Applied Materials, a global leader in materials engineering solutions, is actively leveraging its big data and AI capabilities to accelerate semiconductor technology innovation from lab to fab.

Applied Materials announced on the 27th AIx, an innovative platform that accelerates the discovery, development, and commercialization of new semiconductor technologies.

AIx, which stands for Actionable Insight Accelerator, enables engineers to understand semiconductor processes in real time and optimize thousands of process variables through millions of measurements from wafer to individual chip, achieving 'PPACt (Power, Performance, Space Cost)'.·Improves the ‘release period’.

The AIx platform is compatible with all of Applied's process equipment, eBeam metrology systems, and inspection systems and is scalable from lab to fab.

AIx accelerates high-volume manufacturing (HVM) by empowering engineers to replicate the innovative recipes of their R&D processes.

AIx contributes to improving PPACt in both logic and memory semiconductors and is already being used in the industry.

“AIx uses big data and AI capabilities to deliver improved outcomes for customers at every stage of the semiconductor technology lifecycle – from R&D through yield improvement and volume manufacturing,” said Raman Achutharaman, vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials. “Engineers often have to choose from thousands of process variables, with only a few elusive correlations providing the insights needed to optimize the recipe for industry-leading results. AIx identifies and amplifies actionable data, giving engineers the actionable insights they need to accelerate PPACt.”

Dan Hutcheson, CEO and president of VLSI Research, said, “Applied Materials is once again driving true value through big data analytics in the semiconductor industry with our AIx platform for the process engineering ecosystem. AIx moves beyond the linear data stream-based statistical process control methods of decades past to a new multidimensional environment where 3D imaging, in-situ metrology and sensors can be combined to distill actionable information. Applied AIx is a new toolkit that accelerates R&D, reducing time to results and ultimately time to commercialization. “It is expected that the AIx algorithm will be applied to the production stage to control the production process with real-time chamber control,” he said.