MICRO: I heard you speak in June 2001 at another conference. How have things changed compared to last year? What's been easier than you thought it would be, harder than you thought it would be, or pretty much where you thought you'd be?

BRUCE SOHN: We've had tremendous success in the automation portion. There've been plenty of challenges, so I don't want to say that anything was trivial or was a slam dunk, but I think that the standards were really critical. If it hadn't been for those standards that we had put out, our ability to put together a system would have been just impossible. Now, having said that, there were plenty of other challenges. An equipment supplier designs to a particular standard, and it works in their facility, but then when they get it in our facility, it may not quite work, and there are a lot of timing issues associated with it, and interactions, it may work with one tool but not another tool. There was a lot of learning that came about over the last year.

MICRO: In terms of tool set challenges, were there any particular modules that were more challenging than others, such as lithography?

SOHN: It's not a 300-mm challenge. Our 300-mm tools in many ways are identical to our 200-mm tools. They are bridgeable kinds of tools. We don't actually bridge them in the sense that they started as 200 and became 300, but our 200-mm factories may have bought the exact same model as our 300-mm factory. So from a process perspective, the challenge was being able to define 130-nm lines and spaces and so forth. It was independent of the wafer size.

MICRO: Are you using 248-nm or 193-nm lithography in 11X?

SOHN: 248 is our 130-nm technology, and at 90 nm we're going to use the 193s.

MICRO: Will you be replacing or upgrading the tools, when you make the jump in a couple of years?

SOHN: It's more adding to [the tool set], because the factory is not full, so we're still going to use plenty of 248-nm deep-UV technology.

MICRO: So you'll bring in the few tools you need for critical layers rather than a total retrofit situation?

SOHN: Exactly.

MICRO: How has the wafer quality been so far?

SOHN: Satisfactory.

MICRO: Do you work with the multiple vendors, like you have done in the past?

SOHN: Yes.

MICRO: Do you still see room for improvement in terms of what your suppliers can give you?

SOHN: Most of our supply issues are, at least on this technology, those of finances and real, true readiness for production. When I say finances, I mean the cost of the equipment or material and so forth. In some cases, the costs were appropriately competitive between 200 and 300 mm. In other cases, the expenses went up more than we had expected, and that afforded us some opportunities.

MICRO: And play them one against the other a little bit?

SOHN: ...and that helps us out. As it turns out, it has obvious impacts from a cost perspective, but it also helps out from a technology perspective. Somebody gets one idea that's a little better than somebody else, and we can start to take advantage of that, and we don't lose the opportunity in the middle of the process node. In our cycle, every 20 to 24 months we go to a new process node, but it's not like nothing happens from an improvement perspective for two years. There is significant improvement, some of which is the reduction of variation or application in process control capabilities, quality improvement procedures, and so forth. But some of it is changes in design, and if you've got two tools or two materials, and one of them is doing better than the other, you might tweak the ratios or put one on a more sensitive layer. The multiple qualified supplier program affords us the opportunity to gain both on the financial front, the pure cost front, as well as on the technology capability.

MICRO: Did you see any trends in any specific types of tools and equipment, where it was a little bit more inflated than you had expected in terms of the cost? Did it happen that way or was it more random?

SOHN: It was a little more random. The biggest thing that I would look for... is the reliability of the tools. What I really want to see when I go and spend 2, 5, 10 million dollars on a piece of equipment, is that it comes in and it works. And that it works completely to the specifications without us having to adjust, adapt, reconfigure, and other things of that nature, over extended periods of time.

MICRO: Let's talk a little bit about APC. You're talking about eliminating the variability in the process and tools running longer between maintenance, zeroing in on what they're actually doing, on what's happening inside the tool, the interconnectivity with the fab itself. Are you on the leading edge of this on the 300-mm wave?

SOHN: I don't really know where our competitors are at on this, so I'm not sure whether we're on the leading edge.

MICRO: The leading edge at Intel then?

SOHN: Internally, yes. Remember, we do copy exactly, so there's no one thing that my fab does that another fab either hasn't already done or is doing at the same time that we are doing. So copy exactly pervades everything that we do... not only on the start-up, but also the continuous improvement aspects as the process matures. On APC, 300 mm affords us some capabilities that we didn't have on some of our older tool sets. The embedded controllers are more capable, they have some of the communication standards, our MES system is capable of gathering the data and doing something with it. We had some of those capabilities previously but they weren't as universal. With 300 mm, our capabilities are expanding.

MICRO: What about the defect challenges? Is anything being seen that seems to be a little more problematic with 300 or at least the ramp part of 300 mm that you're now in?

SOHN: You need the E15 ports to work, to be fully aligned, and once they're aligned and working, you have to get the minienvironments aligned and sealed and operating properly. Those are some things that we have to do on 300 that we never had to do on 200 mm, so on the start-up, there are a few extra steps in there. However, I think those are far bigger opportunities than they are problems, since in the 300-mm facility, the wafers move in FOUPs, they don't move in unsealed boxes. They are opened by machinery in clean environments as opposed to on 200 mm, where they are opened in... an ambient environment, which albeit is very clean, but it is open. I think that... utilizing these FOUPs and the minienvironment system is going to allow us to reduce the defects. We'll have to see how that develops over time, since for Intel, this is the first time we have used pods of this nature.

MICRO: What phase are you at in the fab right now? Are you still at the engineering silicon level, or a little bit beyond that?

Looking down Fab 11X's main corridor during tool qualification.

SOHN: We're really in what I call the tool install phase. We are processing some wafers, mostly test wafers—in order to test a track, you've got to be able to put some films down. There's some inner linkage there. But we're really in... the install phase as opposed to the integration and matching phase, which we'll do over the next couple months. We brought in a fairly sizable number of tools shortly after the first of the year. It's always a challenge and lots of fun to get all of those installed on an appropriate schedule, and have the ones that you need sooner really come up sooner.

MICRO: Like litho?

SOHN: Really, litho doesn't have to be the first one, and in some ways litho can be [brought up] generally toward the end. You do want to have litho up soon because it's complex, so there's perhaps more opportunities for things to go wrong. But the reason I need other things is because I have to do something to put the films on, right? I've got to have the thin films or diffusion kinds of systems up in order to do something with it. Even once I start to pattern wafers, I still have to do something with it, whether it's an implant operation, an etch process, a damascene process, whatever. There's a real defined sequence in which these things come up.... That's where having very good, very capable, very experienced engineers and technicians in place really helps out.

MICRO: I would imagine that you've got to have some metrology up early, because what good is it for you to put the films down if you can't see what's happening on them.

SOHN: Excellent observation. You've got to be able to measure the film...to look at defects and see where they're coming from, things that arise in a normal factory. During the start-up phase, you have all the typical issues that might come up in a real high-volume facility. It's just a little more contained, whether it is a defect that you've got to track down to a brand-new tool, or it's the WIP flow inside the factory, to ensure that those test wafers get to the people who need them, and they get prioritized in the right way, tool downtime—all of that sort of thing occurs in these install phases. In our case, because of copy exactly, the protocol is quite extensive, so we're not just bringing up a process. It's not good enough just to work. It has to be the same as what they're doing up in D1C [in Hillsboro, OR].

MICRO: As if it's coming out of the same tool set?

SOHN: Exactly. It's not just making it function. Making it function was straightforward, and that's where we were at long before copy exactly, was making things function. Nowadays, it's making it function exactly like everything else that's been functioning.

MICRO: When you guys start ramping to production or get to your early production mode, will some of the team go to Ireland [to Fab 24] to help them ramp up?

SOHN: It's kind of the other way around. We've had 400 people in Oregon over the last year. They went up there, they learned how to do it, and they didn't learn by watching, they learned by doing. They understand not only the process and the specifications, but they understand the things that occur that aren't explicitly written, and sometimes they're subtle things that we frequently refer to as "tribal knowledge." Things that the experienced people know, but it's so obvious to them that they didn't even bother to write it down. So they go up there and they become a part of the organization, and in becoming a part of the organization, they really learn what the process is like. So when they come back to New Mexico, they know the process because they've already lived it. The folks from Ireland do the same thing. There's already a fair number of people in Oregon and that'll expand as they get closer to the start-up.

MICRO: Getting back to Fab 11X, you said in your presentation that 100% of the people will be "maintenance people." Could you elaborate on that?

SOHN: What I'll say is that 100% will be doing technical work. A very large percentage will be there for tool maintenance. A significant number will be there for process maintenance, such as monitoring defects, tracking defects, and so forth, ensuring that we don't have excursions of any sort, and improving process control. And a third component that is also going to be very technical is the people that are going to sit in the command centers.

When we used to run with operators, you'd bring somebody in, and the extent of the training was, largely, pick up the material from there, walk it over here, follow these five steps, then go do it again. Nowadays, the complexities are much greater, and we have to be able to understand what the tools are telling us. It's not like we just go there and look at it or something, but the tools, the capability, the information that they are giving us...and our response capability must be considerably higher. OK, if it gives a pressure change or an RF pattern change, what do I do about that? The technician needs to know what to do and how to respond to that.

MICRO: The robots will have finally taken over.

SOHN: (Laughs) If we can figure out how to get them to maintain themselves.

MICRO: What about the safety considerations in the factory?

SOHN: That happens to be something that we're very proud of. I'd say that 10 years ago we were like everybody else in the industry. We did what we thought was a very good job, and we were very indicator driven, but we started to adopt a philosophy called "injury and incident free," which we refer to as IIF, because everything has to be a TLA, a three-letter acronym...

MICRO: And sometimes four.

SOHN: ...sometimes four. (Laughs) The big change came when safety became a cultural aspect as opposed to an indicator-driven one. Fundamentally, it's just really thinking that all injuries can be prevented and that if we think about the problem hard enough, we will come up with a way to eliminate the injuries. That takes some extra planning and some extra thinking, but it also involves developing a relationship. If I'm just another person or just another thing inside the factory, there's not much commitment from a personal perspective to be of any protection whatsoever, to think for that person. But an injury- and incident-free environment develops relationships, and that's why I say it's very culture based. I want to help everybody, and I am as committed to their safety as I am committed to my safety. The result of that has been an impressive improvement in our safety performance inside. If you look at the data, we're running at about one-fifth or one-sixth the incident rate of the semiconductor [industry] average.

MICRO: In certain respects, 300 mm is inherently safer, isn't it, because it's more automated? You don't have the possibility of some repetitive stress injuries, of people carrying a bunch of lots every day.

SOHN: I think you're right from an ergonomics perspective. However, that only happens if you truly automate.... We're really tying the string around the entire package from an automation perspective and a lot of other things inside the factory. If we get into a position as an industry somewhere where somebody says, "You know what? I'm only going to automate that, and I'm not going to automate that," and you find that some of the people are carrying around boxes or are even pushing carts around. Those things are inherently more risky than utilization of the automation system. But if we're using the automation system, it's great. So that's why I say, well, we went back and had the vision, designed to that vision, and then built to that design. We are in a position where we can ensure that we don't have safety issues. But if we've done it like we've done it on previous technologies, previous conversions, it might have been years later before we really had the automation system. We can do 100% point to point. Maybe we can't shut the lights out because somebody has to tell it to go from point to point. But I can do 100% point to point inside that factory.

MICRO: What is your typical day like when you're at the facility? Do you go into the fab every day?

SOHN: I'm in the fab pretty much every day that I'm not traveling. I come in early, typically to read through the reports. The reports are more e-mail driven at the moment, because we're not in true production. I'll check the reports, check what's going on, perhaps respond to some e-mail, and then usually go straight into the factory. We have our morning pass-downs and priority-setting meetings, and I actively participate in those. I look for priorities to see if there are any opportunities where I'm needed to help out. A lot of the culture gets set inside those meetings, the priorities and the inherent values, and it gives us an opportunity to underscore those values as a company. Then we have some tactical and strategic meetings. That's a typical day for me.

MICRO: Are you in on the yield team meetings?

SOHN: Yeah, we'll participate in yield meetings, output limiter meetings, cycle time meetings, cost meetings... some of them happen at different variability, different frequency, some are triggered by events, and some of them are regular. It just kind of depends on what's going on. By the way, 11X actually has two fab managers, as do most Intel fabs, so I've got a partner, Tim Hendry. The two of us jointly have managed different parts of the technology start-up.

MICRO: Is there an easily defined split of duties between you, or is it more you take this, I'll take that?

SOHN: Yeah, it is. Some of it leverages off of our past experiences, but some of it leverages off of our future desires and opportunities to learn.

MICRO: Give me an example. What is something he handles, what is something you handle?

SOHN: I spend a little more time in the litho/etch area; he spends more time in the thin films/diffusion area. He is spending a little more time on the construction end; I'm spending a little more time on the operations end. Tim and I have known each other for many, many years. We were both senior engineers and then subsequent engineering managers side by side with each other. I was a manufacturing manager at the same time he was an engineering manager in our Fab 11 start-up, so we know each other well.

MICRO: You're used to being cocaptains, so to speak.

SOHN: It's important in a big organization. There's a lot of area, a lot of people who want to interact and be involved. They're all technicians, all engineers, with a high skill base, so it takes a couple of people to manage an organization. This allows me to go on the road while he stays there and works on the factory. It allows time for one person to ask lots of questions about 130-nm technology while the other one is talking about 90-nm technology, different equipment bases, and so forth.

MICRO: You want to try and complement each other. You don't have to worry about the overlap. It sounds like, because of your relationship with him personally, you have a high level of confidence in his abilities, he has them in yours, and therefore, you're both very comfortable with leading the teams.

SOHN: Trust makes it work.