Quality is not something you add – it has to be built-in

Quality is a decisive competitive advantage. For this reason, quality is an integral part of the whole product lifecycle from development and production to delivery and associated product services.

It takes up to 1,200 manufacturing steps to go from the silicon wafer to the chip. Complex chemical and physical methods are employed in a highly automated production environment. On many of our products, conducting paths are microscopically small; a single dust particle could cause the chip to fail. That is why our wafers are processed in cleanrooms equipped with cutting-edge machinery and controlled by highly-skilled employees. The manufacturing process is subject to permanent electronic monitoring in order to ensure stability and achieve the goal of “zero defect”.

We live quality in our daily work – in our cleanrooms, our labs and our offices

The mindset working towards “zero defect” is firmly established within the whole organization. Dedicated quality principles give additional guidance to our employees. The overarching aspiration of these principles is to always keep our commitments: it is our highest priority to deliver in compliance with the agreed functionality, reliability, time, volume and cost. Here the first prerequisite is to truly understand the customer and clearly define the requirements a product has to fulfill.

Keeping commitments is also a value that characterizes our internal collaboration. We continuously keep the awareness of quality on a high level with “Quality Days” at our sites around the globe.
All employees act as quality advocates in their respective areas of responsibility.
They are sensitive to deviations and are encouraged to always detect the underlying root cause in order to find a sustainable solution.

Well-established processes, methods and tools together with continuous improvement programs complete the basis for the outstanding position of quality at Infineon. We follow the principle of cross-linking the quality functions in our global matrix organization. By doing so, we make sure that we have a dedicated quality interface in place wherever it helps us come even closer to “zero defect”.

Quality along the product lifecycle

Trend analysis

Our society is in a state of constant change. New challenges and requirements emerge, changing our markets. We always keep an eye on these developments. Based on out observations, together with our customers we determine which products are needed in order to offer safe and green solutions that are successful in the market.

Definition

Then we define the requirements a new product has to fulfill. The decisive factor here is the system in which our customer will use a chip from Infineon. For example, applications in a car call for properties quite different from those needed in a smartphone. Our design engineers then translate these requirements into a theoretical chip construction. This step already takes subsequent manufacturing techniques into account.

Implementation

Now questions with a decisive bearing on realization are answered: What technology is best suited? How can we guarantee the necessary reliability of the product? Which of our sites are candidates for manufacturing? When this phase is over we have turned the theoretical concept into initial chip prototypes and have produced samples in small quantities.

Verification and validation

In the next step we check whether or not the product fulfills all the defined requirements. We provide our customers with samples so that they can test the product in the intended applications. At the same time the manufacturing technology is refined and a manufacturing plan is formulated so that the product can then be produced in larger quantities.

Ramp-up & volume production

The unit quantity of the new product is now continuously increased. Here we consider the entire value chain, from the supplier all the way to the customer. Stable processes are crucial in order to smoothly integrate the product in ongoing manufacturing activities. We use optical, electrical and statistical testing procedures to constantly guarantee the necessary product quality.

Ramp-down

Once a product has reached "end-of-life", we remove it from production in a process planned on a long-term basis. We inform our customers with sufficient lead time and continue to supply the agreed level of quality. Often we have already developed a functionally improved successor product.

We continue to meet all our commitments – from the first chip to the very last.