Incentive Schemes for Semiconductor Capacity-allocation: a Game Theoretic Analysis

We study incentive issues that arise in semiconductor capacity planning and allocation. Motivated by our experience at a major U.S. semiconductor manufacturer, we model the capacity-allocation problem in a game-theoretic setting as follows: each product manager (PM) is responsible for a certain product line, while privately owning demand information through regular interaction with the customers. Capacity-allocation is carried out by the corporate headquarters (HQ), which allocates manufacturing capacity to product lines based on demand information reported by the PMs. We show that PMs have an incentive to manipulate demand information to increase their expected allocation, and that a carefully designed coordination mechanism is essential for HQ to implement the optimal allocation. To this end, we design an incentive scheme through bonus payments and participation charges that elicits private demand information from the PMs. We show that the mechanism achieves budget-balance and voluntaryparticipation requirements simultaneously. The results provide important insights into the treatment of misaligned incentives in the context of semiconductor capacity-allocation.