Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

By Brett Horsley
Customer Support Engineer

A couple of weeks ago we talked about the  new Cimetrix web license generator, discussing how our customers with up-to-date support contracts can go on to the Cimetrix web site and get new licenses emailed to them in just a few minutes. We should also point out that customers can also transfer a license from an old machine to a new one from the same site.

When you go to the License Renewal site, which you can access using your Support login user name and password, you can apply to transfer the license using the old MAC ID and a new MAC ID.  You will also provide your email address and we will email you the new license immediately. You save time and effort, and you don't have to wait for any paperwork to go through.

When you go to the License Renewal site, you will enter the required fields in a form you see below:

You should have received the user name and password when your company purchased our SDK product. The license will be sent to your email address. If you are not an SDK customer, please contact the Cimetrix Licensing team at licenses@cimetrix.com, or call us at 801-256-6500.

Give it a try and tell us how you like the experience.  Any questions - just email licenses@cimetrix.com.

By Brett Horsley
Customer Support Engineer

We are working to streamline our processes at Cimetrix in order to improve our customer service. We now have a new license generator on the Cimetrix web site that we know will reduce the paperwork and throughput time to obtain new SDK and runtime licenses.

Previously, you had to email us the information and we would attempt to send you a new license within 24 hours. We almost always achieved that goal, but because of holiday schedules we sometimes took more than a day to send new licenses. 

Now with the new web-based license generator, you can go to the Cimetrix web site and log in using your Support user name and password. Then you enter your COA (Certificate of Authenticity) number, MAC ID, and email address, and you will get an email with your new license.

It's fast and easy.  We have tested out the process and it works well, but, if you run into problems, send us an email at licenses@cimetrix.com.

By David Faulkner
Executive VP, Sales and Marketing

It was great to attend SEMICON Japan this year and see our increased presence at the show.  I also wrote about it last year.

SEMICON Japan was held at the Makuhari Messe, near Chiba Japan, from December 7-9.  It overlapped with the PV Japan 2011 event, held on December 5-7, due to the request from Japan's government agencies to delay the event from its original July schedule in order to conserve energy and resources after the devastating Tohoku-Kanto earthquake and tsunami.  I attended both the SEMICON Japan and PV Japan events along with David Francis, the Cimetrix Product Manager, and Kerry Iwamoto, the Director of Cimetrix K.K.  While Cimetrix did not have a booth, we had a strong presence in booths of our distributors - Rorze and Meiden.  Both booths were on main aisles of the show and saw plenty of traffic.

In the Rorze booth, Cimetrix software was highlighted with marketing content and demonstrated running a 450mm vacuum cluster and EFEM.  This generated lots of attention on the main aisle.  Rorze has  a very unique offer for the equipment maker  because they can supply the equipment hardware platform along with all Cimetrix software, particularly Cimetrix CIMControlFramework. Rorze offers true one stop shopping when developing a new machine.

Meiden is our new distributor in Japan, and they dedicated a large part of their booth to highlight Cimetrix products and the EDA (Interface A) solution they have designed for a major memory manufacturer in Japan.  Meiden engineers are now trained in Cimetrix software products and they are supporting Cimetrix customers in Japan.  Their offering is unique because they supply industrial PCs to a large percentage of Japanese equipment suppliers and have an army of integration engineering resources to help equipment suppliers. 

The show was crowded, and apprehension existed as the industry ponders the European debt crisis and smaller growth for both chip sales and equipment sales in 2012.  There was also a lot of excitement and enthusiasm as the industry contemplates 450mm manufacturing and Interface A deployments to GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Toshiba and TSMC.

It will be an interesting year as we see what develops.

By Jentry Nourse
HR Coordinator

No summer would be complete without the annual Cimetrix Picnic.  We had a fantastic turnout this year.  With a headcount of 68, it may be the largest picnic to date.

Last year we added seventeen new members to the Cimetrix team - 7 are from Utah, 9 are located in Texas, and 1 resides in Las Vegas.  We were able to coordinate an engineering conference the same week which allowed us to bring everyone to Salt Lake for an afternoon full of food, fun and conversation.

The picnic was held at our usual pavilion at Murray Park.  With several options such as horseshoes, Frisbee, croquet, soccer, volleyball, baseball, a face painting station, and a snow cone machine, there was something for everyone, including the dogs!

We kicked off the picnic with a music set provided by David Francis’ son Austin and daughter Jessica, who played several upbeat tunes on the violin for us.  Jessica Francis recently won the Miss Farmington Scholarship Competition and performed “Orange Blossom Special” and “Millionaires Hoedown”, the same songs she performed during the talent show of the pageant. 

This was a perfect way to begin the festivities and everyone was impressed with Jessica and Austin’s talent, as well as their willingness to come entertain us.  They were so good we asked for an encore.

Working in the HR department, I see the names of spouses and family members on a daily basis.  I always enjoy this opportunity to put a face with a name and know that everyone in attendance felt the same.  We even had name tags so everyone could figure out who belonged to whom.

Despite my efforts, none of the upper management came prepared with their Karaoke assignments.   I’ll make sure to hand them out earlier next year so no one can claim they were put on the spot.

It’s nice to be able to associate with your coworkers outside of the office environment.  Sitting back and observing everyone, it occurred to me what a really outstanding team we have.  I enjoy talking to every employee here at Cimetrix and look forward to many future picnics.

By David Francis

Product Manager

ISMI held a very successful EDA/Interface A workshop at SEMICON West in July, and Cimetrix was a guest speaker at the workshop.  The attendance and interest in EDA was surprising, given that EDA has been discussed for five years with very little adoption to-date.  Now, however, we see a major change occurring.

In November 2005, ISMI established the first freeze version of the Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA) Standards to enhance adoption by eliminating the “moving target” issue; it was known as the 1105 Freeze Version. The industry had good reasons for developing EDA. Fabs could get significantly higher trace data collection throughput, and the robust tool model in EDA provided better access to sensors and other key equipment variables useful for operational data monitoring.  Moreover, EDA greatly simplified the creation of data collection plans (DCP), so fab engineers could resolve manufacturing problems faster and easier. Best of all, it decoupled data collection from SECS/GEM, so data collection would not be influenced by tool control nor would tool control performance be impacted by collection of large quantities of data.  The result would be that fabs would benefit from more sophisticated automatic process control (APC) algorithms, improved yields, and reduced downtime.

Unfortunately, only a few brave equipment suppliers started work on developing interfaces for their equipment to comply with the 1105 Freeze Version. Not surprisingly, the general adoption and excitement in the industry around EDA didn’t last long in the absence of strong support from semiconductor manufacturers and foundry customers.

Why? It generally takes a significant amount of time for equipment suppliers and semiconductor manufacturers to review the standards and introduce new systems to deliver and consume the data. In the case of EDA this was further compounded because of bad timing in the industry.  The 1105 freeze version of EDA came out during a boom time for the semiconductor industry, when fabs want to avoid making significant changes that could disrupt production.  By the time the equipment vendors could develop new systems with an EDA interface, the industry experienced the biggest – and fastest – downturn in history.  In 2008-2009, semiconductor companies were buying very few new machines, let alone starting new fabs.

But, when business in the industry turned back up in 2010, both GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Toshiba announced they would build new 300mm fabs, and would require OEMs to supply new equipment with an EDA interface.  In addition, there are other semiconductor manufacturers and foundries who are investigating and starting to use EDA, but have not been as vocal about adopting the standard.

 GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany

Also in 2010, ISMI announced the second freeze version (the 0710 Freeze Version) of the EDA Standards. Since that announcement, there has been a lot of interest and activity in the industry surrounding Interface A. One reason, obviously, is that the two large semiconductor manufacturers have added Interface A to their equipment purchase specifications and acceptance criteria, so equipment suppliers want to ensure that their products comply with these new requirements.

But there are other reasons for interest in EDA.  The 0710 freeze version provides a number of simplifications and clarifications of the 1105 freeze version. For example, there is better linkage between the SECS/GEM events and variables and the EDA constructs, and the metadata is simpler. There have also been other changes, like using simple events as an alternative to complete state machines, and allowing DCP behavior to be separate for each client. As the industry tackles 3D designs with ever smaller geometries, the process window gets a lot narrower and access to data and applications to consume this data become imperatives instead of “nice-to-haves.”

In addition, ISMI has updated its EDA Guidance document to more fully describe how to implement EDA interfaces. In parallel, ISMI partnered with Cimetrix to develop the new version of the Equipment Client Connection Emulator (ECCE) that OEMs and semiconductor manufacturers can use to verify EDA interfaces (see New Freeze Version of Interface A Requires New ECCE Version). Finally, the ISMI/NIST Metadata Conformance Analyzer (MCA) is also available to check for conformance of equipment metadata to the applicable portions of the SEMI standards and ISMI guidelines.

It is exciting to see the renewed interest and attention to EDA. Is all the attention because semiconductor manufacturers are starting to require EDA, or are semiconductor manufacturers starting to require it because of all the recent interest? Either way, there are genuine opportunities for both equipment suppliers and semiconductor manufacturers to make use of data collected through EDA to improve efficiencies and open new capabilities for microelectronics manufacturing.

by Scott Gardner

Senior Software Engineer

I’ve been a software engineer for more years than I care to remember (or than I’m willing to say). My experience includes embedded microcontroller-based applications, database and accounting software, and GUI development. I’ve always been interested in controlling hardware with software but the semiconductor industry and factory automation was not part of my experience. When I became part of the team in May, I was excited to get started, but also somewhat apprehensive. I was concerned about how quickly I would be able to learn all the new material and become a productive member of the team—a daunting task when you consider I had to learn both the new industry and code base. I was prepared to spend many extra hours coming up to speed.

My first day at Cimetrix began with Boot Camp. It seemed like everyone was talking about or working on something to do with Boot Camp. I didn’t know what it was but it sure had everyone busy. It didn’t take long to realize that Boot Camp was all about training.

This was training in a way I had never experienced before. People from different companies came from all over the country to Cimetrix—our own little United Nations, you might say! One thing that immediately impressed me was the level of enthusiasm among all involved. 

We were introduced to the industry and the science. The physics involved is mind boggling! It was very cool to get to touch a real wafer while learning how they were made. This was training that included not only theory but also practical application—it was very hands on.

The software was equally impressive. Of course we went through the standard installation and demos but that was just the start. The entire CIMControlFramework architecture and tool control design process was laid out, and the trainers presented us with a series of labs that progressively got us deeper and deeper into the Cimetrix software, not only the CCF tool control product, but also CIMPortal (for Interface A) and CIM300 (for GEM 300 connectivity). The best thing about the labs is that by the time we had worked through them we not only had a working system we also knew how the system worked. I still use my completed labs today.

Agile was introduced in a gentle but accelerated way. We did scrum standups twice a day and a retrospective daily. We learned what makes a good user story and how to handle product backlogs and spring planning. We each got to keep a deck of planning poker cards.

Remote collaboration was also given a serious look.  We learned how to use a number of tools in order to communicate effectively with each other and plan sprints. This part of the training brought everyone together as a team and how we need to communicate with the “Product Owner”, who is often the project leader employed by our customer.

I’ve seen quite a few approaches to development but this was a very different experience for me.  It was obvious that these guys take training seriously. This was training the way training was meant to be done!

by Rob Schreck

Marketing Manager

We had a very successful booth at SEMICON West in San Francisco earlier this month.  The attendance was good, we had a lot of booth traffic, and we had the opportunity to demonstrate the new CIMControlFramework software release to booth visitors looking for a solid tool control solution. What seemed of particular interest was how they can quickly obtain a graphicaly understanding of process status and alarms that give them actionable data to help improve performance and increase quality. It was good to see the buzz generated by our latest tool control release.

Another topic that attracted visitors to our booth was how Cimetrix uses the Agile design process.  They were impressed we are using Agile -  in both our R&D as well as Cimetrix Engineering Services - to get demonstrable software faster and predict schedule completion much more accurately.  Another aspect of Agile was how engineers can learn a team development approach, even in situations in which they are working with colleagues who are remote.  Many of our visitors were also interested in our pilot program to get them started using both CIMControlFramework software and Agile processes for their next design project.

We came away from the show with a long list of people looking for a more complete product demonstration and a better understanding of some of the needs of our customers and prospective customers.  It was a great show and we are looking forward to SEMICON West 2012.

By David Francis

Product Manager

Shortly after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March, I read an article that talked about the impact to the semiconductor fab lines in Japan. The article indicated that even those Japanese facilities not directly hit by the crisis were still dealing with power outages and aftershocks. The article also talked about how Japan is the leading producer of the raw silicon used in semiconductor manufacturing. It seemed clear that the effects of the disaster would be felt throughout the semiconductor industry.

I had the opportunity to travel to Japan a couple of weeks ago to visit our distributors and customers. It has been a few months since that article was written, so I was curious to see how things were progressing.  I had heard that the Japanese government had requested businesses to take steps to reduce power consumption by 15% to help avoid possible blackouts due to the loss of the power from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant that was damaged by the tsunami last March. Recent news articles also mentioned that companies could be fined if they didn’t hit the reduced power targets. Hearing all this, I wasn’t sure what I would find once I arrived in Japan.

What I found was a country moving forward and doing what was necessary to keep things progressing toward a full recovery. One example is how practices that had been ingrained in the culture over many years were changing as a response to power shortages.  For example, businesses were responding to the government’s requests and turned up the thermostats. Several of our meetings were held in conference rooms where the thermostat read 27°C (about 80°F). In some meetings the air conditioning was turned off altogether.

Another change that was surprising was the change in how people dressed. The Japanese government started the “Super Cool Biz” campaign and asked businesses to change many of their ingrained practices, including a dress code that encouraged short-sleeve shirts instead of suits and ties! Many of the companies I visited also had signs in their lobbies that talked about “Cool Biz.” Everyone seemed to be on board with the initiative – it was mentioned in most of the meetings I attended.

Here is a picture of Dave Faulkner, Kerry Iwamoto, and our Cimetrix Japan financial staff:

It is amazing to see how people in Japan pull together when times are tough.  There is no doubt the recovery process will take years. I don’t know what the full effect will be to the semiconductor industry, but the semiconductor equipment companies visited on this trip were all working with determined focus to meet their shipment schedules. The distributors and integrators I met with are continuing to plan for and execute projects to install equipment in new factories.

by Bob Reback

President and CEO

During the 2008/2009 economic downturn, Cimetrix scaled back expenses as much as possible and focused on its core business. As the economy started to recover in 2009 and the Company’s business plan gained traction, we began some limited investor relations activities during 2010. We attended a conference in New York and made our first presentation to investors. We also met with a number of investor relations firms to discuss providing investor relations services to Cimetrix. After some thorough interviews and reference checks, the company selected Darrow Associates out of New York.

Jordan Darrow has over 20 years of experience in investor relations working both in corporate environments for large, public companies, as well as with agencies handling investor relations activities for a wide variety of public companies. Darrow Associates is a boutique agency that specializes in small-caps and undervalued companies.

Cimetrix is not looking for any quick splashes or “pump and dump” stock promotions. Rather, Cimetrix chose Jordan Darrow to develop a long term investor relations strategy that communicates the Cimetrix business model and long term plan to investors. This investor relations strategy will include specific, targeted events geared towards long term institutional investors. We welcome Jordan Darrow to the Cimetrix team and look forward to his assistance in strengthening the Cimetrix brand for shareholders and investors.

By David Francis

Product Manager

The creation of a new software product is an exciting process. Often, as was the case with the Cimetrix CIMControlFramework™ (CCF) software, this process begins with a partner that will become the first customer of the product. Cimetrix teamed with Axcelis Technologies to develop a new tool control framework for one of their process tools. A following project with Rorze Automation further developed the framework and produced CCF 2.0. Upon completion of that project, Cimetrix continued the development of the tool control framework to become a standard product that any OEM could use, resulting in the release of CCF 3.0.

The development effort for CCF v3.0 focused on four main areas that improve both the product development capability and the user experience:

• Tighter integration with Cimetrix connectivity products
• Faster data analysis
• Reduced installation time
• Improved training material
  
  

1)      Tighter integration of CIMControlFramework with factory automation components to implement Interface A and SECS/GEM connectivity

We simplified the data configuration so that parameters, events, and alarms are registered at start up and automatically coordinated with the configuration files for the factory automation products.

In the previous versions, CCF was configured to work with a CIM300 or CIMConnect product that was previously installed and configured for the equipment. The problem was that if someone needed to change the connectivity functionality, that change was not reflected in the tool control portion of CCF, or vice versa.  This meant that the required changes had to be implemented twice, resulting in duplication of effort.

Since we wanted to develop the product for a broad range of customers, we wanted to make sure that during tool initialization, OEMs would be able set up alarms, variable definitions, collection events, etc. one time for both tool control by CIMControlFramework and for the connectivity products.

With the tighter integration in CCF 3.0 to coordinate the tool control and the connectivity, initial deployment is now much easier and faster.

Below is an example that shows how alarms, events, and variables are tied together.  OEMs create the initial model using EM Developer, and then all of the configured alarms, events, variables are dynamically added to the model after startup. You don’t have to create all the details of the model, just the basic configuration and CCF fills in the data.

2)      Improved User Experience Through Faster Data Analysis
We learned from the initial deployments that tool operators need quick access to process data in order to improve productivity and lower costs. For CCF 3.0, Cimetrix implemented dedicated history tables to improve performance of queries on historical data.  The new history tables allow for much faster queries for wafer, EPT and Alarm history information.

All logged information is written to log files.  Any log information related to wafer, EPT, or alarm history is also written to the respective table in the on-tool database.

The benefit is fast and easy visualization of the equipment process data that is 20-30 times faster than the previous CIMControlFramework product.

The following graph shows the frequency of alarms reported by the equipment, which can be used to identify problem areas.  This type of data now comes back within a few seconds.

3)      Reduce the time and effort of software installation and initial setup

The new installer allows the user to select the specific CCF modules needed and any other embedded Cimetrix products – such as CIMPortal™ or CIM300™ they want to install and configure. The installation is done in 2 phases. The first phase installs all files related to the products selected, including the source code. The second phase installs and pre-configures CCF and any pre-requisite packages. With the installation package, the time to time to install is dramatically reduced.

4)      Improved training material and code samples

To help a project team get started faster and get them more productive sooner, the Cimetrix created new labs that offer hands-on exercises.  One example is a lab to show the process for customizing user screens.  Both the problem case and the completed solution for each lab ship with CCF.  The real benefit is customers can use the labs as a starting point for their project or as reference material to help them create their own implementation.

Below is a screen shot from a lab that walks students through the process of creating a custom screen to visualize data for their specific tool, such as visualizing pressures, load locks, robots, load ports, processing chambers, etc.

Cimetrix is a software company dedicated to continual product enhancement.  This release delivers improved functionality and performance that will benefit our customers.  With CIMControlFramework, OEMs have a great solution for tool control that allows them to spend more time and effort on delivering their unique value to the market, and far less time on tool control and connectivity—and it just keeps getting better.  This is another example of what Cimetrix does to support our customers to speed them through the development phase and into production.