A conceptual approach to integrate design and control for the epoxy dispensing process

Performance improvement of manufacturing systems in the semiconductor industry involves interdisciplinary expertise, such as physical modeling, mechanical design, electrical control, and even material science. Integration of these different disciplines is a challenging problem in the semiconductor industry. The paper presents a conceptual approach to integrate design and control methodology for complex processes with specific application to an epoxy-dispensing control system - a critical equipment in the semiconductor packaging process. This methodology includes three hierarchical levels: process design (system-level and component-level), multivariable control and the statistics-based supervision. This paper deals with conceptual design at system-level by integrating an approximate model with an axiomatic approach, and briefly introduces approaches at other levels. In the conceptual design at system level, the primitive model of the system is sufficient to show some basic properties of the process, by which the axiomatic design can be easily integrated to evaluate the system design and suggest an optimal system configuration with invariant properties to internal variations. Under minimal internal variation, the multivariable control that is intended to suppress external variations can be approximately constructed by a set of independent controllers. Statistics-based supervision will provide suitable setpoints for the multivariable control so as to maintain good performance in the dynamic environment.