Milestone-Proposal talk:The Engineering Data Analysis System sNOVA, 1989-1997

Advocates’ Checklist

1. Is the proposal for an achievement rather than for a person? If the citation includes a person's name, have the proposers provided the required justification for inclusion of the person's name?
2. Was the proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology?
3. Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature? If so, have they been properly considered in the background information and in the citation?
4. Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology?
5. Is the proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? At least one of the references should be from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the Advocate. If the Advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the Advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones.
6. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent?
7. Does the proposed citation explain why the achievement was successful and impactful?
8. Does the proposed citation include important technical aspects of the achievement?
9. Is the proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public?
10. Will the citation be read correctly in the future by only using past tense? Does the citation wording avoid statements that read accurately only at the time that the proposal is written?
11. Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements?
12. Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications?
13. Are any scientific and technical units correct (e.g., km, mm, hertz, etc.)? Are acronyms correct and properly upper-cased or lower-cased? Are the letters in any acronym explained in the title or the citation?
14. Are date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? Helpful Hints on Citations, plaque locations
15. Do the year(s) appearing in the citation fall within the range of the year(s) included at the end of the title?
16. Note that it is the Advocate's responsibility to confirm that the independent reviewers have no conflict of interest (e.g., that they do not work for a company or a team involved in the achievement being proposed, that they have not published with the proposer(s), and have not worked on a project related to the funding of the achievement). An example of a way to check for this would be to search reviewers' publications on IEEE Xplore.

Independent Expert Reviewers’ Checklist

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
5. Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?

In answering the questions above, the History Committee asks that independent expert reviewers apply a similar level of rigor to that used to peer-review an article, or evaluate a research proposal. Some elaboration is desirable. Of course the Committee would welcome any additional observations that you may have regarding this proposal.

Submission and review log -- Administrator4 (talk) 12:56, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Submitted date: 27 July 2023
Advocate approval date:
History Committee approval date:
Board of Directors approval date:

Original Citation Title and Text -- Administrator4 (talk) 19:48, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The Engineering Data Analysis System sNOVA, 1989-1997

sNOVA, an industrial optimization platform originated from Macronix, affects the automation of the entire semiconductor industry chain, making Taiwan a global semiconductor production base. With remarkable features such as shortening production abnormal debugging time, reducing wafer layer cost, improving product quality, and automatically adjusting the precision of production machine process parameters, sNOVA takes the lead in realizing the digital transformation of semiconductor manufacturing through artificial intelligence and big data technology.

Expert Review 1 by Dr Edward Da-Yin Liao placed by advocate -- JaninA (talk) 06:24, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

[[Media:Expert Review 1-Da-Yin Liao.pdf|thumb]]

Description of the recent update in the nomination document -- Ruey-Beei Wu (talk) 05:52, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I have substantially updated the nomination document recently. The revisions aim mainly to enhance the contents on "what sets this work apart". We emphasize the importance in combining rigorous work ethic and high-quality standards. This is rooted in Oriental culture and can be seen in Japan and Korea as well. For Taiwanese, we also have scientific virtue learned from Western culture. The main leaders of Macronix got the graduate study in US and served for IBM, intel and other companies before they returned back to found Macronix. This is not easy to describe in words because there is something cultural about it. We add two sentences: “In 1980s, Japan had a dominant share in the global semiconductor industry due to its rigorous work ethic and high-quality standards. To compete with the highly disciplined Japanese, Macronix not only implemented the ‘5S3U’ work code to improve employee discipline but also introduced statistical methods into the production process and took lead in the world to establish sNOVA system.” This can be found in the second paragraph of 200-240 abstract. In addition, we add a new paragraph to describe that. “In the 1980s, semiconductor factories in the United States and Japan used manual filling in "Run Cards" to record information about the production process. Even when computers were introduced, their role was limited to data recording. In 1989, Macronix took the lead in promoting full computerization of semiconductor factories, establishing the first paperless fab in the world. Macronix became the first in the world to apply statistics to semiconductor production and fully automate production materials.” Please find the statements in the section "to explain why the achievement was successful and impactful".

In addition, we have asked a professional expert for the "sentence by sentence" editting service. Improvements have been made in the use of tenses, specific words/expressions, and grammar.

The part "What features set this work apart from similar achievements?" has been strengthened. -- Ruey-Beei Wu (talk) 14:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Three paragraphs are included in the revised document.

The sNOVA concept rooted in efforts to rival Japanese companies which had a dominant share in the global semiconductor industry. They were accustomed to rigorous work ethics and high-quality standards, but relatively less focused on using scientific methods to analyze engineering problems encountered. To compete with the highly disciplined Japanese, Macronix not only implemented "5S3U" (5S is the Japanese words for Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Shiketsu and Shitsuke which means Tidy, Rectify, Clean, Purifying and Discipline; 3U means Unevenness, Unreasonableness and Uselessness ) work code, to improve employee discipline, but also introduced statistical methods into the production process. The production lines have been fully computerized, with all production parameters controlled by computers to reduce the influence of operators.

In the early 1980s, when IBM developed its large-scale computers IBM-3090 series that were gradually used in different manufacturing fields, including semiconductors, most of the leading companies' fabs in the world were utilizing computers in parallel with traditional methods that relied on paper and cards. Macronix was founded at that time and realized that the key factors for success should be paperless and fully computerized. Therefore, when established its first fab in 1989, Macronix thoroughly implemented this policy and worked hard to solve various problems caused by paperlessness, while also getting rid of the most difficult problem of human errors in computerization.

Therefore, the differences between sNOVA system of Macronix and other similar system are that sNOVA system drives the production lines fully computerized and all production parameters have been computer controlled to reduce the influence of operators. But other similar systems still require operators to manually log in information, making it impossible to computerize the entire production line. In addition, sNOVA's customization surpasses the user-friendliness emphasized by other similar systems; it necessitates deeper integration with workflows and work environments, allowing AI to blend naturally into daily operations and become an indispensable part of life.

Technical suplements to the milestone proposal -- Ruey-Beei Wu (talk) 05:15, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

To strengthen the technical contents, the proposal has been updated by the following.

1) The period of development is revised from "1989-1997" to "1989-2008" so that more continuous efforts are included in the proposal.

2) A paragraph is included in the abstract to strengthen the significance of technical achievement. Please find the 3rd paragraph which reads: "sNOVA was initially developed using IBM technology and the statistical software RS1, so it could only use basic statistical tests and SPC. However, statistical tests could already be used to replace engineers' judgment on process issues. In the later stages of sNOVA's development (2004~2008), in addition to using JAVA to develop the system in-house, SPSS and Matlab statistical software were also used to improve the quality of semiconductor manufacturing further and reduce human decision-making through DOE, Regression, Reliability Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Principle Component Analysis, Factor-analysis, Time Series, State-Space Model and other methods for Auto. Recipe Tuning, Fault Detection, Virtual Metrology, and Abnormal Wafer Map Detection. After 2008, the sNOVA system continues to apply more technologies such as Decision Trees, Neural Networks, Heuristic Algorithms, Deep Learning Algorithms, etc. in production scheduling optimization and image recognition."

3) A paragraph is added to explain why the achievement was successful and impactful. Please find the 2nd paragraph which reads: "As a result, sNOVA enabled data-driven management of non-volatile memory ROM and NOR Flash chips production, ensuring the highest quality products and maximum productivity. Macronix became the first company in the world to significantly decrease product defect rates, and to define it in parts per billion (PPB) instead of parts per million (PPM), setting a new global standard for quality in the semiconductor industry. sNOVA innovative system has been adopted and embedded in many other semiconductor fabs, enabling rapid progress in the semiconductor industry and facilitating Taiwan to play a key role in semiconductor industry worldwide."

4) Some technical papers published between 1999 and 2009 are included. Please find the references [7]-[11] in the proposal.

The proposer regrets being unable to disclose all the technical details. Some technology related to the sNOVA system is an important trade secret of the company. Except for several papers published by Industry-Academia Cooperation (please refer to References 7-11), the development results and technical details have not been made public, so some information cannot be provided.

File:Expert Review 1-Da-Yin Liao.pdf

Comment by Advocate -- JaninA (talk) 01:29, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

The Expert Review 1 by Dr Liao (the file shown above) resulted in the nominator rewriting the nomination in February 2025. This second version of the nomination is the one currently on ETHW, and I sent it back to Dr Liao and to other Experts. The Expert Review 2 by Dr Liao of the new version of the nomination is attached separately below as well as the Expert Review 1 for better visibility.

Expert Review by Professor Lars Mönch (Expert in simulation-based production control of semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities) -- JaninA (talk) 01:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

File:Expert opinion of Prof Lars Mönch on Nomination2 sNOVA.pdf

Expert Review 2 of Dr Edward Dao-Yin Liao (Expert in Computer Integrated Semiconductor Manufacturing) inserted by Advocate -- JaninA (talk) 17:30, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

[[Media:D-Y Liao Expert Review2 EDA sNOVA 1989-2008.pdf|thumb]]