Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

SEMICON Taiwan 2018 is just around the corner. Read the preview now in Chinese or below in English.

台灣半導體展在台灣微電子生產是一個非常重要的活動。矽美科即將在下週參加此半導體展。展期將由9/5 星期三至9/7星期五，在台北南港展覽館K2760 攤位。台灣半導體提供了一個很好的機會給公司及個人交流的平台，我們非常高興看到我們的客戶及新朋友分享我們的成長。

矽美科我們的 銷售和市場部副總裁 Dave Faulkner, 將會在9月7號禮拜五SEMICON TechXPOT演講。

若是你有經過我們的攤位K2760, 歡迎你跟我們的專家交流有關連線和相關的需求，我們會在現場做產品演練及介紹和告訴你們我們公司的簡介，你也可以預先來郵件預約，謝謝你。

SEMICON Taiwan is the premier event in Taiwan for microelectronics manufacturing and Cimetrix will be there next week! The show runs from Wednesday, September 5 through Friday, September 7, 2018 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. SEMICON Taiwan is always a great opportunity to connect with the companies and people in our industry and we are excited to see our clients, meet new people, and share the latest news of Cimetrix products and services with our Taiwan colleagues.

As the semiconductor and microelectronics manufacturing industries grow, SEMICON Taiwan continues to grow as well, both in the number of people who attend and in the number of exhibitors.   This year, Cimetrix will be exhibiting as part of the Smart Manufacturing & Automation Pavilion at Booth K2760. The Smart Manufacturing Pavilion is a great place to start to understand the entire manufacturing process including Front End, Back End and PCB Assembly. 

Cimetrix will also have an expert talk led by Dave Faulkner, Vice President Sales and Marketing, at the SEMICON TechXPOT on Friday, September 7, and we invite you to join us there.

On the same day, at the eMDC 2018 event in Hsinchu, our EDA expert, Alan Weber, will deliver a presentation titled Smart Manufacturing Stakeholders and Their Requirements.

Stop by our booth any time to talk to our experts about your specific connectivity and control needs. We will have onsite product demonstrations as well as information about our company available. You can also schedule in advance a time to meet with us at the show by filling out a quick form with your meeting request. 

It was nice to see so many familiar faces this past Friday, August 17, 2018 at our Annual Shareholders Meeting. The meeting was held at our headquarters in Salt Lake City, UT with over fifty-five percent of Cimetrix shareholders represented at the meeting. There was one proposal submitted by management to re-elect all five Directors, which was approved by shareholders with over 99% of the votes cast in favor of the proposal. We are grateful to have an incredibly talented and experienced Board of Directors who take their responsibility to represent the interests of shareholders very seriously. We are thankful our shareholders recognize and appreciate the value of our independent directors. 

After the formal shareholder meeting was adjourned, Dave Faulkner, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and Ranjan Chatterjee, Vice President and General Manager, Smart Factory Business Unit, gave presentations on the exciting growth initiatives underway at Cimetrix. Following their presentation, Bob Reback, President and CEO, provided his perspective on the state-of-the-company and outlook going forward. During these presentations and ensuing discussion, management shared that Cimetrix is seeing the results of its growth initiatives, as revenues for the first six months of 2018 were up over 24% year-over-year. In addition, during a discussion on the benefits of going private (which Cimetrix did at the end of 2014), management reported the benefits of going private exceeded its expectations and contributed to growing revenues at a CAGR over 18%, compared to the 6% CAGR as a public company from 2002 through 2013. Lastly, management reported that its balance sheet continues to get stronger, even as the company is able to make significant investments in its growth initiatives. The company continues to operate profitability on a quarterly basis, the company has no debt, and the company now has over $3M of cash.

We continue to be thankful for the support and enthusiasm demonstrated by our shareholders, the hard work of all our employees and the wisdom and guidance of our Board of Directors. Thank you for all your contributions to Cimetrix. 

Hwal Song of Cimetrix Korea talks about EDA/Interface A and Korean Equipment Makers. Read now in Korean or below in English.

Cimetrix Korea와 국내 파트너사인 링크제니시스는 EDA에 대한 세미나를 7 월 19 일에 개최했습니다. 삼성, SK 하이닉스를 포함한 글로벌 반도체 제조사들이 공정 장비의 추가 통신 프로토콜로 EDA를 채택함에 따라 EDA가 더욱 각광을 받게 되면서 개최한 세번째 세미나였습니다. 지금까지 200 명이 넘는 엔지니어가 이들 세미나에 참석하였으면, 이에 따라 한국에서의 EDA 연착륙이 진행 중입니다. 이들 세미나의 목적은 EDA의 이해부족로 오는 시행착오를 줄이고 첫번째 EDA구현을 가장 빠른 시간에 구현하기 위함입니다.

반도체 제조사의 EDA 채택은 차세대 분석 기능을 구현하고 딥러닝 및 머신 러닝 등과 같은 빅 데이터 및 AI의 새로운 기술을 수용하기 위한 주요 노력의 일환입니다. 대부분의 공정장비들이Freeze II 및 E164가 포함된 EDA 기능의 장착이 요구되거나 요구될 예정이여서,  Cimetrix Korea는EDA의 일반적인 개념뿐만 아니라 심도 있는 구현 방법론에 대한 이해를 위한 도움이 각 장비 제조사의 소프트웨어 엔지니어들에게 필요함을 인지하였습니다. 이러한 요구를 충족시키기 위해 다음과 같이 내용으로 세미나가 준비되었습니다.

• EDA관련 업계 동향 및 채택 현황 -  E164의 중요성 포함

• 반도체 제조사가 EDA 사양을 어떤 과정을 거쳐 준비하는가?

• 장비제조사의 소프트웨어팀 관점에서 EDA 구현의 모범 사례와 방법론

• 여러 장비제조사의 소프트웨어팀을 코칭한 컨설팅 및 지원 팀의 관점에서 EDA 구현 모범 사례와 방법론

• 구현중이거나 구현된 EDA 적합성 테스트의 모범 사례

활발한 토론과 Q&A를 통해서 한국의 장비 제조사들의 EDA에 대한 높은 관심을 엿볼 수있는 행사였습니다.

궁금한 점이 있으시면 언제든 연락주시기 바랍니다.

Cimetrix Korea and our local partner, Linkgenesis, held a seminar about SEMI EDA on July 19, the third one since 2016. EDA continues to gain momentum as global chip makers like Samsung and SK hynix have adopted EDA as an additional communication protocol for process tools. So far, over 200 engineers have attended these seminars, promoting the soft landing of EDA in Korea. Their goals include minimizing trial and error due to the lack of understanding on EDA, and speeding up the first deployment of EDA.

Adoption of EDA by chip makers is one of the major efforts for factories to implement their next-generation analytic capabilities and also embrace new technologies from big data and AI such as deep learning and machine learning. As most process tools are or will be required to ship with EDA capability, with Freeze II and E164, Cimetrix Korea recognized that Korean software engineers employed at equipment makers were looking for help in understanding in-depth deployment methodologies as well as understanding the general concept of EDA. In order to accommodate these needs, our seminars have been put together with following agenda:

• General industry trends of EDA and its adoption – the importance of E164
• How an EDA specification is put together by a chip maker
• Best practices & methodologies for implementation of EDA – from the perspective of a software team at a tool maker
• Best practices & methodologies for implementation of EDA – from the perspective of a consulting and support team who have coached many software teams in tool makers
• Testing best practices during and after EDA implementation

Active discussions and Q&A showed the high level of interest in EDA among Korean equipment makers. 

Please feel free to contact us whenever you have any questions.

Meet David Harrison, Quality Engineering Team Lead. Read on to learn a little bit more about David.

How long have you worked at Cimetrix?

I have been with Cimetrix for 1 year and 6 months.

Where did you go to school and what is your degree?

I graduated from the University of Utah School of Computing with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science in December of 2016.

What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

I was looking for positions to start after graduation and found Cimetrix through Glassdoor.com. The Company values and standards really resonated with me. I was excited to join an industry with so much growth and movement.

What do you like most about your job?

I look forward to coming to work every day on a great team of individuals and contributing to the development of products that affect millions of lives around the world.

What do you think it means to provide great Quality Engineering?

To build the quality into the product itself by working with the entire development team, from CT&S to Marketing, to deliver stable, reliable products to our customers, and build the quality of our team members as well through mentorship and collaboration.

What’s the biggest accomplishment you’ve had at Cimetrix?

Taking on roles of QE Team Lead and SCRUM Master when I hadn’t even been with the company for one year was a unique challenge and overcoming that challenge and building a great QE culture has been a big accomplishment. 

How do you deal with challenges that come up at work?

The biggest resource I have when I am confronted with a difficult challenge is my peers and colleagues.  I am fortunate to work with many people who have vast knowledge and experience.  Their willingness to take on challenges as a team makes challenges easy to deal with. 

What's something you’ve learned while working at Cimetrix?

Companies that live by their values and lead by example by practicing what they preach will draw success to them.

What’s your favorite vacation spot?

Anywhere there is a tropical beach. But if we are being specific, Kauai, HI.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I like home improvement, reading, hiking, spending time with family and friends, board games, painting, rock climbing, gardening, playing music, cooking, and video games.

During the SEMICON West exhibition in San Francisco this past week (July 9-10), the North American Information & Control Committee and its Task Forces met to continue SEMI standards development. Here is a brief summary of the proceedings.

The GEM 300 task force, in addition to reapproving E90, also approved minor title changes to the E39, E39.1, E40 and E40.1 standards. Each SEMI standard must be revised or reapproved to avoid becoming inactive. A few years ago, SEMI changed regulations that mandate that each standard declare its classification, such as a “guide” or “specification”. Since then the task force has been slowly correcting the titles. The E37.1 standard is in the middle of such classification, but has been riddled with reapproval complications due to minor concerns and some needed corrections in the standard. The ballot to make these corrections, 6349, failed for the second time at SEMICON West. The ballot will be slightly reworked and resubmitted for another round of voting. Another ballot, 6348 proposed to clean up the GEM E30 standard, to improve its readability and to bring the standard in conformance with current SEMI regulations and its current style guide. The forefront of the discussions was surrounding the confusing use of acronyms DVNAME, DVVAL, SVV and other such acronyms where the meaning and use of the acronyms was confusing to new readers. The 6348 ballot also failed, but hopefully the task force is progressing towards reaching an agreement. One major challenge is that ballot 6348 is a major revision ballot, where the entire specification is opened up for review and scrutiny, as opposed to line item ballots where only specific sections of a standard are modified.

Finally, and most exciting is ballot 6114B; a revision to the SECS-II E5 standard. The ballot proposed a set of new messages for transferring any large items between a host and equipment. Typically, one item in a message is limited to about 16.7 MB. The new messages are specifically targeting the transfer of equipment recipes, but the messages are written generic enough so that anything else can be transferred, too. The new messages support two styles of item transfer. Either the item can be transmitted in a single message, or broken into parts for transfer with the expectation to be concatenated by the recipient. Or the item can be transmitted in multiple messages, broken into parts with each part sent in a separate message and the same expectation to be concatenated by the recipient. An item is identified by its “type”, “id” and “version”. The messages are intended to resolve current issues with recipes where some equipment suppliers are using recipes that surpass 16.7 MB. And the messages open the door to be used by other SEMI standards and to be customized for specific applications. After passing this ballot, the task force intends to make the messages part of the GEM standard. Even though the ballot 6348 failed, the task force seems to have finally reached consensus on the message formats and continues to work out minor details.

The DDA Task Force continues to work on the next version of the Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA) standards. In the latest cycle of voting, changes were proposed to E138 (ballot 6336), E134 (ballot 6335) and E132 (ballot 6337). Although one part of E134 passed, most of E134 failed and the other ballots failed. All of the failed ballots will be reworked and resubmitted for voting. Additionally, during the task force meeting additional proposed changes were reviewed and discussed. The task force continues to make plans to move from HTTP 1.1 and SOAP/XML to HTTP 2.0 and Protocol Buffers. Specifically, the plan is to recommend using gRPC. Testing done to date indicated an 18 times performance improvement and significant bandwidth reduction. The task force also discussed changes to simplify the equipment model metadata handling. Finally, Cimetrix proposed the implementation of a new method of data sampling designed for higher data collection frequencies. The current trace data collection messages, while very effective for speeds up to maybe 80 Hz, become inefficient when trying to collect data at even faster rates. The concept is called a “cached data sample” where the equipment collects the data at a specified frequency and then reports the data in an array syntax. When using HTTP 2.0 and Protocol Buffers, this will be an especially efficient format expected to allow much higher frequencies.

The client specifies the data collection frequency as well as the reporting frequency. For example, a client might specify a frequency of 10 kHz and a reporting frequency of 1 s, where 10,000 data samples would be reported each second. Such proposal if accepted, combined with the faster Protocol Buffer, will open the door for a number of new data collection applications.

A lot of people are wondering when EDA freeze III will be done. Probably not until late next year. How soon this happens mostly depends on how efficiently task force members provide feedback on the ballot drafts.

Subscribe to our blog in the upper right corner of this page to be sure not to miss that or any of my future updates on the North American Information & Control Committee.

Cimetrix is here at SEMICON West 2018 and we're excited to be a part of the first Smart Manufacturing Pavilion in the South Hall. We hope you've been able to drop by and hear some of the great speeches including our own experts Alan Weber, VP New Product Innovations and our VP & GM Smart Factory Business Ranjan Chatterjee with Dan Gamota (VP Digital Engineering Services) at Jabil.

Alan Weber's presentation is now available online. The topic he chose is "Making Smart Manufacturing Work: The Stakeholder-driven Requirements Development Process".

An important maxim of performance management is “You get what you measure.” This is largely true whether you are talking about employees, organizations, processes, time management, sports teams, or – to highlight a current global industry topic – Smart Manufacturing.

The question now becomes “How DO the industry’s leading manufacturers ensure the equipment they buy will support their Smart Manufacturing objectives?” This presentation explains how the careabouts of key stakeholder groups are “translated” into specific equipment automation and communications interface requirements which can then be directly included in the equipment purchasing specifications. As more semiconductor manufacturing companies take this approach, effectively “raising the bar” for the entire industry, the collective capability of the equipment suppliers will increase in response, to everyone’s benefit.

Through several interviews with leading manufacturers over the past 18 months, we discovered that the best way to accomplish this is through a focused, interactive questionnaire process. By asking very specific questions about people’s daily tasks, problem areas, expectations, success criteria, and other items of constant concern, we can take a generic automation purchase specification outline and generate a complete, factory-specific set of automation and communications interface purchase specifications in a matter of days. This is time well-spent when you consider the value and volume of equipment potentially affected… and the opportunity cost of not having these requirements clearly expressed.

If the above discussion triggers the question “I wonder if our equipment automation purchase specs are sufficient to address the Smart Manufacturing challenges we’ll face in the next few years?” this presentation will interest you. Taking its lessons to heart may be the most important next step you take in formulating you own company’s Smart Manufacturing implementation roadmap.

Get Alan Weber's SEMICON West presentation now!

SEMICON West 2018 is fast approaching and the Cimetrix team is gearing up for a great show.  The show runs from July 10^th – 12^th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and we’re looking forward to meeting with all our present and future clients.

This year SEMICON West is unveiling the new Smart Manufacturing Pavilion to showcase the entire manufacturing process from silicon to systems, including Front End, Back End and PCB Assembly. Cimetrix is excited to announce that we are a sponsor and will be participating in the Smart Manufacturing Pavilion showcase, both as part of the Front End segment as well as in the PCB Assembly area.

The Smart Manufacturing Pavilion includes a “Meet the Experts Theater” featuring presentations from two of our own Cimetrix thought leaders.  Alan Weber will present “Making Smart Manufacturing Work: The Stakeholder-driven Requirements Development Process” on Wednesday, July 11^th at 11:00 am. This process has already been used successfully to support the significant growth of SEMI EDA standards usage in Asia, but is equally relevant for a wide range of related Smart Manufacturing technologies.

Later on Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 pm, Ranjan Chatterjee and Dan Gamota of Jabil will present “Convergence of Technologies and Standards Across the Semiconductor, SMT and OSAT Segments.” 

Cimetrix will be exhibiting at booth #1122 in the South Hall, just a short walk from the Smart Manufacturing Pavilion. Stop by our booth or find us at the Pavilion to talk to our experts about your specific needs. We will have onsite product demonstrations as well as information about our company available.  You can also schedule in advance a time to meet with us at the show by filling out a quick form with your meeting request.  

See you at SEMICON!

There are good jobs, and then there are great jobs.  Before joining Cimetrix, I had been happily working for nearly nine years at a decent-sized company, and I had no plans to leave any time soon.  But when an opportunity to work at Cimetrix presented itself, I was intrigued by the possibilities of working for a smaller company where my contributions would have a large impact.  After looking into Cimetrix  a bit more, I discovered a place focused on values, transparency, productivity and a fun company culture.  In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision to leave my good job and trade up for an even better one at Cimetrix. 

One of the things I appreciate most about Cimetrix is their commitment to transparency.  Upper management wants everyone to be involved in the vision and direction of the company.  To that end, we have monthly meetings where the current state of the company is made known, as well as the outlook for the future.  It seems that every year is a new banner year at Cimetrix.  This is a great time to be in the semiconductor industry.

In my time at Cimetrix, I’ve also had the opportunity to work with some great people.  My co-workers have been extremely knowledgeable and willing to help the newer employees without hesitation.  They are dedicated to their jobs and you can see the passion they have for their projects.

The company culture is another aspect that drew me to Cimetrix.  In my time here, I’ve seen costume contests and soup cook-offs.  I’ve played ping pong with managers, and video games with co-workers at lunch.  There are endless excuses to eat, and an endless of supply of soft drinks to wash down all the food.  Each year, the company hosts an annual party for employees to treat their families to a day of fun.  The benefits are great, and don’t forget about the ability to work from home 3 days a week.

All told, if you’re looking for a great place to work with a fun company culture, a focus on values and high employee involvement, then a job at Cimetrix is an opportunity you should not pass up.

To see all Cimetrix career opportunities, check out our Employment page!

The Quality Software Engineering team at Cimetrix is dedicated to delivering the highest quality software products to all Cimetrix customers. The QE team works closely with the development engineers to plan and build sound, testable solutions in an agile working environment. Through rigorous testing and creative problem solving, we advocate for and build quality into our products. We accomplish this with a determined team that works hard to uphold high standards of both software functionality, and software structure.

The QE team is built from a wide range of engineering backgrounds and experience, from recent graduates to those with 10+ years of experience. This variety of talent provides an array of viewpoints, input, testing styles and product intuition that are crucial to Cimetrix delivering the best software in a competitive market.

This week we meet Ryoko Fukushima, Quality Engineering Team Lead. Read on to learn a little bit more about Ryoko.

How long have you worked at Cimetrix?

I have been with Cimetrix for 12 years.

What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

I was looking for a career where I could use my computer science degree and Japanese/English bilingual skills.

What do you like most about your job?

I really like that it's a small company with tight-knit employees. I like being able to have an impact on the culture and direction of the company, something that was missing from the larger companies I've worked for. 

What do you think it means to provide great Quality Engineering?

It takes more time to do things right, but it is a good investment for future growth because of the level of quality built into our products. 

What’s the biggest accomplishment you’ve had at Cimetrix?

Having worked in several departments including Sales & Marketing, Client Training & Support, and our Engineering team, I'm now bringing that experience  into my new position as QE Team Lead to build quality processes and products. 

How do you deal with challenges that come up at work?

By using teamwork to discuss the issue and look for a solution. We're able to get different opinions and points of view across by sharing the challenge and solving the problem together. 

What's something you’ve learned while working at Cimetrix?

Agile programming. When I joined Cimetrix I didn't know anything about Agile, all my experience previously was with Waterfall programming. By utilizing Agile programming it's easier to introduce fixes and new features into our products quickly. 

What’s your favorite vacation spot?

Topaz Mountain in southern Utah. I love to go rockhounding and camping!

What do you like to do in your free time?

I really enjoy Olympic weightlifting. My personal record is a 50 kilo snatch and a 66 kilo clean and jerk, and I continue training in a local Olympic weightlifting club.  

Cimetrix participated in the recent European Advanced Process Control and Manufacturing (apc|m) Conference, along with over 160 control systems professionals across the European and global semiconductor manufacturing industry. The conference was held in Dresden, a beautiful city in the Saxony state of Germany which was the site of the original European conference in 2000 and host to this annual event many times since.

This conference, now in its 18th year and organized by Silicon Saxony, is one of only a few global events dedicated to the domain of semiconductor process control and directly supporting technologies. The participants represented all links in the semiconductor manufacturing value chain, from universities and research institutes to component, subsystem, and equipment suppliers to software product and services providers to semiconductor IDMs and foundries across a wide spectrum of device types to industry trade organizations – something for everyone. 

As usual, the conference was very well organized, and featured a wide range of high-quality presentations, keynote addresses, and tutorial sessions. 

Highlights of the conference included the following:

• “FDC to the power of 2 – how it got us to the next level of manufacturing excellence“ by Jan Räbiger of GLOBALFOUNDRIES – one of a number of long-time thought leaders in the development and application of APC technology, Jan described the latest phase of FDC system evolution, which includes broad use of the EDA/Interface A standards to zero in on recipe step-specific anomalies that had previously escaped detection.

• “Applying the Tenets of Industrie 4.0 / Smart Manufacturing to Microelectronics Next Generation Analytics and Applications“ by James Moyne (University of Michigan / Applied Materials) – James presented a very nice decomposition of the domain into 6 topic areas (Big Data Environment, Advanced Analytics and Applications, Supply Chain Integration, CPS/IIoT, Cloud Computing, Digital Twin) and explained our industry’s relative status and recommended actions in each. one of the conclusions from his very disciplined treatment of the topic is that “Smart Manufacturing is essentially a connectivity problem” – and we couldn’t agree more!

• “Lithography Control is Data Hungry” by Tom Hoogenboom of ASML – his illustration of just how precise litho metrology has become was brilliant: controlling exposure and registration at the 5nm node on a 300mm substrate is like moving your chair in the conference meeting room by 1 mm and having an airborne observer of a 300km diameter region know it happened!

Finally, as in many prior years, Cimetrix was privileged to present at this conference, as Alan Weber delivered a talk entitled “EDA Applications and Benefits for Smarter Manufacturing.” This presentation described the potential use of SEMI EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) standards to improve the performance and benefit of a range of manufacturing applications; it also included a specific ROI case study for the use of EDA in the all-important FDC (Fault Detection and Classification) application to reduce the false alarm rate and the severity of process excursions. If you want to know more, you can request to view a copy of the entire presentation.

However, it wasn’t all work and no play… The local sponsors, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Infineon, and XFAB, hosted the conference banquet at the picturesque Adam’s Gasthof in the nearby city of Moritzburg.

In addition to all the food and libation one could possibly consume, the participants were feted with a torchlight walking tour of the town and its iconic Moritzburg Castle. All in all, German hospitality and history at its best.  

The insights gained from these and the other 30+ presentations are too numerous to list here, but in aggregate, they provided an excellent reminder of how relevant semiconductor technology has become for our comfort, sustenance, safety, and overall quality of life.

This (apc|m) conference and its sister conference in the US are excellent venues to understand what manufacturers do with all the data they collect, so if this topic piques your interest, be sure to put these events on your calendar in the future. In the meantime, if you have questions about any of the above, or want to know how equipment connectivity and control fit into the overall Smart Manufacturing landscape, please contact us!