Site:

Texas Instruments - Singapore
990 Bendemeer Rd., Singapore 1233

Participants:

Goh Geok Ling, Managing Director
Goh Jing Sua, Manager, Advanced Package Development
Ignatius Yeo, Manager, Site QRA
Swee Yong Khim, Manager, Failure Analysis & Chemical Lab

Mission and Strategy

• TI has multiple facilities in Singapore, which include TECH Semiconductor (consortium with TI, EDB, Canon and Hewlett-Packard), TI distribution center, TI Software, process automation center (design and manufacturing of IC assembly and test equipment) and the Bendemeer IC assembly and test facility.
• The TI Singapore mission statement is, "Be the leading semiconductor company in Singapore and the preferred supplier of those customers and markets we target."
• TI Singapore has a very obvious customer focus on quality and delivery. It had a 99.5% on-time delivery record for the first quarter of 1996. Understanding of the customers' volumetric needs, quality needs, and reliability needs enables it to develop new IC packaging technology to support its customer base at a competitive total cost of ownership.

Key Elements of Presentation

TI on a global basis has located its facilities near its customers and has reduced its customer base and product focus. The TI Asian locations each have been assigned specific IC packaging missions:

Key Elements of Tour

• The TI Singapore IC packaging facility is TI's only large-scale DRAM packaging facility (it assembles and tests well in excess of 95% of its worldwide DRAM production, although there is a small facility in Japan that produces a small amount of specialized DRAMs for the Japanese market.) The facility was established in 1968 to package transistors/logic/bipolar products. The plant was in production 50 days after the signing of the contract with the Singapore government. It began producing DRAMs in 1974.
• It employs 2,200 people with 58% direct labor, 24% non-exempt, and 18% exempt. The workforce consists of Chinese (67%), Malay (21%), and others (12%). Their attrition is average for the area, and most of the employees who leave have been with the company for a short time. This is manifested by the fact that 41% of their employees have less than 5 years of service.

Key Results

• Initially the packaging technology was developed in the United States, then product-specific packaging was done in Singapore. Today all DRAM packing responsibility for TI resides in Singapore. NSTB gave a $1.27 million packaging award to TI Singapore.
• TI Singapore leverages three forces in the improvement of IC packaging technology. These are (1) continuous miniaturization, (2) density improvement driven by component integration, and (3) the development of IC packaging at the assembly site. IME failure analysis facilities are leveraged for quick turnaround on sample production. As a result of all this leverage, TI has not had a packaging related qualification failure since 1989.

Conclusions

• The TI Singapore IC packaging facility is very capital-intensive with $1.1 billion total assets and an annual investment of over $55 million. This facility has achieved a competitive edge in IC packaging costs, even with more expensive labor, due to its core skills that facilitate test time reduction, rapid time to yield, high yields, and a high degree of automation.
• TI Singapore has achieved a competitive edge in IC packaging cost even with more expensive Singapore labor. This competitive edge is due to a 1% - 2% yield benefit resulting from the core skill base that facilitates good yields, quick time to yield, lots of automated equipment, and reduction in process and test times.