Implementation of response surface methodology using variance reduction techniques in semiconductor manufacturing

Semiconductor manufacturing is generally considered a cyclic industry. As such, individual producers able to react quickly and appropriately to market conditions will have a competitive advantage. Manufacturers who maintain low work in process inventory, ensure that specialized equipment is in good repair, and produce quality products at least possible cost will have the best opportunities to effectively compete and excel in these challenging venues. To support this nimble business model, our current efforts are directed toward creating efficient, accurate metamodels of the impact of maintenance policies on production efficiency. These validated polynomial approximations facilitate rapid exploration of the design region, compared with the original simulation models. The experiment design used for metamodel construction employed variance reduction techniques. When compared to a similar experiment design using independent streams, the variance reduction approach provided a decrease in standard error of the regression coefficients and smaller average error when validated against the simulation response