Abstract
Wafer fabrication is a capital intensive industry. A 12-inch wafer fabrication plant needs a typical investment of US $3 billion, and the equipment cost constitutes about two-thirds to three-quarters of the total production costs. Therefore, capacity planning is crucial to the investment and performance of wafer fabrication plants. Several formulae are presented to calculate the required number of machines with sequential, parallel, and batch processing characteristics, respectively. An AutoSched AP simulation model using data from real foundry fabrication plants is used in a case study to evaluate the performance of the proposed formulae. Simulation results indicate that the proposed formulae can quickly and accurately calculate the required number of cluster tools leading to the required monthly output rate.