An Economic Study on Chemical Mechanical Polishing of Silicon Wafers

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is used to remove irregularities on the silicon wafer surface. The importance of CMP is the achievement of both local and global planarity of wafer surface. This paper presents an economic study on CMP of silicon wafers. A cost model is developed to predict the total cost for CMP of silicon wafers. An input-output model is developed to analyze parameters relevant to the fixed cost and variable cost. The labor cost is investigated through a flow chart of the labor operation. Based on the cost model, a hypothetical case study is conducted to show the model’s capability of performing sensitivity analysis and identifying critical factors for the total cost for strategic management purposes.