Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

James Amano of SEMI, in the October 2014 SEMI Standards Watch, announced a new Automation Technology Committee whose mission is to bring together automation standards for the semiconductor, PV, HB-LED, and other related industries. The first chapters will be in Europe and Japan.

The new committee replaces the PV Automation Committee. That committee developed standards based upon the SECS/GEM standards were used by the photovoltaic equipment industry. Interestingly enough, programmable logic controller (PLC) manufacturers are now considering using those standards because they are general enough to support flow-oriented manufacturing in other industries.

Previously, different industry segments such as PV, FPD, and HB-LED addressed their automation requirements in separate committees. Now, the new committee will combine interests and resources into a single group.

If you are attending SEMICON West in San Francisco, and you are interested in learning more about the SEMI PV2 equipment communication standard, consider one of the events presented by the PVGroup and SEMI. 

The Standards Technical Education Program (STEP): PV2 - Guide for PV Equipment Communication Interfaces (PVECI), held at the San Francisco Moscone Center, Tuesday, July 10, 2012, from 1:00PM to 5:00PM (PDT) provides background information on the standard and technical explanations of GEM and PV2 (PVECI). Cimetrix personnel will be on hand to present at the workshop.

The course will explore the content, usage, and benefits of the PV2 communications standard and associated SEMI guidelines, and discuss how the PV2 standard can help make the solar power industry more competitive amid consolidation of suppliers and other recent trends.

The workshop will provide:

• Introduction and background of PV2 development

• Brief history of SEMI communications standards

• GEM concepts

• PV2 Messages

• PV2 Applications

• Implementation of the PV2 standard

Attendees will learn the rationale and context of PV2, understand the set of SEMI Standards involved, and how PV2 is applied to host communications for PV equipment. If you are an engineer designing equipment for solar panel production, or if you are a field service engineer working with solar companies, or if you are a manager, process engineer,  equipment buyer, or software engineer, you should take a look at how the program can give you insights and understanding that will help you in your current assignment.

by Rob Schreck
Marketing Manager

As we gear up for SEMICON West, we are encouraged by some good news in the industry after enduring the bleak news of autumn and winter. SEMI reports the North American semiconductor capital equipment industry book-to-bill was over 1.0 in February and March of this year (see Semiconductor Equipment Industry Book-to-Bill), and the PV equipment book-to-bill ratio is starting back up (see PV Manufacturing Equipment Book-to-Bill Increases from Record Low). With the good news comes more companies developing new equipment, drawing more attention to SEMI standards such as SECS/GEM and PV2 (PVECI).

Understanding the SEMI SECS/GEM and PV2 standards, and the impact to their product roadmaps, might seem a little daunting for many equipment suppliers. We have updated a white paper to provide some background, called Introduction to the SEMI Standards: Implementing GEM and PV2.

This paper highlights key elements and issues associated with GEM software projects to help guide users toward a successful implementation.

A GEM (E30) interface is implemented by the equipment manufacturer to enable the equipment and factory software (a.k.a. “host”) to communicate using SECS-II (E5) messages via Ethernet.

GEM standard compliance consists of fundamental requirements and additional capabilities, and compliance is only required for the equipment interface, not for the factory host software. Companies scale the GEM standard implementations to match the complexity of the equipment and the needs of the factory host software.

The GEM fundamental requirements include establishing communication with the factory host software, implementing a processing state machine, event notification, protocol error messages, and a GEM implementation document. Here is an example of such a document, and you can find a GEM compliance check list at Are You GEM Compliant?

GEM Compliance Statement

Much like how the GEM standard is a subset of the SECS-II standard with additional required features, the PV2 standard is a subset of the GEM standard with additional required features, which include:

• The required format to use for data items in the SECS-II messages
• A specific list of variables, equipment constants, and collection events
• A subset of SECS-II messages
• An implementation of SEMI E10 to report equipment states related to reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM)
• An implementation of the Network Time Protocol (NTP)
• A statement of PV2 compliance

These PV2 requirements should make PV2-compliant equipment even easier than GEM to integrate with the factory host software.

by Rob Schreck
Marketing Manager

In March 2012, SEMI released a policy white paper that discusses the state of the photovoltaic (PV) solar industry in the United States and recommends actions the U.S. government should take to increase the manufacturing output and employment in the photovoltaic industry. The basis for the discussion is that the SEMI PV Group believes that solar is at the beginning of a long growth cycle.

Indeed, it is easy to understand the huge growth potential for solar. First, there is a rapid decline in the cost of generating solar power, as the paper explains (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

This cost decline is one factor in the rapid increase in demand forecasted by the International Energy Agency (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Second, the U.S. and many other countries are seeking alternatives to petroleum as a primary energy source. As Bettina Weiss, executive director, SEMI Photovoltaics Business Unit, stated in the announcement of the white paper “Despite a significant contraction in the global PV market this year, solar is at the beginning of long-term growth cycle and will be a major contributor to energy independence and help the U.S. to break from its reliance on fossil fuels.”  

We at Cimetrix are seeing an increased interest in the PV2 standard. Companies want to know how they should use the interface standard as they develop new equipment for the solar industry. We have updated our Cimetrix Introduction to SEMI Standards: PV2 (PVECI) white paper to provide a tutorial for anyone who wants to know more about the standard. 

xby David Francis
Product Manager, Connectivity Products

Back in the 1990s, Joe Diffie released an album titled “Third Rock from the Sun.”  I have to admit I liked the title song, especially the chorus:

“Cause and effect, chain of events
All of the chaos makes perfect sense
When you're spinning round
Things come undone
Welcome to Earth 3rd rock from the Sun.”

At the time, I was working with Motorola in Austin developing host-side cell control applications for one of their new fabs.  Motorola had implemented some rudimentary equipment control and data collection in their older fabs, but the standards were loosely defined at that time and the equipment interfaces were inconsistent. We realized we could not replicate the work implemented in the old fabs into the new fabs, yet we did not have solid standards to use for the new fabs.  As the song said, we were “spinning round” in this chaos.

What eventually drove more clarification in the GEM/GEM300 standards was the industry-wide push to move to fully automated 300mm IC manufacturing.  The larger wafers offer much greater productivity and throughput, with significantly lower cost per die, and SEMI wanted to ensure the industry had a well-understood and approved interface standard for the equipment used to manufacture semiconductors on these much larger wafers.  Those new standards made it easier and more cost effective to create the host-side cell control applications.  Now the chaos started to “make perfect sense.”

Embracing the GEM/GEM300 standards allowed IC manufacturers to purchase standard software components to analyze manufacturing processes and identify opportunities to increase productivity.  In other words, they wanted to bring order to all the chaos.  The alternative – developing their own data analysis applications for each fab – would have been very expensive and time consuming.  SEMI brought order to the scene by offering the GEM/GEM300 standards that all the equipment vendors and fabs could use.  Now OEMs could develop equipment needed for automated wafer processing with the confidence fabs could install the machines and link them to their networks.  Fabs could increase throughput and drive down cost per die, and, just as important, gather data necessary to increase manufacturing efficiencies even more.

Fast forward twenty years, and we see a very similar situation, this time caused by the impressive growth in Photovoltaic cell and LED manufacturing.  The fabs in those industries need more advanced equipment to increase throughput and drive down unit costs in order to meet demand.  However, up to this date, both sectors are reluctant to adopt the GEM standards.  They are concerned those standards may be too big and complex for their processes, which are simpler than the current state-of-the-art semiconductor fab processes.  Once again, we see the chaos that occurs with explosive growth and companies seeking a solution to bring order to their processes.

Since I’ve seen this story before - and heard the music played time and time again - I know that adopting communication standards will help PV and LED manufacturers continue their drive to reduce unit costs and drive demand.  The effort is underway in the PV sector with the PV2 standard.  The LED sector should also look to adopt existing standards, or do what the PV sector has done and develop their own standards.  Either way, we know that standards help all the “chaos make perfect sense.”

by Peggy Faulkner,
Assistant Controller

"Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists. So what am I? I guess I would call myself a sober optimist...If you are not sober about the scale of the challenge, then you are not paying attention. But if you are not an optimist, you have no chance of generating the kind of mass movement needed to achieve the needed scale."
— Thomas L. Friedman, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America”

Thomas Friedman, renowned New York Times columnist, author, and public speaker has been speaking and writing about the imperative need for American transition toward green energy for some time. His profound belief in superior American ingenuity and innovation, coupled with the rapidly growing world appetite for energy, is the potent recipe which should be directing our creative and practical energies toward a shift in US mentality that is not only good for our collective health, but also spells opportunity.

Photovoltaic production has been doubling every two years, increasing by an average of 48 percent each year since 2002, making it the world’s fastest-growing energy technology. The market research firm Gartner forecasts a 27% increase in semiconductor manufacturing in 2010, and a 35% increase in PV installations, even with the reduction of feed-in tariffs by the government in Germany, the world’s largest manufacturer of PV equipment.

Yet, as a developing industry, the PV arena has been evolving, and will continue to do so. Cimetrix has been involved in global efforts to define PV Standards through the PV-EIS Task Force since its inception in 2007. Standards were approved and published in June 2009, and Cimetrix engineers are uniquely qualified to understand and implement these standards as our PV customers adopt them.

All this bodes well for business, certainly in the short term. But another picture also emerges—one with cleaner air to breathe, fewer creatures futilely struggling to shed the oily coat imprisoning them, fewer distraught families hoping against dimming hope to see a loved one emerging from the mines, or watching fewer news images of the defeat and panic in the eyes of those who have lost their livelihood. Renewable energy sources can and will be a win-win for society and business alike. I, too, am an optimist. I know I’m on a winning team.