Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

To our valued clients and partners –

With the ongoing spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), we are in unprecedented times. This situation changes rapidly, and Cimetrix wants to reassure our clients and partners that we are continually adapting our operations and business practices to ensure that we continue to serve your needs and that no client experiences a decline in the quality or responsiveness of our technical support.

Today I want to personally share what we are doing to maintain continuity during this time.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

As always, our technical support capabilities can be accessed around the clock, anywhere in the world. We have offices throughout Asia, the U.S. and Europe to make sure that your needs are taken care of 24 hours a day. While many of these offices are in countries that have asked their residents to self-isolate, we will continue to work remotely to make sure all the needs of our clients are covered.

PRODUCT SUPPLY

Some of our clients have asked if our supply of products could be interrupted during the COVID-19 virus. We currently expect no interruptions whatsoever in our supply of products.

SAFTEY OF OUR CLIENTS AND EMPLOYEES

I have personally requested that the employees of Cimetrix stay home if they show any signs of illness. In addition, I have also issued a statement to all employees saying they should work from home if their local government requests it, or if they feel their health could be compromised. Cimetrix has long been a proponent of the work-from-home option, allowing even employees near a Cimetrix office to work from home several days a week. We are now very experienced at working collaboratively with employees in many different locations, including employees working from home. We do not expect any decline in our ability to serve our clients or continue executing our product roadmaps.

In addition, when and if it might be appropriate for our team members to visit our clients’ facilities, our team members have been coached on appropriate hygiene requirements as well as ensuring they will not visit if they feel unwell. As always, the health and safety of our clients, employees and partners is of paramount concern.

Cimetrix is determined to stay connected and working for you. We will continue to evaluate this evolving situation, and are here to assist all of our clients as needed.

Meet Clare, a member of our Solutions Engineering team. Clare lives in China and is an integral part of our China office. Read on to learn a little bit more about Clare.
How long have you worked at Cimetrix?

I have worked at Cimetrix for 22 months, since May 2018.

Where did you go to school and what is your degree?

I got my Bachelor’s degree at the Harbin Institute of Technology (Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China) and my Master’s degree at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. What is your role at Cimetrix?

I am a Cimetrix Solution Engineer located in China. 

What drew you to Cimetrix originally?

I have known of Cimetrix for many years and have been learning from the Cimetrix website. Cimetrix can be called a mentor for my working in the past few years when it comes to technology standards and expertise. It was great to be able to join Cimetrix and get to know more people as a part of this team.

What do you enjoy most about the work you do?

Sharing my experience and knowledge with others and learning from different people at the same time is what I enjoy most about the work I do.

What do you think it means to provide great customer support?

I think we provide great customer support by not just replying why or what their solution is, but also telling them how to fix their problems on their own.

What is the biggest accomplishment you’ve had at Cimetrix?

My biggest accomplishment is the localization of Cimetrix articles and coordination for EDA Seminars with SEMI China.

How do you deal with challenges that come up at work?

As challenges come up at work I like to just keep learning and consult with all of the experts on our team. Our team is all around the globe and everyone has a special expertise about something, so we are constantly learning from each other.

What’s something you’ve learned while working at Cimetrix?

The passionate support of Cimetrix! It is not only about solving the current problem, we really care about the customer’s need and want to help them to improve their skills and products.

What do you find to be most challenging about your job?

To support our customers’ need for comprehensive understanding of the equipment, the software and factory automation related knowledge. The limited hands-on experience on equipment control software is a big challenge for me.

Do you have a favorite quote or saying? Why?

天道酬勤 (God rewards the diligent)

What are your top 3 favorite books and/or movies?

A Dream in Red Mansions, Gone With The Wind and The Shawshank Redemption.

What’s your favorite vacation spot?

My hometown, Inner Mongolia

2019 was another exciting year for Cimetrix. In our journey as a Smart Manufacturing and Industrial IoT solutions provider, we were able to increase revenues year-over-year to a new record high during a year that saw double-digit revenue drops for capital equipment suppliers in the semiconductor industry. Also, our attention to fiscal discipline enabled us to achieve our tenth consecutive year of profitability and further strengthen our strong cash position.

Cimetrix continues to provide software that makes the world’s most sophisticated and expensive manufacturing equipment smarter, as well as an innovative IIoT platform for the world’s leading factories. We focus on ensuring the success of our worldwide customers with local presence and support. Our global team members in North America, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China and Southeast Asia provide unmatched expertise and technical support to our customers.

For 2020, Cimetrix expects a double-digit increase in revenues as the results of our growth initiatives undertaken over the past several years gain further traction. We believe the foundation of Smart Manufacturing and Industrial IoT begins with smart equipment and smart connections. Furthermore, we believe that Cimetrix is uniquely positioned to help equipment manufacturers and factories in their pursuit of Smart Manufacturing. We will relentlessly pursue understanding our customers’ challenges and providing them with innovative solutions.

From all of us at Cimetrix, we thank our customers, partners and shareholders for the faith and confidence they have placed in us. We will continue to strive for excellence in satisfying our worldwide base of customers and delighting them with innovative new products and solutions.

Sincerely,

Bob Reback
President and Chief Executive Officer

오늘 1월 31일 SEMI 협회는 코로나바이러스가 확산됨에 따라서, 2/5일부터 개최 예정이였던 SEMICON Korea 2020을 전면 취소할 수 밖에 없음을 알려 왔습니다. 궁금한 점이 있으시면 연락주시기를 바라며, 건강에 더욱 유념하시기를 부탁드립니다.

The SEMI Association has announced that, due to recent health concerns, they feel they have no choice but to cancel SEMICON Korea 2020. Please let us know if you have any questions, and feel free to reach out to us at any time.

Read now in Korean or below in English.

세미콘 코리아 2020이 2월 5일부터 7일까지 코엑스에서 개최될 예정입니다. 씨메트릭스는 한국 파트너사인 링크제니시스와 부스 #C818에서 여러분들을 맞을 준비를 하고 있습니다. “Design the Future”라는 주제로 반도체 제조, AI등 첨단 주제를 30여개의 프로그램이 진행될 예정이면, 저희 씨메트릭스와 링크제니시스는 다음과 같은 내용을 준비하였습니다.

• 빅데이터/AI/머신러닝에서의EDA/Interface A의 역할 (고객사와의 공동 연구 제안 중)
• 최근 한국과 중국에서 씨메트릭스가 주최한 EDA 세미나에서 많은 관심을 받은 Freeze III에 관한 안내 – 큰 주목을 받고 있는 이유는 데이터 처리 속도의 괄목한 만한 향상에 대한 기대감
• EDA 개발시 혹은 검수시 오는 효율적이고 철저한 테스트의 어려움과 복잡함을 자동화를 통하여 해결
• 많은 장비회사가 미래 성장을 위해서 준비하고 있는 소프트웨어의 고도화를 위한 로드맵 제시

부디 방문해 주시기를 바라며 미팅을 원하실 경우 아래의 버튼을 통하여 신청해 주시기 바랍니다.

SEMICON Korea 2020 is almost here and Cimetrix is headed to the show! We will be co-exhibiting with our partner Linkgenesis at booth #C818. The show will be at COEX in Seoul on February 5-7. We look forward to the show and hope to see you there!

This year’s SEMICON Korea theme is: Design the Future and will feature more than 30 technology programs offering leading insights into semiconductor manufacturing, AI and more. Cimetrix recently held a seminar, in partnership with SEMI, around the topic EDA/Interface A, and this seems to be a major talking point both for SEMICON Korea, and around the world at this time.

If you want to find out more about EDA/Interface A, and how it can help with your Smart Factory goals, be sure to stop by our booth #C818. Some of the things you might learn are:

• How EDA/Interface A leads the Big Data/AI/Machine Learning initiatives in the semiconductor world.
• Hear recent news on the Freeze III that ensures a huge performance gain with existing EDA.
• EDA acceptance testing can be difficult due to its complexity. Find out an easy way of testing the EDA interface .
• Good equipment needs good software inside. Find out how to prepare competitive software with a good software roadmap.

We hope to see you at our booth, or you can request a meeting any time by clicking the button below.

IPC APEX 2020 is almost here, and we are excited to be exhibiting for the fourth year in a row! This year, you can find us at booth #1521 and we hope to see you during the show!

IPC APEX is the largest event for electronics manufacturing in North America. You’ll find exhibitors and attendees from around the world come not only for the exhibition, but also to participate in standards development, a technical conference and professional development.

We are happy to announce that Ranjan Chatterjee, the Cimetrix VP & GM of the Smart Factory Business Unit will be speaking, along with Dan Gamota from Jabil, on Wednesday between 10:30 – 12 Noon.

One unified platform to run your entire factory

The IPC APEX Show runs Tuesday, February 4 – Thursday, February 6 at the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA, USA.

If you would like to learn more about how Cimetrix software products can help with your Smart Factory goals, please stop by our booth #1521 during the show. You can also request a meeting any time on the events page of our website by clicking the Schedule a Meeting button below. We look forward to seeing you in San Diego!

Cimetrix Korea is happy to announce that the 5th EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) Seminar will be held on January 15th, 2020. It will be co-hosted with Linkgenesis, the regional distributor of CIMPortal Plus, the EDA suite from Cimetrix.

As EDA has expanded its footprint as the preferred industry standard among leading IDMs in the world of big data, AI, Machine Learning, and Industry 4.0, equipment makers face the challenges of delivering the new requirements of EDA without fully understanding its fundamental objectives, technologies, and benefits.

This seminar is designed with highly practical sessions where speakers will share their personal experiences and insights as developers to help software engineers at the equipment suppliers understand the most efficient ways to implement robust EDA interrfaces.

For registration and questions, please email Ian Ryu (ian.ryu@cimetrix.com).

Topics include the following:

1. Global and domestic EDA trends, including Freeze III, that will introduce major performance improvements.
2. EDA spec review – A summary of key contents from the newest and most demanding EDA specifications that a developer must know.
3. EDA modeling methodology and important lessons learning that Cimetrix engineers have gained while supporting many new EDA customers.
4. Testing methodology used during development and needed for EDA acceptance to ensure that standards compliance and interface performance expectations are met.
5. Other general topics
   a-Software roadmap for equipment makers
   b-Smart factory

We look forward to seeing you at the seminar!

씨메트릭스 코리아는 파트너사인 링크제니시스와 공동으로 제5회 EDA 세미나를 2020년 1월 15일에 개최하게 되었음을 기쁘게 생각합니다. 최근 몇년 간 EDA가 국내뿐 아니라 해외 반도체 제조사에서 빅데이터, AI, 인더스트리 4.0에 부응하기 위해 업계 표준으로 자리를 잡아감에 따라, 여러 장비회사들은, 복잡한 EDA 요구사항을 충분히 이해하지 못한 상황에서 관련된 요구사항을 개발해야하는 도전에 처해 있는 상황입니다.

한국에서 개최되는 금번 세미나는 실용적인 방법론을 최대한 강조한 세션들로 구성되어, 발표자들이 지난 수년 동안 쌓은 개발자로서의 경험과 통찰력을 최대한 공유함으로 참가한 개발자분들이 각자의 회사로 돌아가 EDA 인터페이스를 개발할 때, 최선의 개발 및 디자인 선택을 할 수 있도록 하였습니다.

참석하시는 분들에게 실전에 도움이 되는 유익한 시간이 되시리라 생각됩니다.

세미나 등록이나 기타 질문은 유종하 팀장 (ian.ryu@cimetrix.com)에게 연락 주시기 바랍니다.

세션은 아래와 같이 진행됩니다.

1. EDA의 국내외 동향(FREEZE III 포함) – EDA 관련 업계 현황과 큰 성능개선을 기대하는 Freeze III 소개
2. EDA Spec Review : 개발자로서 알아야 할 새롭고 복잡한 EDA  스펙의 키포인트 정리
3. EDA 모델링 개발 지원 경험 공유 – EDA를 신규 개발하는 여러 회사를 지원하며 축적된 경험 공유 및 방향성 제시
4. 개발 및 납품 시 테스트 방법론 – 개발과 검수 효율성을 향상
5. 일반 주제
1. 장비회사에서 가져야 할 소프트웨어 로드맵
2. 스마트팩토리 솔루션

감사합니다.

SEMICON Japan 2019 is coming soon and we will be there! You can read about it now in Japanese or below in English.

Cimetrixは本年最後の業界エキジビションである、セミコンジャパン2019に出展致します。

今回Cimetrixとして初めての単独ブースを、東京ビックサイトで開催されるセミコンジャパン2019で出展します。期間は12月11日(水)~12月13日(金)です。
パートナーのブース(ローツェ株式会社様 #8419、および株式会社明電舎様＃7714)、またはCimetrixブース(#2467)に是非お立ち寄りください。

日本は世界半導体製造産業界に生産設備の3分の1、材料の半分以上を供給しています。ITを利用した高度な生産効率の改善を実現するためのスマートマニュファクチャリングの推進にあたり、革新的なソリューションとテクノロジーをセミコンジャパンをはじめとする展示会で積極的に紹介しています。

弊社ブースでは今回GEM装置接続・制御ソフトウェアソリューション、EDA/Interface A組み込み開発ソリューション、及び最新製品であるGEM/GEM300スタンダードコンプライアンステスターのEquipmentTestをご紹介します。お客様はEquipmentTestを使用することで、工場側通信システムに接続するための装置通信機能を迅速に検証できます。
本ツールはベーシックバージョンとプロフェッショナルバージョンが準備されており、GEM、PCBECI、及びSEMI SMT-ELSの完全な標準コンプライアンステストを使用可能です。

最新製品としてもうひとつ、Sapienceを展示します。
Sapienceはスマートマニュファクチャリングを実現するための、装置データハンドリングプラットフォームです。イベント駆動型フレームワークを採用しており、さまざまな装置設備と工場をシームレスに接続可能です。
工場のITシステムが設備に直接アクセス可能とすることで工場主体の装置通信、データ収集、プロセス制御を実現し、インダストリー4.0、ビッグデータ、スマートマニュファクチャリングの基盤を確立します。

また弊社は12月11日(水)午後3時10分から会議棟608号室、TechSTAGE SMART Manufacturingフォーラムにて講演を行います。今年のテーマは「組み立てラインにおけるスマート化」です。この講演では、弊社のシステム構築のエキスパートコンサルタントであるアラン・ウェーバーが、「半導体スマートマニュファクチャリング:後工程ファクトリーのスマートマニュファクチャリング実現の要件、スタンダード、ソリューション」というタイトルのプレゼンテーションを行います。

展示会期間中に、是非、弊社ブース#2467にお立ち寄りください。
生産設備のスマート化、スマートファクトリーソフトウェアの専門家がお待ちしています。
下のボタンをクリックして事前にミーティングを予約することも可能です。
お客様のご来訪をお待ち申し上げております。

Cimetrix is headed to Tokyo for SEMICON Japan 2019 – our last show of the year!

We are travelling to Tokyo, Japan next week to exhibit in our own booth at SEMICON Japan for the first time! This year’s show is once again located at Tokyo Big Sight from Wednesday, December 11 – Friday, December 13. Whether it’s at our partner booth (Rorze Corporation #8419 and Meiden #7714) or at the Cimetrix booth (#2467), we hope to see you there!

Japan supplies one third of the equipment and more than half of all materials to the global semiconductor manufacturing industry. As the world gets smarter, innovative solutions and technologies continue to be introduced at big shows like this.

Cimetrix will be showing all of our GEM equipment connectivity and control software solutions, as well as our EDA/Interface A products. We will also be introducing Japan to some of our newest products: Cimetrix EquipmentTest. This flexible software tool allows you to quickly validate an equipment’s ability to connect to a factory control system. It can be purchased in both the Basic and Pro versions, and supports full standards compliance tests for GEM, PCBECI and SEMI SMT-ELS out of the box.

Cimetrix Sapience will also be on display at our booth. Sapience is the Smart Factory Platform that seamlessly connects varying factory equipment within a single event-driven framework. The Sapience platform allows factory IT systems direct access to factory equipment, and the resulting equipment communication, data collection and process control establishes the foundation for Industry 4.0, Big Data and Smart Factory initiatives.

We are also privileged to have been invited to speak at the Smart Manufacturing Forum on Wednesday (Dec 11) afternoon at 3:10 pm on the TechSTAGE in Room 608 of the conference Tower. This year’s theme is “Realizing the SMART Assembly Line.” In this context, Alan Weber will deliver a presentation entitled “Semiconductor Smart Manufacturing: Requirements, Standards, and Solutions for the Back End.”

We encourage you to stop by booth #2467 and speak with an expert for your Smart Equipment and Smart Factory software needs! You can also book a meeting with us in advance by clicking the button below. We hope to see you soon.

The SEMI North American standards meetings for the Information and Control Committee were held recently and the following is a summary of some of the highlights and action items. 

In the GEM 300 task force, a revision to GEM officially removed E139 as a recipe management option. A planned revision to GEM should be much more exciting and progressive, but this work cannot begin until E30 is published with the current changes. In the meantime, future near-term plans include defining new SECS-II messages to improve host access to data collection setup and some terminology clarification. Brian Rubow from Cimetrix continues to co-lead this task force with Chris Maloney of Intel.

In the DDA (Diagnostics Data Acquisition) task force, which Brian Rubow from Cimetrix continues to co-lead, the standard that establishes gRPC and Protocol Buffers for EDA freeze 3 was approved. However proposed changes to the other core standards E125, E132 and E134 all failed, as well as the gRPC adoption for E132. The failures were expected. Additionally the North America DDA task force leaders continue to actively collaborate with the co-leaders of the DDA task force in South Korea. It is a great example of competitors working together at SEMI to create common solutions that satisfy everyone’s requirements.

Tami Tracy, a Cimetrix Solutions Engineering Manager, was officially voted in as a GUI task force co-leader for 2020, co-leading with Frank Summers. Congratulations and thanks to Tami for volunteering for this position. This will accelerate the task force's plans to modernize the SEMI E95 standard.

The Computer and Device Security (CDS) task force announced a vastly improved collaboration with its sister organization in Taiwan which has officially agreed to "divide and conquer" rather than attempting to address the entire scope of this domain with a single standard. A few months ago, the two groups seemed to be at odds with each other...The Taiwan task force proposed to include all factory and equipment security issues in one effort, while the North American task force wanted to focus initially on the equipment issues. The Taiwan, Japan and North America Task Force Leadership have now agreed to convert the Specification for Malware Free Equipment Integration (SNARF) 6506 into an overarching standard. The CDS task force is moving forward on SNARF 6566, and received authorization for a ballot on this proposed new standard for Cycle 2-2020.

The Advanced Factory Factory Integration (ABFI) task force, headed by Brian Rubow (Director of Solutions Engineering, Cimetrix) and Dave Huntley (PDF Solutions), held its first task force meeting. One order of business is to update E142 substrate mapping. The task force intends to map equipment features to SEMI standards including GEM and GEM 300. This effort could facilitate adoption of the GEM standard on equipment that previously had little interface standardization. It should also encourage further advance the goals of Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 in related industries, encouraging more factories and equipment to adopt the standards that have been so successfully applied in semiconductor manufacturing for decades.

To find out more, you can speak with an industry standards expert today by clicking the link below.

In the early 1990’s I worked with companies like Motorola, Wacker Siltronics, and AT&T to characterize the SEMI Equipment Communication Standards (SECS) interface on the equipment. It was early in the process of connecting process and metrology equipment to a factory control system (Manufacturing Execution System – MES), in the days before the leading chip makers at that time got together to define the Generic Equipment Model (GEM), which was eventually balloted as SEMI E30.

It was a fun and exciting time as process owners began to see the power and benefit of having an automated interface to the equipment. The first project I worked on was collecting critical dimension (CD) data from a microscope following a lithography process step. Previously the operators would manually enter 6 measurement data points to 8-digit precision. This was a very error-prone process, and each time a mistake was made, lots were put on hold until the problem was diagnosed. This affected not only the throughput of the lithography area, but also the overall fab, since the litho tools are invariably the bottleneck. The automated interface eliminated this problem because process engineers knew that any lot holds were due to real process errors rather than operator input errors.

Moving the automated interface to the process equipment was a little more difficult. An automated interface on a metrology tool cannot cause misprocessing, but an automated interface on a process tool was a little riskier. We decided that the first step would be to simply verify that the correct recipe was selected, and not allow processing to proceed until it was reviewed by the process Engineer assigned to that equipment. Within a few minutes of going live with the first automated interface for a process equipment, a mismatch was detected between the operator-selected recipe and the recipe specified in the MES. A quick check by the process engineer verified that the technician had indeed selected the wrong recipe—this simple check alone saved misprocessing the entire carrier of material.

From these humble beginnings, full factory automation in front end 300mm fabs was adopted quickly and revolutionized semiconductor manufacturing. The level of automation in other areas of the semiconductor and electronics assembly industries is now increasing dramatically, motivated by the prospect of improved factory throughput and higher yields. Moreover, the experience gained through implementation of automated interfaces using SEMI communication standards will be a great benefit to semiconductor backend and electronics assembly markets. Some of the standards used in 300mm automation have already been modified for this purpose, and new standards are in work to better serve these industries.

In September 2019, SEMI published the PCBECI (Printed Circuit Board Equipment Communications Interface) standard, officially designated SEMI A3. This standard is a simplification of the reliable and much-used GEM equipment communication standard.

Early in 2019 the SMT-ELS (Surface Mount Technology Equipment Link Standard) suite, designated SEMI A1, A1.1, and A2, was also published. These standards address the need for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to support flow manufacturing processes. The adoption process for these new standards has just begun, but like the early adoption of the SECS and GEM standards, it is exciting times and good things are happening. 

Visit us as Productronica (Hall A3 Booth 421) or SEMICON Europa (Hall B1 Booth 525) to hear more about these new standards and the products Cimetrix has developed to support their implementation and validation in equipment and factories. Or you can get in touch with a standards expert any time by clicking the link below.