Our bodies are amazing machines. Ask a man off the street what they see when they look at someone, they will probably talk about skin, hair and eye color, height and weight and other external defining characteristics. Ask a doctor and they may see issues relating to what’s going on in the person’s organs and overall internal function. Ask a molecular biologist and they’ll talk about the chemical pathways that allow things to work at the cellular level. Much like our bodies, computer controlled systems are made up of many layers. Starting with electrons moving through conductive and semi-conductive materials, abstraction layer is added upon abstraction layer to create components, circuits, assemblies until finally a computer is created. In the same way layers of software control this computer from the BIOS up through layers in the operating systems and culminating in the application the user sees. Similar to the way doctors and biologists work at different levels of abstraction within their domains, we as engineers know about, work with and think about our system at various abstraction levels. However, the end user is like that man on the street, all they see are the external characteristics. Because of this, the operator interface is among the most important parts of the system.
SEMI established the E95 standard as general guidelines for screen layout of tool control software. CIMControlFramework (CCF) provides a standards conforming shell into which various screens may be added to create a complete operator interface. This allows the tool manufacturer to focus on the unique needs of their tool and have no worry about meeting the standard.
There are several general steps to create an operator interface using CCF:
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Decide on the technology. In the Windows desktop software world, there are two primary ways of developing a user interface: WinForms and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). CCF has historically supported the WinForms environment providing many fully functional WinForms screens. It has also supported WPF, but only provided a single example WPF screen. Cimetrix is in the process of updating WPF support and adding multiple fully functional WPF screens out of the box. Either environment may be used based on what the tool manufacturer’s developers deem appropriate.
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Establish the requirements. The purpose of the operator interface is for the tool to provide the operator with information about what it’s currently doing and for the operator to tell the tool what to do. Determining the correct way to do this can be one of the hardest parts of designing a user interface. This step is where the best level of abstraction is established. The user should have sufficient information to understand what’s happening without being overwhelmed by too much data. The user should also have enough control to do what needs to be done without having to worry about too many details. The analysis for this step is often done by multi-disciplinary teams using analog methods like whiteboards and pen and paper. Creating avatars for different types of users and then writing stories about what those users will want to do is a good way to help flesh out what’s needed by the operator interface.
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Evaluate pre-built screens against the requirements. Once the target is established, the screens provided by CCF can be examined for fitness. How well do they fit the target? Some screens may be close enough to the requirements to be used as is. Other screens may be close but require some tweaks to meet the specific needs. Finally, some screens may need to be built from components provided by CCF to satisfy the unique specifications of a particular tool.
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Assemble the screens into an application. Once a list of needed screens is created, the final step is to put everything together. This is generally the most time consuming part of building an operator interface. This phase is when any custom screens are built or modifications made to existing screens. Finally, all the screens, both custom and pre-built, are added to the framework provided by CCF. CCF has a number of labs to help understand how the various user interface components work together to provide a cohesive whole.
CCF provides the structure, pre-built screens and tools to assist in creating custom ones to give your tool a beautiful skin.
To learn more about CCF, visit the CIMControlFramework page on our website!
