Background
The China summer SEMI Standards meeting was convened on August 8, 2023 in Shanghai. Two task forces met; the ABFI (Advanced Backend Factory Integration) and GEM300 Task force in the TC China Chapter. I actively participated in both task forces to closely monitor and comprehend all activities discussed during the meeting.
ABFI (Advanced Backend Factory Integration) Task Force
Ballot 7018, one Line Item revision to the SEMI E87-0921, Specification For Carrier Management(CMS) and E87.1-0921, Specification for SECS-II Protocol for Carrier Management(CMS).
It provides a means for the host or equipment to provide the slot map, which contains information regarding the correct and incorrect placement of substrates within a carrier. Additionally, it supports configuration settings that indicate the slot map is not read and will not be verified against host-provided information. Furthermore, new related roundtrip scenarios are added to Related Information 1 – Carrier Object ID when the equipment lack the hardware for scanning a carrier’s slot map. This ballot was submitted for cycle-2 voting in February 2023 but received three rejections with a total of five negatives. During the ABFI Task Force meeting, we thoroughly reviewed and addressed these negative items. Consequently, we will revise this ballot accordingly and submit it to the A&R committee for review.
- Line Item #1, Reject from Miyamoto Motoki (Yokogawa)
- Negative 1 to Line Item #1 : Accepted and do modification according to negative comments.
- Negative 2 to Line Item #1-g : Accept and do modification according to negative comments.
- Line Item #1 Reject from Matsuda Mitsuhiro (KKR)
- Negative 1 to Document 7018 Line Item #1: Negatives is not related with this ballot. This negative was not accepted by Task Force.
- Negative 2 to Document 7018 Line Item #1: Negatives is related but not persuasive. This negative was not accepted by Task Force.
- Line Item #5 Reject No.1 from Mochizuki Tadashi (TEL)
- After communication, voter withdrew the reject.
GEM 300 Task Force
In this task force we proposed two SNARFs, one for a line item revision to E40-1218, Specification For Processing Management, and another for E40.1-1218, Specification For SECS-II Protocol For Processing Management, and another for a line item revision to E94-0819R, Specification For Control Job Management and the E94.1-0819R, Specification For SECS-II Protocol For Control Job Management (CJM).
Some background information is useful here. In the semiconductor industry, the E90 Specification for Substrate Tracking, E40 and E94 are used together to monitor the substrate and job status in most 300mm frontend and advanced backend factories. Typically, after completing a job, it is the responsibility of the factory host to check the state of all materials to determine if the job has been successfully finished. However, some factories do not track E90 substrate events, and/or certain equipment types lack the capability to report such events. Additionally, some factories believe that the calculation of processed materials, failed materials and unprocessed materials in a job should be performed on the equipment side, which then provides the final processed results. These factors make it challenging for the factory host to check the process status (processed, failed or unprocessed) of all materials in a job. As more straightforward data reporting requirements have accumulated from various factories, many equipment suppliers have developed their own means for delivering the processed substrate lists and counts. However, due to a lack of reference standards for these requirements and implementations, many variations exist in the data formats used to serve this single purpose.
These two SNARFs include revisions as follows to cover the above requirements and gaps:
1. Add new definitions for the Processed, Failed and Unprocessed state of materials.
2. Add a state matrix to better explain the E90 substrate processing states
3. Add new material processing result-related variables for job (process job and control job) events.
4. Add new object attributes for material processing result of job a (process job and control job) objects.
Note that these two SNARFs have undergone formal review, and ballots 7139 and 7140 were created as a result.
This blog provides a summary of the deliberations that took place during both task force meetings. For more information about these standards meetings, or questions about Cimetrix, please contact us by clicking the button below.
