Automated Precision Manufacturing (APM)

Spansion® utilizes Automated Precision Manufacturing – originally developed by Advanced Micro Devices – to bring new technologies to market quickly and cost-effectively.

Automated Precision Manufacturing consists of more than 300 AMD-developed fab automation, optimization, and real-time data analysis technologies used to reduce time to yield on new technologies and decrease manufacturing costs.

A Spansion APM-powered Fab is run by a "central nervous system" that enables Spansion to maximize quality and efficiency, while giving us the ability to introduce rapid, continuous product improvements without slowing production.

How does APM automation and control specifically allow Spansion to better serve customers?

By keeping manufacturing costs low, and product performance high, Spansion can provide customers with the high-performance solutions that users need at attractive price points.

Because Spansion can make rapid in-fab adjustments to what products we are producing and how those products operate, Spansion can closely align our production with your supply chain requirements.

What makes APM different?

Over the years, it has become standard practice to automate the way materials moved within a fab. The technology is impressive, but it's only half the equation. It's far more difficult to automate the way decisions are made within the fab – literally, teaching the fab to think for itself. At Spansion, we believe this approach is well worth the effort, paying off for our customers in hundreds of ways. APM has enabled automated decision-making in at a level that is setting new precedents for the industry.

As wafers travel throughout the fab on their way to becoming product, they pass through a series of tools. Each tool processes the wafers according to a master recipe, developed initially by the process-technology teams. What makes APM so unique is that any tool can alter the recipe used for each set of wafers it encounters, based upon information it receives from other tools in the fab. Through these tiny – but critical – recipe changes, the APM decision-making software is designed to simultaneously maximize yield for each wafer, plus optimize performance for the resulting products. This process also reduces waste in the fab and lowers costs.

The most marked differences between Spansion's strategy and traditional approaches becomes apparent when you consider the intelligence built into APM's three core automation systems: Integrated Production Scheduling, Advanced Process Control, and Yield Management Systems.

Integrated Production Scheduling

Advanced logistics and dispatching technology control the flow of materials throughout the fab, using logic-based decision-making and precision tracking. Dynamic, real-time dispatch enables material and product flow to be modulated according to current customer needs or in response to any issues that arise within the fab. For our customers, Integrated Production Scheduling helps ensure maximum productivity and cost savings that can be passed on in the form of competitive price points.

Efficient Material Movement

Advanced Process Control	Using innovative software and an automated methodology, our advanced process control helps ensure that each tool in the fab is performing optimally at any given time. Currently, APM allows for control, fault detection, and diagnostics on a wafer-by-wafer basis.
Rapid Product Performance Improvement

Yield Management Systems	Tracking and problem-solving technology is used to identify potential variations or defects on each wafer. Intelligent decision-making software then advises operations of recommended changes to tool operation throughout the fab accordingly to minimize defective dies and increase the number of quality yields. This helps ensure performance for our customers, while reducing costs.
Minimization of Defective Die

"APM is essentially a massive factory control software suite that is one of the cornerstones of Spansion's ability to compete,"
said Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research.
"It does this not only by enabling greater efficiency, it also enables higher baseline yields, better binning, and faster yield learning, all of which drives product performance. The forethought and hard work put into APM has paid off. Today few chipmakers can come close to Spansion's level of fab automation, precision and integration."