Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

IPC Apex Expo is one of the largest gathering of professionals from the printed circuit board and electronics manufacturing industry (EMS). Attendees and exhibitors come from around the world to participate in the expo, the technical conferences and Standards Development meetings. This is the third year in a row that Cimetrix has exhibited at the IPC Apex conference.Cimetrix features the latest in Smart Factory and Equipment Connectivity technology. For the show this year, we chose to upgrade our booth space, allowing us to have more meeting room within the booth as well as several prominent demo stations in each corner. We also featured a popular Virtual Reality station in our booth. We brought a great team of ten to the show this year to staff the booth, give demo’s and greet the many attendees who stopped by throughout the 3 day expo.

We chose to participate in the popular Passport to Prizes game for the second year in a row. This sponsorship is a great tool to get the Cimetrix name out in the industry. It also brings in many attendees to our booth for some great conversations about our products and services.

We also had to opportunity for the Cimetrix Vice-President and General Manager of Smart Factory Business, Ranjan Chatterjee, to be interviewed by SCOOP TV both one-on-one and as part of a larger panel discussion. You can view Ranjan's one-on-one interview in the Cimetrix Resource Center.

To learn more about our products or services, you can schedule a meeting any time. 

IPC Apex is next week, and we hope to see you in Sunny San Diego! This year we’ve upgraded our booth and you can find us exhibiting at #2801.  We will be participating in the exciting Passport to Prizes program so be sure to look us up so you are eligible for some excellent giveaways!

IPC Apex is the largest event for electronics manufacturing in North America. You’ll find exhibitors and attendees from around the world come to participate in standards development, a technical conference and professional development. It’s a great place to network and we’re excited to build new relationships as well as meet with current clients!This year, we are partnering with BTU to demonstrate equipment connectivity and real-time OEE (Overall equipment Effectiveness) metrics, so be sure to stop by our booth  (#2801) or the BTU booth in the Smart Manufacturing area.

 The show starts Tuesday, January 29 and goes through Thursday January 31 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 Equipment and Smart Factory goals, please stop by booth #2801 during the show. You can also request a meeting any time on our website. We look forward to seeing you there!

We introduced the Giga Factory Minute concept last year to highlight the impact that standards have in orchestrating the entire manufacturing process, from releasing unpatterned wafers into the line (1:00 on the figure) to the shipment of good die to the downstream assembly/test facilities (12:00). This year, we’ll use this same diagram to identify important industry trends, technologies, events, or other items of interest to our subscribers. Since there are 12 “hours” on the diagram, watch for a posting every month related to the topic in that segment.

January 2019

Since this is January, we’ll focus on the more general topic of electronics manufacturing product materials, of which “wafer starts” is the specific material type that begins the 4-month journey through the wafer fab.

In the early days of the automated factory industry, there were only a few material form factors to deal with… even when you go all the way back to the raw silicon and forward to the finished electronic product. (You can see most of these on the “Sand to Systems” infographic here.)
However, now that semiconductors have found their way into virtually every major industry on the planet, from computers to entertainment to transportation to agriculture to wearables and even to “ingestibles,” the automated material handling challenges across this product diversity have exploded. And it’s only going to get worse.

You may not be responsible for handling exotic material types anytime soon, but understanding the role that equipment connectivity standards can have at the earliest steps in a Smart Manufacturing process is useful nevertheless. Give us a call if you’d like to know more about how these technologies can benefit your operations. 

Read now in Korean or below in English.

씨메트릭스는 이번 2019 년 SEMICON Korea전시회에서 귀사와 만날 수 있기를 바랍니다! 올해 우리는 부스 # C818에서 우리의 파트너인 링크제니시스와 공동으로 전시합니다. 전시회는 1 월 23 일부터 25 일까지 서울 코엑스에서 개최됩니다. 씨메트릭스는 장비 자동화와 통신 소프트웨어 관련 최고 기업으로서 한국뿐 아니라 글로벌 시장에서 동반자로 같이 일할 수 있는 여러분들을 만나고자 합니다.SEMICON Korea는 1987 년에 시작되어 대한민국의 반도체 산업가 그 성장을 같이 해왔습니다. 이번 전시회에서도 반도체 소재 및 장비의 모든 최신 기술을 선보일 예정입니다. 특별 프로그램 중에는 인공 지능 정상 회의 (AI Summit), AI 관련 새로이 창출된 기회를 진단해 볼 수 있는 자리와 반도체 업계 입장에서 인공 지능과 자동차의 부상에 따르는 시장을 이해하는 데 도움이되는 세미나, 차세대 혁신가들을 끌어 들이기위한 Workforce Development Seminar등이 있습니다. Smart Manufacturing 포럼은 우리 업계에 일어나고 있는 큰 변화와 커다란 기회에 대하여 모두가 함께 일하면서 무엇이 효과적이며 다음에 필요한 것이 무엇인지를 논할 예정이여서 많은 분들에게 인기가 있을 것으로 예상합니다.

씨메트릭스 제품이 여러분의 현안뿐 아니라 미래의 전략이나 Smart Manufacturing이라는 목표에 어떻게 도움이 될 수 있는지 자세히 알고 싶으시다면 전시회 기간 중 C818 부스를 방문하여 주시기 바랍니다. 웹 사이트를 통하여 언제든지 회의를 요청하실 수도 있습니다. 전시자에서 곧 봽기를 기대합니다! 

Cimetrix is heading to the 2019 SEMICON Korea show next week, and we hope to see many of you there! This year we are co-exhibiting with our partner Linkgenesis at booth #C818. The show will be at COEX in Seoul from January 23 – 25. We look forward to meeting with clients, prospects and colleagues to discuss new opportunities.

SEMICON Korea launched in 1987 and has been bolstered by the growing semiconductor industry in Korea. This exhibition will showcase all the latest technology in semiconductor materials and equipment. Some of the special programs include an AI Summit, examining new opportunities with AI implications, a Market Seminar to aid in understanding the rise of AI and automotive in the  industry, and a Workforce Development Seminar, aimed at drawing the next generation of innovators to the industry. A Smart Manufacturing forum is going to be popular as there are big changes and big opportunities for our industry as we work together to share what’s working and what is needed next.

If you would like to learn more about how Cimetrix products can help with your Smart Equipment and Smart Factory goals, please stop by booth #C818 during the show. You can also request a meeting any time on our website. We look forward to seeing you there!

It's getting close to the end of 2018 and we thought it was a good time to look back over our year and think about the many things Cimetrix has done. We are really proud of our team, which spans the globe, their hard work and accomplishments throughout the year. 

Tradeshows and Events

Our team attended, presented and exhibited at more than 25 events this year. These events covered the U.S., Europe, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and more. SEMICON West was a flagship event for us, as we took a large team to support two distinct booth areas. These included SEMI’s inaugural Smart Manufacturing Pavilion, where both Alan Weber and Ranjan Chatterjee spoke. You can review this event in the following three blog posts:

SEMICON West Pre-show
Alan Weber's Smart Manufacturing Pavilion speech
Brian Rubow's SEMICON West SEMI Standards meetings wrap-up

SECS/GEM Series

One of our longest series was also one of our most popular ever! It covers the major features and benefits of the GEM standard. Each post was written by one of our engineers who is an expert in the topic. You can review the entire series or select a particular topic you are most interested in learning more about.

SECS/GEM Series

International Offices

Cimetrix has been extremely active this year, and one of the most exciting areas was the opening and/or expansion of several offices in Asia. In February we announced the opening of Shanghai, China office. This blog post is one of several bi-lingual posts we published during 2018 and was one of our most viewed. Learn more about our efforts in China now!

Cimetrix International, Inc., China; 矽美科国际有限公司，中国

Cimetrix Team Members

We have run a Meet Our Team series for over a year, and this is consistently one of our most viewed blog series. Everyone loves getting to know the faces behind the company, and we likewise enjoy introducing our team to the world. You can see all of our Meet Our Team posts at the link below and be sure to stay tuned, because our team is growing, and we will continue to introduce them in this series!

Meet Our Team blog series

And finally, we can't have a year-end wrap-up without our most popular blog of the year...

Gigafab Minute

In October of this year, Alan Weber, our Cimetrix V.P. of New Product Innovations introduced the world to the Gigafab Minute infographic. This blog was picked up and re-posted by SEMI and passed around by some of the most influential leaders in the semiconductor industry. If you haven't seen it yet, we'd encourage you to take a few minutes to read it and leave us your comments!

The Gigafab Minute and SEMI Standards: A Modern Miracle

Take a chance to peruse our posts and remember, you can always stay up-to-date by subscribing to our blog! 

シンメトリックスは、来週開催されるセミコンジャパン2018に向け、準備を進めています。今年も皆様にお会いできることを、楽しみにしております。Read now in Japanese or below in English.

今年弊社は、スマート・マニュファクチュアリング・エリアにブース（♯3493）を設置しており、弊社のスマート・マニュファクチュアリングのソリューション提案をご紹介しています。

また半導体産業エリアでは例年通り、長年弊社の代理店をお引き受け頂いておりますローツェ株式会社様（♯5507）、株式会社明電舎様（♯4626）と共同出展させていただいております。

今年もお客様、ソリューションをお探しの方々、また様々なパートナー様とお会いし、将来へ向けてのご協力のお話しをさせていただけることを、楽しみにしております。

SEMICON Japanが2018年に選んだテーマは、「今始まる成長と繁栄」（Dreams that Fuel Growth and Prosperity Start Here）です。日本は世界の半導体製造装置の3分の1、世界の半導体製造業界で使用されている材料の半分以上を供給しています。

SEMICON Japanは、日本と世界のエレクトロニクス製造サプライチェーン企業との関係をとりもつ素晴らしいイベントです。

SEMICON Japanには、スマート産業と半導体サプライチェーンを結ぶSMART Applications Zoneや、この関連産業界の新しい事業を紹介するイノベーションビレッジなど、いくつかの革新的な分野があります。また、世界的なネットワークを構築し、展示会を大いに盛り上げるパビリオンがいくつもあります。 

セミコン期間中に、ブースにお立ち寄り頂ければ、Cimetrix製品がスマートマニュファクチャリングにどのようにお役に立てるか、ご相談させて頂けると思います。またWEBミーティング等でもいつでもご相談頂けますので、お気軽にお申し付け下さい。会場でお会いできることを、楽しみにしております。

Cimetrix is gearing up for the 2018 SEMICON Japan show next week, and we hope to see many of you there! This year we will have a booth in the Smart Manufacturing Area (#3493) and we will also be co-exhibiting with Rorze (#5507) and Meiden (#4626) who have been our long-time distributors.  We look forward to meeting with clients, prospects and colleagues to discuss new opportunities.

The theme that SEMICON Japan has chosen for 2018 is “Dreams that Fuel Growth and Prosperity Start Here”. Japan supplies one third of the semiconductor manufacturing equipment and more than half of all the materials used by the global semiconductor manufacturing industry. As a result, SEMICON Japan is a great event to make connections with both the Japanese and global electronics manufacturing supply chain companies.

SEMICON Japan will feature several innovative areas including the SMART Applications Zone, which will connect SMART industries with the semiconductor supply chain, and an Innovation Village which is a place to showcase startups in this industry. There will also be several pavilions that generate a global networking energy and foster excitement for the show. 

If you would like to learn more about how Cimetrix products can help with your Smart Manufacturing goals, please stop by during the show. You can also request a meeting any time on our website. We look forward to seeing you there!

Clare Liu, a Cimetrix Solutions Engineer, goes over the pros and cons of choosing a commercial product for EDA/Interface A vs. building a solution from scratch. Read it now in Chinese, or below in English. 

本文的焦点是当许多半导体设备制造商面对他们那些最先进的客户提出的自动化需求时，如何在购买支持EDA（Interface-A）标准的软件产品，或者自主开发之间做出决策。

鉴于我本人在今年初加入Cimtrix之前，曾经在一家半导体装备公司里担任EDA标准实现项目的主要开发人员，我想解释说明一下选择商业解决方案的利与弊。

• 利

1. 经验

在半导体制造设备上实现EDA要求软件开发人员具有半导体行业标准（SEMI）和半导体设备的经验。这对大多数设备供应商来说是非常困难的。即使他们已经拥有良好的软件开发人员,经验丰富的工厂自动化工程师和一个完整的硬件设计团队,他们还是需要有效的共同协作,找出如何设计一个结构良好的设备模型(SEMIE120 CEM 通用设备模型规范)并将设备所有的变量、时间和报警映射到设备模型的各个节点上（SEMI E125 EqSD设备自我描述规范）。 一个商业的EDA解决方案能够同时为OEM提供这些知识，并且可以基于该设备，提供EDA开发过程的指导方针。

2. 验收

简单地实现EDA接口功能和正确有效地实现的结果是不一样的。我从中得到的教训之一是，我们花了几乎整整一年的时间来实现EDA Freeze I的各种功能，并为测试的需要开发了客户端软件。然而，当我们将我们的EDA解决方案发布给客户工厂时，他们使用权威的第三方测试软件产品对所有设备的EDA解决方案进行了验证。我们的实现最初没有通过验收，因为我们对EDA标准的理解与客户的理解有些差异。为此我们花了很长时间来逐一解决验收中遇到的问题。商业的EDA解决方案通常已经在许多工厂得到了验证，因此更加标准化。

3. 时机

一个商业的EDA解决方案可以帮助OEM在短时间内开发出合格的EDA接口。自主开发EDA会给本已紧张的交付进度增加时间压力，如果需求来自一个新客户，第一个支持EDA标准的设备供应商通常会更有优势。在业务方面，EDA功能很有可能是获得订单的关键。在技术方面，第一个EDA的使用会成为整个Fab的范例，可以被用来制定其他设备在生产环境中必须满足的操作要求。

4．服务

使用商业EDA解决方案通常包括来自软件供应商的良好的技术支持，这些技术支持可能包含在最初的许可证费用中，或者是单独的技术支持合同。这意味着OEM公司不需要维持一个专门的软件团队来维护和解决遇到的软件问题。相反，他们可以依靠更专业的支持团队，而不用担心任何内部开发人员离开公司所带来的影响。

5. 知识更新

由于很多改进得到认同，还有很多新的技术在关键产品中的使用变得可行，半导体行业的EDA标准每年都在发生变化，在写这篇文章的时候，一个新的EDA标准冻结版本Freeze III正在投票中。商业EDA解决方案通常会紧紧追随标准的发展，同时会不断根据其他工厂用户的请求增加新的功能。这使得OEM能够快速、可靠地响应客户的最新需求。

• 弊

1.成本

OEM必须为商业软件的许可证，以及可能的、每年的技术支持支付费用。

2.知识产权(IP)

一些OEM公司为了对EDA功能的源代码有完全的控制权和所有权，他们选择自主开发并拥有这些软件，其原因是大多数商业软件包通常不会为基本许可证的使用者提供源代码。

3.修复错误的时间

如果在商业软件包中发现错误，设备工程师甚至工厂客户可能需要帮助软件供应商找到根本原因。他们还必须等待供应商修复并发布新版本的软件。这对于使用者来说非常不方便。

如果您的公司正面临这样的决定，请联系我们——我们很乐意分享我们的专业知识和市场知识，并协助您做出明智的决定。

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The focus of this blog posting is the decision that many semiconductor manufacturing equipment suppliers face when deciding how to address the automation requirements of their most advanced customers, namely, whether or not to buy a commercial software package that supports the SEMI Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA / Interface A) Standards, or to develop this capability in-house.

I am especially qualified to explain the pros and cons of choosing a commercial solution, having worked as the EDA standards implementation lead developer in an equipment supplier before joining the Cimetrix team earlier this year.

• Pros

1. Experience

Implementing EDA on a single unit of semiconductor manufacturing equipment requires that the software developers have experience with both SEMI Standards and the equipment. This is very difficult for most equipment suppliers. Even if they have good software developers, experienced factory automation engineers and a complete hardware design team, they must still work together efficiently to figure out how to design a well-structured equipment model (SEMI E120 CEM) and map all the equipment variables, events and alarm to the CEM nodes (SEMI E125 Equipment Self-Description).  A commercial EDA package provides all this knowledge for the OEM and guidelines explaining the EDA development process for their systems.

2. Qualifications

Simply being able to implement the EDA interface functions is not the same as implementing them in a robust fashion. One of my lessons learned is that we spent almost an entire year to implement the EDA Freeze I version of the standards and the client software required to test these functions. However, when we released the EDA interface to the factory customer, they qualified the EDA solution for all equipment modules with an authoritative third-party compliance testing software product. Our implementation failed at first because our understanding of the SEMI Standards specifications was different from the customer’s understanding. So we struggled for a long time to fix all the problems.  A commercial EDA package will necessarily have been proven in many sites and is therefore far more standardized.

3. Timing

A commercial EDA product can help the OEM develop a qualified EDA interface in a short time. Developing EDA in house adds time pressure to already tight delivery schedules, and if the requirements are coming from a new customer, the first equipment supplier supporting EDA standards may have an advantage. On the business side, EDA might be the key feature to get the order. On the technical side, the first usage may determine the approach used across the entire fab, thereby dictating operational requirements that the other equipment must meet in the production environment.

4. Service

Using a commercial EDA package normally includes good technical support from the software supplier; this may be covered in the initial license fee or as a separate support contract. This means the OEM company does not have to dedicate a large software team for maintenance and troubleshooting of software issues. Instead, they can rely on a professional support team, and not worry about what happens if any of the in-house developers leave the company.

5. Knowledge update

The SEMI EDA standards are changing every year as improvements are identified and new technologies become viable for mission-critical production usage. At this writing, a new Freeze III version is being balloted. A commercial EDA package will closely follow the standards as they evolve and provide new features according to the requests from other factory users. This enables OEMs to respond quickly and reliably to the latest feature requests from their customers.

• Cons

1. Cost

OEM must pay for the commercial package licenses and possibly for the annual support.

2. Intellectual Property (IP)

Some OEM companies want to have full control of the EDA interface source code, so they choose to develop and own the software by themselves. Most commercial packages don’t provide source code with a basic license.

3. Bug fixing lead time

If bugs are found in the commercial package, the equipment engineers and perhaps even the factory customers may need to help the software supplier find the root cause. And they must also wait for the supplier to fix and release a new version of the software. This can be quite inconvenient.

If this is a decision your company is facing, get in touch with us – we’re happy to share our expertise and market knowledge and help you make a well-informed decision.

You also might be interested in the following information:

SEMICON Europa ist mittlerweile eines der größten europäischen Events der Elektronikindustrie: Werden wir Sie dort sehen? Read now in German, or below in English.

SEMICON Europa wird bereits zum zweiten Mal zusammen mit der Productronica bzw. Electronica auf dem Münchener Messegelände veranstaltet. Wir bei Cimetrix freuen uns, wieder – gemeinsam mit anderen in der Halbleiterindustrie – in der SEMICON Europa Halle auszustellen.

Nach einigen Jahren schwindenden Besucheraufkommens, wirkte die Veranstaltung im vergangenen Jahr deutlich wiederbelebt. Wir hoffen, dass wir diese Begeisterung auf der Show 2018 erneut erleben werden. SEMICON zieht traditionell ein einflussreiches Publikum aus allen Bereichen der Mikroelektronikindustrie an, und kombiniert mit einer zweiten Messe (Electronica) am selben Standort, wird sie zu einer der größten globalen Elektronikmessen. Dementsprechend gehen wir davon aus, dass SEMI auf der von SEMICON West geschaffenen Dynamik aufbauen wird, um führende Unternehmen aus der gesamten Lieferkette für die Produktion zu erreichen, da der Schwerpunkt auf Smart Manufacturing weiterwächst.

Während dieser 4-tägigen Messe werden wir SEMI Board Meetings, SEMI Standards Meetings, Smart Manufacturing Sessions und vieles mehr erleben. Alan Weber, unser Vizepräsident für Neue Produktinnovationen, wird am Mittwoch, den 14. November, von 11:00 - 111:15 Uhr auf einer dieser Sitzungen in der TechLOUNGE (Show Floor Hall A4) "Making Smart Manufacturing Work" vorstellen. Unser Team freut sich, mit Kunden, Interessenten und Kollegen zusammenzutreffen und neue Möglichkeiten zu diskutieren.

Wenn Sie mehr darüber erfahren möchten, wie Cimetrix-Produkte bei Ihren Smart-Manufacturing-Zielen helfen können, besuchen Sie unseren Stand A4635 während der Messe. Sie können jederzeit einen Termin auf unserer Events-Seite vereinbaren. Wir freuen uns darauf, Sie dort zu sehen!

SEMICON Europa  is now in its second year as a co-located event with either Productronica or Electronica in the Messe München exposition center in Munich, Germany. Cimetrix is pleased to once again be exhibiting in the SEMICON Europa hall with others in the semiconductor industry.

After several years of dwindling attendance, this event felt distinctly revitalized last year, and we hope to see that excitement once again at the 2018 show. SEMICON traditionally attracts an influential audience from every sector of the microelectronics industry, and with a second trade fair (Electronica) at the same site, it is becoming one of the largest global electronics shows. Accordingly, we fully anticipate that SEMI will build on the momentum it established at SEMICON West to bring in leaders from the entire manufacturing supply chain as the emphasis on Smart Manufacturing continues to grow.

During this 4-day trade fair, we'll see SEMI board meetings, SEMI Standards meetings, Smart Manufacturing sessions and so much more. Alan Weber, our VP of New Product Innovations, will present “Making Smart Manufacturing Work” at one of these sessions in the TechLOUNGE (Show Floor Hall A4) on Wednesday, November 14, from 11:00 – 111:15. Our team is excited to participate, to meet with clients, prospects, and colleagues, and to discuss new opportunities.

If you would like to learn more about how Cimetrix products can help with your Smart Manufacturing goals, please stop by our booth A4635 during the show. You can also request a meeting any time on our Events page. We look forward to seeing you there!

In this final article of the “EDA Application and Benefits” series we discuss an application that is one of the most basic and intuitive, but also provides the foundation for the many of the emerging capabilities in the machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) domain—trace data analysis. Moreover, of all the applications we’ve introduced over the past 6 months, trace data analysis is the one that most directly leverages the capabilities of the SEMI Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA) standards. 

Problem Statement

When we ask fab process engineers and their supporting automation teams why they are now requiring the latest SEMI EDA/Interface A standards on their new equipment, the answer we hear most often is “To better understand equipment and process behavior.” And when asked why this cannot be achieved using the SECS/GEM interfaces, the answers are equally consistent: “The detailed information we need is either unavailable or cannot be collected at the frequencies we need to accurately see and characterize the behaviors we are interested in. And even if this were possible, we don’t have the operational freedom to change our data collection systems as quickly as our needs change, so we must have a more flexible approach.” 

What these engineers are looking for as a starting point is a way to easily specify a list of potentially related equipment parameters and collect their values at a rate that is fast enough to see how they are changing in relationship to one another. Human beings are wonderful at pattern recognition, and simply being able to juxtapose a set of signals on a “strip chart” display (see first figure below) can yield important insights into the underlying process. Of course, this capability is most useful when the engineer can precisely specify the timeframe of interest for this visual analysis. This is sometimes called data “framing” and can be accomplished by using equipment events to bracket the period of interest (see second figure below).

While humans may be good at pattern recognition, they quickly get overwhelmed when the number of parameters to view grows and/or the timespan to consider expands… which is where trace data analysis software enters the picture.

Solution Components

In addition to very flexible time-series data visualization tools, trace data analysis software packages must be able to “slice and dice” subsets of large data sets to compare every imaginable combination of equipment instance, process chamber, product, layer, recipe, fixture, consumable batch, shift, operator, … (you get the picture) to look for correlations between important factory metrics and the behavior of the equipment involved. Moreover, they must be able to identify and flag “abnormal” (which must be flexibly defined) situations for further analysis, since these may hold clues about incipient failures that traditional multivariate FDC (fault detection and classification) applications may not catch.

In fact, there is an emerging school of thought for fault detection that states “most of the time, the equipment is making good wafers, so unless there’s something very different about the tool behavior between the most recent lots and the current lot (as determined through trace data analysis), it’s very likely that the current lot is good as well.” This simplified approach has also been called “model-less FDC” because it mostly compares trace data signals rather than passing tool parameters into highly context-specific multivariate statistics-based models.

Of course, any trace data analysis application is only as good as the data that feeds it… which is where the EDA standards and the related equipment purchase specifications come into the picture.

EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) Standards Leverage

Previous postings such as Episode 4 on Fault Detection and Classification and Precision Data Framing during Process Execution – Tricks of the Trade have highlighted the capabilities of the Freeze II EDA standards related to Data Collection Plans (DCPs) and the Trace Requests, Event Requests, and Exception Requests that comprise them. We have also highlighted the need for broad stakeholder involvement when creating the EDA section of an equipment purchase specification and described the process we’ve crafted to accomplish this.

However, to fully support a world-class trace data analysis application, it’s important to understand what to ask of the equipment suppliers. To this end, we’ve excerpted some key sample requirements from a typical purchase specification below.

• Equipment Model Content (SEMI E120, E125, E164)
  
  
  • The hierarchical depth of the metadata model should include at least the “field replaceable unit” (FRU) level, and one of two levels below this for complex sub-systems.
  • The metadata model must contain command and status information for all equipment components that affect material movement. This includes not only material transfer elements such as robot arms, but also devices that may inhibit/enable material movement, such as gate valves, interlocks, etc.
  • The metadata model must include control parameters for all significant operating mechanisms and subsystems in the equipment. The control parameters may include but are not limited to: process variable setpoints and status values; control variable status values; PID tuning parameters, control limits, and calibration constants.
    
  • The metadata model must include whatever additional usage counters, timers, and other parameters that may be useful in time-based, usage-based, and condition-based maintenance scheduling algorithms.
    
  • The metadata model must contain parameters the describe consumption rates and levels for key process resources such as electricity, process gases, and other consumables. These are used in some of the FDC models to detect potentially abnormal process conditions.
  • Suppliers must provide a written description of the update rates, recommended sampling intervals, normal operating ranges and behaviors, and high/low/rate-of-change limits for all key process parameters.
  • Etc.
    
    
• Data Collection Capability (SEMI E134)
  
  
  • Equipment must include built-in DCPs to support common equipment performance monitoring, diagnostic, and maintenance processes that are well known to the supplier. Documentation for these DCPs must define their purpose, activation conditions, interface bandwidth consumed, and the types of analysis the collected data enables.
  • Equipment parameters provided through the EDA interface must exhibit a number of data quality characteristics, including, but not limited to: an internal sampling/update rate sufficient to represent the underlying signal accurately; timing of trace reports that is consistent with the sampling interval within +/- 1.0%; values in adjacent trace reports must contain then-current values at the specified sampling interval; and rejection of obvious outliers.
    
    
• Performance Requirements
  
  
  • Performance requirements will be expressed as combinations of sampling interval, # parameters per DCP, # of simultaneously active DCPs, group size, buffering interval, response time for ad hoc “one-shot” DCPs, maximum latency of event generation after the related equipment condition occurred, consistency of timestamps in trace reports with the specified sampling interval, and perhaps others.
  • Example: The EDA interface must be capable of reporting at least 5000 parameters at a sampling interval of 0.1 seconds (10Hz) with a Group Size of 1, for a total data collection capacity (bandwidth) of 50,000 parameters per second. It must also support simultaneous data collection from at least 5 clients while still achieving a total bandwidth of 50,000 parameters per second; Group Sizes greater than 1 may be used to achieve this level of performance.
  • Some equipment types may have more stringent performance requirements than others, depending on the criticality of timely and high-density data for the consuming applications.
    

KPIs Affected

Trace data analysis will undoubtedly take its place among the other “mission-critical” applications in today’s fabs because of the increasing process complexity and the need to maintain the traditional “time to yield” production ramp. This is especially true for the industry pioneers now using the latest EUV scanners, as there will be much to learn about this new technology in the coming years.

Let Us Hear from You!

If you want to understand how the latest EDA standards and trace data analysis can support your future manufacturing objectives, or how to make this a reality in your Smart Manufacturing roadmap, please schedule a meeting!

Michael Lee of Cimetrix Taiwan talks about the upcoming TPCA show. Read now in Chinese or below in English.

TPCA（台灣印刷電路板協會）2018展會即將到來，我們很高興能連續第二年參展！該展將於10月24日至26日在台北南港展覽中心舉行。 TPCA展會旨在實現智能製造，因為印刷電路板行業與上游和下游的價值鏈相連。預計今年展會將有400多家參展商。

TPCA展會匯集了PCB製造商，SMT設備製造商和測試人員，綠色環境設備和材料製造行業，熱模塊相關設備，包裝和表面處理。

Cimetrix很高興參與此次展會，我們將討論我們用於智能製造的創新軟件產品如何幫助設備製造商和工廠。

歡迎光臨我們的I-226展台，或隨時在我們的活動網頁上預約會議！

The TPCA (Taiwan Printed Circuit Board Association) 2018 show is almost here and Cimetrix is excited to be exhibiting for the second year in a row! The show will be held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center from October 24-26. One key theme of this year's TPCA show is the realization of Smart Manufacturing as the printed circuit board industry connects members of its value chain both upstream and downstream. More than 400 exhibitors are expected to be at the show this year.

The TPCA show brings together PCB manufacturers, SMT manufacturing and test equipment suppliers, Green environment equipment and material manufacturing industries, and suppliers of thermal-modules packaging and surface finishing equipment. 

Cimetrix is excited to be a part of this show, where we discuss how our innovative software products for Smart Manufacturing can help both the equipment suppliers and the PCB manufacturing companies

Come visit us at booth I-226 and/or request a meeting any time on our Events page!