Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

We've returned home from the show... tired, but excited about some of the great discussions and opportunities from the show! Although it was evident that SEMICON West is changing, it was also clear that the industry is rebounding and many new projects are getting underway.

Here a couple of quick snap shots of our booth:

We will be following up with visitors and customers this week. If you saw us at the show, thanks for stopping by and we look forward to continuing the conversation!

We're having a great time at SEMICON West 2010!

Attendance (and the industry) is up and everyone is in good spirits. We've met with several customers introducing them to our new GEM Framework as well as our equipment automation solution, CIMControlFramework. The 1st day of SCW10 produced more leads for Cimetrix than the entire 2008 show!

The Cimetrix team has also been busy attending several industry and SEMI standards related events. Yesterday, Dave Faulkner, EVP of Sales & Marketing, facilitated the PV Group's interactive workshop: "The Middle Ground – The Role of Industry Collaboration in PV Manufacturing to Accelerate the Path towards a Sustainable Energy Future." In addition, Brian Rubow, Product Manager, was named the new GEM300 Task Force co-chair.

Today, Interface A is creating some buzz at the show. ISMI officially announced the new Freeze Version. During the ISMI eManufacturing workshop, Les Marshall, of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, publically stated that they need E148, E157, and Interface A. This is great news for Cimetrix - who invested early on in its development of Interface A Software Solutions! (Read Dave Faulkner's earlier post on the importance of Interface A data and Brian Rubow's earlier post on the need to "Be Prepared" for the new Freeze Version)

If you're at the show, please stop by and say, "hello." Cimetrix's booth is located in the south hall in booth #2331.

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!

This weekend, we held our Annual Shareholder's Meeting at our corporate headquarters in Salt lake City, UT.  We had a good turn out of shareholders, board members, and employees. Company executives shared about the company - who we are and what we do - as well as the financial results of 2009 and our goals for 2010.

This week, SEMICON Japan 2009 will be invading the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. The largest international exhibition of semiconductor equipment and materials, vistors can expect over 1500 exhibiting companies as well as co-organized events including the SEMI Technology Symposium (STS). SEMICON Japan takes place Wednesday, December 2 - Friday, December 4.Exhibits will be open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

We hope to see you there!

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

Today, Cimetrix held its 2nd annual soup cook-off. With the our first big storm of the season right around the corner, a good bowl of soup seems very fitting for this time of year.

We had some excellent contenders with entries ranging from Elk Chili to Mexican Chicken Soup. Each member of the Cimetrix team takes the tasting process very seriously. There are sample cups - so that you can try just a little of each before getting a bowl of your favorite. However, I think most of us were full after just the tasters!

After a thorough tallying process, the winner was announced... Mark Bennett!  Not just a member of our experienced engineering staff, but also a remarkable cook.  His Zuppa Toscana won by a landslide. Congratulations Mark!

Download a copy of Mark's recipe here. 

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.

In June of this year, the SEMI PV 2 Standard - Guide for PV Equipment Communication Interfaces (PVECI) was approved for publication by the global Audits and Reviews Subcommittee.

Curious about the new PV standards? Planning on being in Hamburg, Germany this week? 

Cimetrix will be participating in the Visual Presentations at the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (PV SEC) in Hamburg, Germany next week.  Bruce Febvret will be representing Cimetrix at the conference and available to answer questions regarding our paper "Maintaining Quality and Performance in your Implementation of PVECI and GEM Standards." He will be near our poster (#2CV.1.77) on Wednesday, September 23 from 8:30 am - 10:10 am. The poster presentations will be on display in the Congress Center Hamburg (CCH) in the POSTER AREA in Halls D, E, F, G and Foyer D-G (2nd Floor). Click here to view a map of the venue.

Won't be in Germany? No problem.  We will be hosting a webinar on the same topic on Thursday, October 1. For your convenience, we will be presenting at 2 different times: 8:00 am MT/ 2:00 pm UTC as well as 5:00 pm MT/ 11:00 pm UTC. Brian Rubow, principal engineer,will discuss common quality issues and performance challenges for PV 2 Standard implementation. The paper being presented at PV SEC will be made available to all webinar registrants.