Copy Exactly! (CE!) is a process technology manufacturing methodology devised by Intel which attempts to copy the original development environment that was used to design a process technology onto the high-volume manufacturing environments. Copy Exactly! duplicates the exact manufacturing process at all levels in order to yield statistically similar outputs at all production lines. Copy Exactly! is designed to minimize discrepancies, improve transfer time, and reduce risk when ramping up a new process technology.

Overview

The cost of developing a technology node is very high and has been increasing with each generation for a long time. Following the successful development of a new node, it is transferred from the lab to high-volume manufacturing. During that time, it's important that the transfer occurs with as little quality issues as possible in order to prevent delays. Up until around the 1-micron, there was still room for various minor modifications that could be applied in order to improve the process. Since then, process technologies have increased significantly in complexity. This meant those minor modifications resulted in unforeseen problems which cause production start-up delays and inferior results. To that end, Intel introduced the Copy Exactly! a philosophy which they describe as.

"everything which might affect the process, or how it is run" will be copied, down to the finest detail, unless it is either physically impossible to do so, or there is an overwhelming competitive benefit to introducing a change.

Bibliography

Citations

• McDonald, C.J.. (1997). Copy EXACTLY! A paradigm shift in technology transfer method. 414 - 417. 10.1109/ASMC.1997.630771.