Adhering to the ESG vision of uplifting society, TSMC encourages employees to propose ideas that connect with the Company’s five ESG directions through the TSMC ESG AWARD and inject creative momentum into daily operations. To support the R&D team in troubleshooting for new process development and manufacturing issues to ensure product quality, TSMC has developed “Re-evolution of Reliability Evaluation,” one of the winning ideas in the 2nd TSMC ESG AWARD. Through optimizing current parameters in reliability evaluation and utilizing testing tool in production line, this solution successfully saves energy by 99%, making breakthroughs and innovations for sustainable development.

Optimizing the Current Parameters to Save Energy and Time for Testing

Reliability evaluation is a crucial step in evaluating product quality in the semiconductor manufacturing process, assisting R&D team in identifying potential issues and optimizing design rules and manufacturing standards. In the past, it was mainly conducted after the wafer packaging. To shorten the testing cycle and improve troubleshooting efficiency, in 2022, TSMC optimized current parameters for reliability evaluation through data analysis and conducted the testing directly through the tool in production line. By leveraging the self-heating of the metal wire to generate high current for testing, the new approach can help evaluate product quality without packaging process, significantly saving testing energy consumption and time, helping R&D team quickly fix problems and accelerating customer product innovation and time-to-market.

The culture of pursuing excellence in quality is the key to deepening TSMC's sustainable capacity. By optimizing reliability testing methodology and improving product quality, TSMC continuously strengthens its technology leadership and accelerates innovation in advanced processes, striving to support customers to succeed and achieve the mission of common good.