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SVTC HOME > NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
SVTC Action Archive 
Spring, 1998
Did you know?....
Costs of Accidents at Fabs
Factory Mutual Research Corporation, a firm owned or directed by 3 major commerical and industrial and property insurers, compiled a data base of "loss events" in the semiconductor industry over the past 20 years. From 1977 - November 1997 they identified 407 reported incidents world wide. For every incident that is reported, there are estimated to be five additional unreported cases. (The data do not include any information on human health or environmental impacts.) Some examples are listed below.
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October 1996:
- Fire of unknown origin at Winbond's new 8-inch wafer fab facility in Taiwan. Total damage estimated between US$80-100 million and production delays for several months. Settlements reached $222 million, but company filed suit against insurers for additional $206 million.
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- September 1997:
- Fire from excessive silane flowing into burn box at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing.in Taiwan closed Fab closed for one day.
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- October 1997:
- Fire (cause not released) at United Integrated Circuit Corps (UICC) 8-inch wafer fab facility in Taiwan, completely destroying the plant's production equipment. Fire quickly spread to the cleanroom and took 36 hours to completely extinguish. Fab shut down until at least 1999, could cost company more than $470 million. UICC a joint venture silicon foundry between TaiwanÕs United Microelectronics Corp and seven North American Chip companies.
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November 1997:
- Fire at Advanced Microelectronic Products, Inc. four-inch wafer fab in Taiwan. Damage costs initially at $66 million, but may have been adjusted down to $10 million.
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- January 1998:
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Second fire at UICC wafer fab may have been caused by sparks in a pipeline under the fab. Construction company ordered off the project because company had experience in tearing down old and unusable ships, and no experience tearing down fabs
Fabrication Plant Accident Statistics
Greatest dollar losses:
fire (47%),
liquid leakage (chemical, cooling water, etc.) (22%),
service interruption (loss of utilities, damage to plant, equipment or product) (19%)
explosion (5%)
Leading cause of semiconductor facility fire incidents:
flammable/pyrophoric gas releases, like silane and hydrogen, (32%),
electrical components (30%),
process liquid heater failures (27%).
Most common identified cause of fluid leakage loss:
defective or inadequate equipment (66%),
contractor error (17%),
operator error (10%)
COMPARISON BETWEEN FACILITIES IN TAIWAN AND CALIFORNIA
Hinschu, Taiwan
- Apparent lack of infrastructure to deal with emergency situations.
- Hinschu industrial park (Hsinchu) has five people on staff.
- Private emergency response teams don't have equipment and adequate training and don't coordinate activities with the fire department.
- Many of the facilities at the Hsinchu Science Park lack adequate fire protection.
- City fire department is not equipped or trained in hazardous materials response.
- Has 80 members to protect a population of 500,000.
- Because of heavy city congestion, response times are also slow.
Palo Alto, California
- The city has 122 personnel to protect 80,000 people including Stanford University and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
- Nine people are trained as "hazmat specialists" with state of the art equipment and a dedicated hazmat response vehicle.
- Mutual agreement with other HazMat response units.
- Responses to facilities in Palo Alto is less than 4 minutes 90% of the time.
Information from "Comprehensive risk management for IC fabs," by Brian Sherin, in Solid State Technology, Feb. 1998 and http://www.techweb.com/ or www.cmpnet.com/search.html
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