, were typically produced in a monthlong stop-and-go march through dozens of manual work stations.
At the time, Harding was the manager of IBM's Manufacturing Research group, in East Fishkill, N.Y. The project he would lead to make his vision a reality, all but unknown today, was called Project SWIFT. To achieve such an amazingly short turnaround time required a level of automation that could only be accomplished by a paradigm shift in the design of integrated-circuit manufacturing lines. Harding and his team accomplished it, achieving advances that would eventually be reflected throughout the global semiconductor industry. Many of SWIFT's groundbreaking innovations are now commonplace in today's highly automated chip fabrication plants, but SWIFT's incredibly short turnaround time has never been equaled.
SWIFT averaged 5 hours to complete each layer of its fabrication process, while the fastest modern fabs take 19 hours per processing layer, and the industry average is 36 hours. Although today's integrated circuits are built with many more layers, on larger wafers the size of small pizzas, and the processing is more complex, those factors do not altogether close the gap. Harding's automated manufacturing line was really, truly, swift.
I encountered Harding for the first time in 1962, and hoped it would be the last. IBM was gearing up to produce its first completely solid-state computer, the System/360. It was a somewhat rocky encounter. "What the hell good is that?" he bellowed at me as I demonstrated how tiny, unpackaged semiconductor dice could be automatically handled in bulk for testing and sorting.
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