Texas Instruments Inc’s Semiconductor Group is to make a step into simulation-based semiconductor manufacturing planning systems, with the announcement of a multi-year, worldwide contract with Los Altos, California-based Tyecin Systems Inc. The company, which develops simulation-based planning and scheduling tools for managing complex manufacturing environments including semiconductor, thin film and liquid crystal display flat panel, will supply Texas Instruments with capacity planning tools ManSim/X and TestSim/X. Whereas previously, planning systems were not able to predict accurately the impact of sudden product mix changes on factory performance, the software promises to simulate the capacity and cycle times of manufacturing facilities and the effect of any changes made. The contract for the tools is part of Texas Instruments’ programme to reduce order fulfillment times and inventories, improve cycle times, reduce costs, hasten time to market and improve delivery. In a separate announcement, Tyecin Systems has unveiled Release 3.5 of its ManSim/X software for modelling semiconductor manufacturing flows. The software compresses the entire master flow, which can exceed 400 steps, into a linked series of re-usable sub-flows. Typical file sizes can be reduced by an order of magnitude, and therefore execution speeds can be increased and modelling and maintaining the process flows for a complex manufacturing process can be accomplished more quickly. The new version also includes decision rules that enable individual lots to flow through alternate routings at any step of the process, to make model processes more flexible and optimise the use of production equipment, it promises.
