Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

By Dave Faulkner

Executive VP, Sales and Marketing, Cimetrix

We had a strong showing at SEMICON Japan at the Makuhari Messe December 1 - 3.  Attendance was brisk, and Cimetrix products were on display at both the Meiden and the Rorze booths.  This event was a great opportunity for us, since we have just started Cimetrix Japan K.K. effective November 25, 2010.  The new Cimetrix company will provide both new market development and customer support for the Japan marketplace.

In the Meiden booth, Cimetrix EDA/Interface A products were on display.  In addition, Meiden highlighted the partnership between Meiden, DSD, and Cimetrix, which allows DSD and Meiden to offer complete EDA solutions using Cimetrix technology.  These solutions are available to both equipment suppliers and IC manufacturers, and Meiden listed the benefits and sample architectures for each group. 

 Cimetrix CIMControlFramework (CCF) was on display at the Rorze booth running a complete 450mm vacuum platform.  Many visitors stopped to watch this powerful demonstration.  Cimetrix products were also highlighted, along with Rorze’s unique ability to deliver a complete hardware/software platform solution for equipment suppliers using Rorze and Cimetrix technology. 

 One other highlight of the show was visiting the Axcelis booth where they highlighted their Integra plasma dry strip cleaning system that uses the Cimetrix CIMControlFramework. 

We also learned at the show that a new top 20 OEM in Japan would adopt Cimetrix connectivity products.  It is great to see how companies are using our solutions to get to their products up and running in wafer fabs around the world.

Thanks to all those people who stopped by the booths.  Please let us know if you need more information about Cimetrix connectivity or tool control solutions.

by David Francis
Product Manager

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to work with some large semiconductor companies, including, Intel, Motorola, Lucent, and Siltronic.  I developed interface acceptance tests for equipment they purchased.  At that time, the SEMI SECS/GEM standards were still new and not widely adopted.  Many of the tool vendors had little or no previous experience writing SECS/GEM interfaces, and they were often uncertain about the details of the standards, along with worrying about how they could comply with them.  Chief among the vendors’ concerns was how they could meet their design schedules without loading down their engineering teams with this new requirement placed upon them. 

Over the intervening years I worked in the scheduling and dispatching area of automated semiconductor manufacturing, and in that time I lost track of the SECS/GEM standards and their adoption by the wafer fabs.

Recently I joined Cimetrix as Product Manager for the connectivity and tool automation products, and now I am back in the world of SECS/GEM standards.  A lot has changed since those early years, as fabs moved from 200mm to 300mm, and now considering 450mm wafer fabrication.  In addition, the geometries have shrunk from 1 micron down to 40nm and below.  However, I still see many of the same industry concerns as I did many years ago, even though there has been little change to the SECS/GEM standards.

The real change I see is the wide spread adoption of the SECS/GEM standard.  Previously, only a few leading edge companies requested SECS/GEM interfaces on their tools and were working feverishly to set up host-side equipment controls.  Today, SECS/GEM is well rooted in 300mm semiconductor manufacturing and tool vendors have very mature automation interfaces.

The move to 300mm processing created an ideal opportunity for the development and adoption of the GEM300 standards. Building new 300mm tools created an ideal environment for designing in the GEM300 standards right from the start.

More recently, new standards, like Interface A, have emerged from their R&D phase and are now going through the same refining process that SECS/GEM went through a decade ago.  These new standards will continue to support the industry’s efforts to create more efficient devices, at ever-decreasing geometries, with increased reliability and yield quality.

It is exciting to be working with these standards again and looking at them from the other end of the wire – the tool-side as opposed to my previous fab-side experience.  I look forward to writing more about how the tool vendors are adopting, and demonstrating compliance, to the new standards.

The semiconductor industry's largest event of the year, SEMICON West, is right around the corner.  And with the market in recovery, we expect it to be a good turn out and a great show.

This year, Cimetrix has several exciting new developments to discuss at the show:

• GEM Implementation - Faster & Better
  We've been at work developing a new solution that enables an even faster GEM implementation... while still improving the already high level of quality you've come to expect from Cimetrix. Designed to cover 90% of typical GEM interfaces, the new solution helps reduce time to market (and headaches) for our customers.
• The Year for Interface A - Are you Ready?
  ISMI announced the new Freeze Version of the Interface A Standards on June 17. Also, with increased SEMI investment and fabs requiring implementation, this has quickly become a hot topic. Is your software able to support multiple versions of the Interface A standard at the same time? Are you set up to adopt the new version effectively and efficiently?

We would love the opportunity to discuss your unique needs and projects with you further at the show.

Not registered for the show?  Email us for a free pass.

We will be in the South Hall - Booth #2331.

See you at the show!

by Dave Faulkner,
EVP, Sales & Marketing

Engineers love data. Business people love information. But it all starts with high-quality, real-time data. The possibilities are endless with good data.

As an equipment supplier, history probably has you living with a tool architecture from the early 300mm days. The focus was on implementing AMHS systems and meeting the GEM300 standards. A data driven architecture wasn't on the radar screen. And it wasn't a business priority. Times have changed. Fabs started asking for more data by creating the SEMI Interface A standards - and equipment suppliers are learning they can produce more productive equipment by leveraging the right data.

Interface A was an interesting concept when it started in the early 2000s. Discoverable data available to the fabs in real time would seem to be the answer to many problems. But the adoption has been less than stellar - even with strong endorsement and technical support by ISMI. Lack of fab side applications plumbed to use the Interface A data and "ownership" issues of the data haven't helped. These are real business problems that must be solved and will be solved with the next wave of fab purchases.

But what have we learned as equipment suppliers and software providers? Tool data models are helpful. Self description is great. We can create high performance data gathering applications that integrate with existing tool control architectures to make data available and controllable by the equipment supplier. Look at the performance of CIMPortal, our comprehensive equipment data acquisition (EDA) solution. We also learned that given the opportunity to "start over", we can create new tool control architectures that are data driven and prepared for the future. Look at CIMControlFramework. So the data is available - or you can make it available with an existing or new tool control architecture.

Let's put this data to work. Either to benefit you as the tool supplier or to help your customer. How is your tool accepted at the fabs? Do you have contingencies on your customer's payments? Does tool uptime have an impact on the tool price? Are your warranty costs too high? You get the point. With high-quality, real-time data at our fingertips, we can solve some of these business issues. We are at the beginning of a phase where the tool supplier makes use of this data and it directly impacts business results. Tool side fault detection, preventative maintenance, whatever is needed. The important point is we are finally starting from a strong foundation with the right data at the right time - and it can lead to increased margins or higher levels of customer satisfaction. Bring us your business problem and let's build something together to put this data to good use. Let's do it now!

by Brian Rubow,
Product Manager

I have been a Scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts of America for about 5 years now. Our troop goes camping several times a year. Utah offers a lot of beautiful and interesting camping areas. The variety is remarkable. In our troop we spent a lot of time teaching and preparing the boys to not only have fun, but also be safe and wise in their fun. Some planning ahead, training and common sense can make a huge difference. Nearly every week, I have our Senior Patrol Leader help all of the scouts in our troop recite a number of memorized phrases including the Scout Oath, Law, Slogan, Motto and sometimes even the Outdoor Code. The Scout Motto is the famous one known to almost everyone in the world; "Be Prepared". Reciting it every week helps our minds to remember to focus on being prepared for whatever may come. We prepare the boys to handle emergency situations such as medical and weather related emergencies. "Be Prepared" applies not only to scouting activities like camping, canoeing and hiking, but also to school, our careers and everything we do.

At Cimetrix we also like to "Be Prepared". In particular, at the time we designed our EDA (Interface A) products, CIMPortal and EDAConnect we recognized a need to support multiple versions of the standard. Since 2006, there has been only one allowed version of the EDA standards. This is the ISMI Freeze Version which specifies the 1105 version of the SEMI® standards. At Cimetrix we knew that at some point in the future the 1105 ISMI Freeze Version would not be the only version implemented. As co-chair of the DDA Task Force responsible for the development of the SEMI EDA standards, I can personally attest that the standards have continued to change, mature and improve. At Cimetrix, we predicted from the start that at some point in the future, factories would want these new features in the standards and that ISMI would announce another EDA Freeze Version.

Due to the nature of the underlying SOAP/XML technology, the client and equipment are required to use the same version of the SEMI standards. With one and only one ISMI Freeze Version, this is easy. Everyone's implementation works with everyone else's implementation. With more than one ISMI Freeze Version, it is more complicated. Each equipment supplier has to support each ISMI Freeze Version to communicate with the different client software at different factories or even in the same factory. Each factory has to support each ISMI Freeze Version to communicate with the different equipment implementing different versions.

ISMI is poised to announce another EDA Freeze Version soon. Certainly the factories using the EDA standards will expect equipment suppliers to adopt the new version as soon as possible. And certainly factory data collection applications will want to adopt the new version and take advantage of the new features.

To "Be Prepared" for the future, Cimetrix originally designed both EDA products, CIMPortal and EDAConnect, for the future. Each product is designed with an abstraction layer to be able to support multiple EDA versions at the same time. This makes it possible for Cimetrix to adopt the new EDA versions without rearchitecting the products. In turn, this passes on tremendous value to our customers who also will not have to rearchitect their solutions. In fact, Cimetrix customer should be able to upgrade to new Freeze Versions with relative ease. It is nice to "Be Prepared".

Schedule a meeting at SEMICON® West 2010 to discuss your Interface A needs further!
Or visit us at Booth #2331, South Hall. 

Industry organizations, such as SEMI and ISMI, have been touting the benefits of the Interface A, also known as EDA, standards for years. This year, SEMI approved an important revision to these standards to incorporate many of the lessons learned from early implementations. In addition, SEMATECH member companies (which make up 50 percent of the worldwide chip market) wanted ISMI to focus on a smaller number of projects with short-term benefits for 2009. Interface A (EDA) is on this short list.

Want to learn more?

Cimetrix is hosting a FREE webinar outlining the features and benefits of the Interface A standards. The material will be presented by Doug Rust, Director of Quality Customer Support and co-chair of the SEMI North America GEM300 Task Force.

FREE WEBINAR: Interface A Features & Benefits
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009
Time: 8:00 am MST/ 7:00 am PST/ 10:00 am EST/ 3:00 pm GMT
Duration: 1 hour

• The key features & benefits of Interface A
• Data & reporting features available through Interface A
• The role of Interface A in manufacturing

There has been an underlying theme emerging in the semiconductor industry over the last couple of years. Do you know what it is? DATA. Give me more DATA.

Equipment suppliers today are required to support more than a dozen SEMI^® standards related to factory automation and a host of commonly used substrate-handling components such as robots and vacuum system hardware. More DATA.

They also need to support a new suite of “Equipment Engineering Capabilities” (EEC) including: e-Diagnostics, data collection, recipe management, data quality, fault detection and classification, run-to-run control and predictive maintenance. The key underlying factor for most of these features is... DATA.

Initiatives by other industry organizations, such as the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative’s (ISMI) 300mm NGF, also focus on... you guessed it, DATA. Increasing the accessibility of high-quality data, and then, using the data to improve efficiency and productivity. In addition, factories are also requiring DATA storage and access on and off the tool for future performance analysis.

Attend this week's FREE WEBINAR on "Using Data to Improve Equipment Efficiency and Performance" to learn about the significant manufacturing benefits gained from improved access to higher quality and quantity of data.

The webinar will take place on Thursday, October 22
at 8:00 am MT/ 4:00 pm UTC.

by Allyn Sullivan,
Software Engineer

I have recently worked with several customers who were in the process of building CIMPortal equipment models for their tools. Some were using the Equipment Model Developer (EMD) which ships with CIMPortal while others were programmatically building their models using the CxModel API. Working with both sets of customers, I saw a very real need for customers to develop programming tools to create equipment models instead of relying on the EMD alone.

Every model has a unique equipment configuration. Building an equipment model through the EMD is a laborious process. Each node of the equipment is added individually with a minimal amount of automation. Although suitable for those new to CIMPortal and initial model development, the EMD is not practical for building the many unique equipment models required for every tool configuration that a manufacturer makes.

Most manufacturers use a base tool to which they can add components to meet their customer's specification. Equipment configuration data can then be imported from the bill of materials (BoM), parts inventory, or other data from the manufacturing system of record. The model builder application can import this data (from a database or spreadsheet, for example) and use the CxModel API to generate several unique equipment models automatically. The application should be able to easily generate equipment models for any tool in the manufacturer's inventory.

Developing the proper tools that meet your individual needs is the most efficient way of creating equipment models for CIMPortal. You'll save time over using the EMD and have more consistent equipment models across tools.

by Doug Rust,
Director, Quality Customer Support & co-chair of the SEMI North America GEM300 Task Force

In April, the suite of SEMI software standards commonly referred to as "Interface A" turned 5 years old.

Coincidentally, also in April, the SEMI standards North America Information and Control Committee approved an important revision to these standards to incorporate many of the lessons learned from early implementations.

SEMATECH, through its subsidiary ISMI, for years has been consistent in communicating how important Interface A (a.k.a. - Equipment Data Acquisition - EDA) is to the current and future manufacturing automation needs of its member companies. This message was repeated again at an ISMI workshop I attended this last Spring. ISMI had explained that the SEMATECH member companies (which make up 50 percent of the worldwide chip market) wanted ISMI to focus on a smaller number of projects with short-term benefits for 2009. Interface A (EDA) is on this short list.

In support of the ISMI members' vision for a better quality data communication interface, Cimetrix has been actively developing Interface A software since before the standards were published with early prototypes based on draft documents back in 2002-2003. We have had a continuous product improvement program in place since 2004 for our CIMPortal product which implements the Equipment Data Acquisition standards on the server side. We had previews of our EDAConnect factory-side EDA product at SEMICONWest 2007 and launched the product later that year.

So, as I was sitting in the workshop listening to the speaker from ISMI say once again what an important enabling technology Interface A was for current and Next Generation Factories (NGF), I thought to myself, "I keep hearing ‘we need it, we need it'. I wonder why more companies aren't using it"?

Why do you think companies have been slow to deliver Interface A (EDA) solutions on their equipment and using it in their fabs?