Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

Yufeng Huang of Cimetrix talks about our China Office Opening. Read now in Chinese or English.

美国矽美科股份有限公司上海代表处成立于2017年8月，地址位于称为中国硅谷的上海张江高科技园区。公司总部（矽美科股份有限公司）创建于1987年，地址位于美国犹他州盐湖城。矽美科公司是一家为半导体行业、SMT行业、PCB行业、光伏行业、LED行业及相关行业的设备制造商和生产工厂提供产品和服务的软件公司。

矽美科公司有着非常良好的客户评价，公司不仅将自己视为客户的重要供应商，更加将自己视为客户值得信赖的合作伙伴。我们坚信有能力为客户提供全球最先进的基于SEMI标准的软件解决方案。

矽美科上海代表处为中国、台湾等亚太地区客户提供售前产品咨询，客户培训，售后技术支持服务。我很荣幸在今年8月份加入到矽美科上海代表处，在过去的几个月内我们不断收到老客户给予的好评和新客户的合作意向。感谢新老客户对公司的支持，我们将一如既往的为客户提供最优质的、高效的服务，希望我们的产品和服务能让您满足，并为您带来巨大的帮助。

In the introduction to this series posted December 19, 2017, we listed some of the manufacturing stakeholders whose work objectives are directly addressed by the applications we’ll highlight in subsequent postings. Before getting into the specific capabilities and benefits of these applications, however, it seemed appropriate and timely to share a little bit about the process that the leading EDA practitioners use to ensure the equipment they are purchasing will support these applications. “Appropriate” because you may need to review and update your own purchasing specifications to clearly convey your requirements in the areas that are not directly covered by the standards (like model content, performance, and stability); “timely” because we at Cimetrix have recently conducted a number of customer workshops and seminars in which this process was effectively used and refined.

Wow – what a great year for Cimetrix and exciting time for our industry!

The president and CEO of Applied Materials recently said, “This is the most exciting time in the history of the electronics industry.” The race is on for faster/better/cheaper devices, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, Big Data, artificial intelligence, the “Internet of Things” and more. This means the world needs not only a lot more computer chips, but also innovations in chip design, packaging and electronics assembly. The fast moving (and giant) electronics companies driving these trends are also pushing to get far more data from the factory floor to support their “Smart Manufacturing” and “Industry 4.0” initiatives.

2017 was a record setting year for Cimetrix. Revenues increased 34% year-over-year. The Company continued to operate profitably on a quarterly basis with operating income over 10% for the year. We invested heavily in R&D to pursue new technologies and products for long-term growth while strengthening our balance sheet with solid increases in cash and stockholders’ equity.

Going Forward

Cimetrix is uniquely positioned as the world leader in developing and using standards that connect manufacturing equipment to factory software systems. We are second to none in knowledge of “equipment connectivity” standards. We chair the relevant global standards committees, and are well known throughout the industry as experts in this vital domain. In addition, our products are used worldwide in hundreds of thousands of equipment connections. We recently expanded the Cimetrix team with some great new employees located around the world to better serve our growing international customer base, which now includes over 30 factories in Taiwan and China.

Based on what we see, the industries we serve will continue to expand their usage of equipment connectivity standards such as the Generic Equipment Model (GEM) to integrate more equipment into their factory systems, while the more advanced semiconductor manufacturers will accelerate their adoption of the latest Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA) connectivity standards.

While we are very bullish on the longer-term trends for our industry and Cimetrix, it is always a little difficult to forecast short-term results. For 2018, industry analysts are currently predicting a single-digit percentage increase in semiconductor capital equipment spending. While you might think we would be satisfied with another year like we had in 2017, we expect to perform better than the overall industry in 2018 for a number of reasons. First, the “design wins” we worked so hard to earn in prior years should lead to market share gains that result in higher percentages of equipment using Cimetrix software products. Second, we believe the adoption rate will accelerate for the newer EDA equipment connectivity standards, where Cimetrix products are the most proven and widely used in the industry. Lastly, we believe our reputation for providing the highest levels of technical support to customers worldwide, especially in the Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese markets, will enable us to continue winning new customers.

From all of us at Cimetrix, we thank our customers and shareholders for the faith and confidence they have placed in our products and our team. We will continue to strive for excellence in satisfying our worldwide base of customers and delighting them with innovative new products. 

Join us as we meet the Leadership Team of Cimetrix in our “Meet the Team” series.

Ranjan Chatterjee—Vice President & General Manager, Smart Factory Business—joined Cimetrix at the first of 2016. Previously he had worked as the General Manager for Motorola Solutions — Software Solutions from 2007 to 2015, and as the Manager — Automation Systems Business Unit at Motorola — Global Software Group. He originally started with Motorola Corporation in 1989. With over 25 years in the technology industry, Ranjan has a natural ability to identify market opportunities, define and create winning products and strategies, and formulate unique go-to-market software business models. He has degrees in Computer Science from both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

I started working with Cimetrix for PC-based open architecture machine control software products for factory automation when I was at Motorola. It evolved to co-developing and deploying communications products for factory automation across all of our factories worldwide with thousands of machines.

What's your favorite thing about working here?

We are creating software products and deploying capabilities at the most sophisticated and expensive factories in the world. We are participating and evolving the way electronic products are made worldwide. We are enabling thousands of machines to be connected and delighting hundreds of customers. We are punching above our weight. I am very proud of that.

What do you think makes a great VP and GM of the Smart Factory Business?

We have created a business to meet the needs of our customers by providing solutions that take advantage of the growing needs of our customers for solutions. Our customers are asking for collecting data, analyzing it and help in making decisions using analytical tools in a cost efficient manner. As leader of this business, I need to enable my team and the company to deliver this vision to delight our customers. This is a great opportunity to serve our customers.

Do you have a favorite quote or saying? Why?

I have a lot of quotes that I like depending on the context, mood and company. One quote that is applicable to this forum – “The only constant is change”. We need to be able to embrace change and be able to lead this momentum called Industry 4.0.

How do you deal with challenges that come up in your work life?

I like to Collect Data (listen to as many people as possible), Analyze (get feedback from as many people as possible) and Act. Sometimes a good nap helps also.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I like reading. I use most of my free time reading.

What's the best thing that's happened to you in your time working at Cimetrix?

I love robotics and software and working at Cimetrix helped me get back to doing both. The management and team at Cimetrix have an innate desire to be the best at both. The timing and desire to pursue both at Cimetrix is the best thing that has happened.

Learn more about our leadership team by clicking below:

Join us as we meet the Leadership Team of Cimetrix in our “Meet the Team” series.

Brian Rubow is the Director of Solutions Engineering for Cimetrix. He is well-known within the industry due to his involvement with the SEMI standards committees. He currently serves as the co-chairs for the North America Information and Control Committee, the North America GEM300 Task Force, and the North America DDA Task Force. Brian has Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree and a Master of Science in Manufacturing Engineering degree both from Brigham Young University.

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What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

I was actually still a student at BYU earning my Master's Degree and one of my professors was one of the founders of Cimetrix. He brought me in to do work in Robotics, which was the original direction of Cimetrix. I was really excited to join Cimetrix because Robotics was an area in which I enjoyed working.

What's your favorite thing about working here?

I enjoy working with customers. I find it fulfilling to see the problems they have and help to solve the issues. I also travel quite extensively to client sites and I like seeing all the different kinds of equipment and technology being used across the world.

What do you think makes a great Director of Solutions Engineering

First of all, I believe leaders should be as hands-on as possible with their team. I need to understand what my staff is working on in order to understand their needs and give them support as a manager. And all our Solutions Engineering staff are engineers who have to know how to use the products in order to be able to solve the various issues that may arise. The Cimetrix Support staff are all very knowledgeable and about the products, but they also have to know how to work and communicate with people around the world. 

Do you have a favorite quote/saying? Why?

I don’t have a favorite quote, but I am a daily reader of the comics Dilbert and Zits. I also loved Calvin and Hobbes, especially when I was younger.

How do you deal with challenges that come up in your work life?

I am very methodical when it comes to solving problems. I try to understand the problem first, which means I spend a lot of time listening to problems. A common tendency might be to throw out an answer before understanding the problem thoroughly, but I try to really understand the root of the problem before determining a path to solution. I find this saves time in the long run even if it takes a little longer to get to the solution at first.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I have quite a few hobbies I enjoy. I am a bee keeper (which is only sometimes fun!). I’m also a father of 8 children which keeps me very busy. My family enjoys playing board and card games together. My boys and I like to play games with a lot of strategy involved and we can be extremely competitive! I also enjoy cycling, listening to audio books and woodworking.

What's the best thing that's happened to you in your time working at Cimetrix?

I think it’s been fun representing our company in the Industry Standards groups I’ve been involved with throughout my years at Cimetrix. I have enjoyed playing an industry leadership role and helping bring about change that affects such a wider variety of companies and people.

Learn more about our leadership team by clicking below:

Can you think of a better place to spend time with customers and partners than Munich, Germany during Productronica and SEMICON Europa trade fairs? SEMICON Europa has had dwindling attendance in the past few years, even in a hot semiconductor market, so SEMI decided to combine with the robust Productronica for 2017.  It was a great decision.  This trade fair had 8 full and busy halls as a result; with high spirits from all attendees.  Four of the Productronica halls were dedicated to the SMT industry (Surface Mount Technology) which is part of what we call Electronics Assembly.  This industry is wrestling with moving to Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0.  What better way to learn than to have SEMICON Europa next door?  SEMICON Europa occupied 1.5 halls filled with many of our current customers. 

Cimetrix decided to place our booth in one of the four SMT halls because we have a lot to offer the SMT industry in their migration to Smart Manufacturing.  We had many visitors and discussions on how Cimetrix can help.  There are a variety of ways used in SMT to gather equipment data including older “one way” standards, GEM, and several proposed new standards and our 25+ year heritage in semiconductor equipment automation ideally positions Cimetrix to help customers think through these options.  We also brought extra staff to the show so we could spend time in the SEMICON Europa halls having scheduled meetings with our major European equipment suppliers and factories.  Several new opportunities were brought to our attention and updates/planning for 2018 were discussed. 

By far, the dominant theme at the show was Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing.  There were many excellent presentations in the Tech Arenas; and almost every booth had posters on the move to Smart Manufacturing.  Of note were presentations by Dr. Jan Rothe from GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Jorg Richstein from Jabil discussing their automation plans for SMART Manufacturing; and Dr. Martin Schellenberger from Fraunhofer with a comprehensive set of steps to help companies understand Smart Manufacturing and the steps to get there. 

As a company that focuses on helping manufacturers achieve their automation goals, it is hard not to come away from Munich excited about the next 5 years in electronics manufacturing. 

Over the past several months, we’ve highlighted the importance of explicit and standardized models in the context of equipment communications interfaces and some of the “smart” factory applications they support. The manufacturing stakeholders impacted by these applications run the gamut from process, equipment, maintenance, and industrial engineering to production operations to traceability regulatory compliance… yet these only scratch the surface.

The question you may be asking now is “So what?” or “What should I do with this information?” The answer to these important questions depends on your company and your role. 

For example, if you’re part of a semiconductor manufacturing enterprise in today’s market environment, you know that you can probably sell every good device you make, so there is intense pressure to simultaneously maximize product quality, volume, and [factory and engineering] productivity–a perfect storm. Since lead times for new equipment needed for capacity expansion are at all-time highs, this means getting as much as you can out of your existing facilities while waiting for new deliveries. New applications to monitor and improve these KPIs are being developed continuously, but the one thing they have in common is a reliance on detailed, high quality, easily accessible and interpretable equipment data.

For 300mm equipment with the latest generation of SEMI EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) interfaces, this means having “good” E120/E125/E164-compliant equipment metadata models as a foundation. On top of this foundation, however, the models must also include the specific parameters, events, state machines, and other items that fully describe the behavior of the equipment according to your unique manufacturing requirements… which can only be achieved by mapping these requirements into specific equipment model elements, and updating your purchase specifications to close whatever gaps you find between what is currently offered by the equipment suppliers and what you really need. Fortunately, we have been through this process a number of times, and can help clarify your manufacturing priorities and translate them directly into updated interface purchase specifications.

Admittedly, this may take some time, but remember that you always only get what you are willing to accept. It brings to mind the old adage: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second 

best time is today.” 

As another example, if you are part of the embedded control system development team of an equipment supplier, you can anticipate not only increasingly explicit model content requirements, but also more stringent performance and testing requirements for the standard EDA communications interface as your customers raise their reliance on this technology to realize manufacturing competitive differentiation. We at Cimetrix have seen this demand build over the past 18 months, and are well prepared to support you throughout the entire equipment development life cycle.

This article is the sixth and final in the series announced earlier this year in the Models in Smart Manufacturing blog series. From here, we’ll soon begin a new series on advanced EDA applications and benefits based on best practices of the industry leaders – be sure to watch for this early next year!

We look forward to your feedback and to sharing the Smart Manufacturing journey with you.

*The visualizations of equipment metadata model fragments are those produced by the Cimetrix ECCE Plus product (EDA Client Connection Emulator).

The SEMI North American Information & Control Committee meetings were held in Milpitas, CA at SEMI headquarters. The following activities might be important for Cimetrix customers and employees.

By far, the longest discussion was surrounding the biggest decision of all. Currently, the EDA standards are using HTTP/1.1 for message transfer and SOAP/XML for message body. This means that the EDA standards are text based. At the time of EDA development, this seemed to be the best internet technology for data collection. Today, HTTP/1.1 is out of date. More recently, advances have been made in internet technology for sharing data in a binary format. The biggest advantage of transferring data in a binary message format is message efficiency. A binary message generally will be about 15 to 20 times smaller than text based messaging. This means less load on the equipment that publishes EDA data, much less load on the network and less load on the subscribing EDA clients. Many alternatives were discussed including WebSockets, HTTP/2, and even HSMS. It was discussed whether to stick with a text based protocol and use compression or move to a binary protocol. Data was presented from a DDA Task Force member regarding a performance comparison between HTTP/1.1 with text messages (like EDA today), HTTP with binary messages, HTTP/2 with SSL, WebSockets with binary messages and WebSockets with SSL. The test results showed binary messaging to be allow 25 times more data collection than the current HTTP/1.1 technology. Ultimately, it was decided that moving to a binary protocol was the right strategic direction.

Another point of discussion was how to implement binary messaging. Google has developed the Protocol Buffer technology. Specifically, we looked at version 3 called “proto3” which defines a notation for establishing binary messages. They have also published open source code gRPC in various software programming languages that implement the binary encoding and decoding for the Protocol Buffer technology and HTTP/2. This seems to be today’s best technology for binary web services. The DDA Task Force is in the process of developing a ballot to propose the adoption of this technology for the EDA messages. If approved, this would be the foundation of freeze 3 communication and a vast improvement.

In Japan, the Information & Control Committee recently created a DDA task force. The leader, Mitch Sakamoto from company ZAMA is coordinating with the North American DDA task force. Similarly, the DDA task force leaders in Korea are also working closely with North America. The Freeze 3 EDA development really is emerging as a worldwide coordinated development. The world-wide cooperation and coordination is much stronger and cohesive than the development was for Freeze 1 and Freeze 2.

The GEM 300 task force passed a ballot approving the use of SECS Message Notation (SMN) for GEM implementations. SMN could already be used anyway, but adding this to the GEM standard makes its use more official. This means that messages can be logged and documented using SMN.

The GUI task force continues to move along with planned improvements for the E95 standard. This including modernizing the graphics in the standard, updating the text and most importantly having the standard include the adoption of small screen devices as an equipment HMI. The new E95 standard will be a major revision standard.

In Korea, several ballots continue to be developed and reworked. This includes an update to the E87 carrier management services standard to allow more precise reporting when carrier approach the completion state. This includes an update to the E142 wafer map handling standard with new features in the schema file. Additionally, they are working on an equipment generic counter standard, which establish standardized methods for equipment to “count” things that happen on the equipment. This proposed specification is a favorite of mine personally. It is a clever way to recognize that it is important to count things on every equipment such as the number of times a vacuum has a been cycled, the number of times a nozzle has been used, the number of times a user has logged in, the number of times a robot has moved a substrate, the number of times an equipment has been restarted. It could be anything and it could be very different on two types of equipment. Collecting such data in a generic, natural way facilitates predictive maintenance; a key to minimizing factory equipment downtime.

Austin, Texas was the site of this year’s conference, going back to its roots after almost 30 years. Because of its unique focus on equipment and process control technology for the semiconductor industry, and the consistently high quality of its technical content, this conference continues to attract both industry veterans and newcomers to this domain, with this year’s attendance over 160.

Cimetrix has been a regular participant and presenter at this event, and this year was no exception. Alan Weber made a presentation entitled “ROI-based Approach for Evaluating Application Data Collection Use Case Alternatives” that was jointly developed with Mark Reath of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. The key message of this talk was that data collection should not be viewed as an all-or-nothing proposition but rather a spectrum of alternatives within which an approach can be chosen that best fits the problem to be addressed. As examples, the presentation described specific FDC use cases that resulted in significant savings through reduced false alarm rate and fewer/less severe process excursions. For a copy of this presentation, follow the link at the bottom of this posting.

Boyd Finlay’s (GLOBALFOUNDRIES) keynote presentation was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the conference. His presentation, “Raising the Bar: Foundry Expectations for Equipment Capability and Control,” painted a compelling picture of how future semiconductor manufacturing equipment must be able to support the growing demand for semiconductors in almost all aspects of modern life, especially in self-driving cars and their supporting infrastructure. For example, one of the specific expectations is that “Fab engineers expect fully integrated instrumentation on and around equipment to provide well established unambiguous high-volume manufacturing sensor supporting BKMs (best-known methods).” This presentation is well worth your time to review regardless of your job function in the industry, so follow the link below for a copy.

Samsung also offered some very interesting insights in a presentation titled “Wafer Level Time Control for Defect Reduction in Semiconductor Manufacture FABs.” It correlated defect densities to position in the FOUP and explained 2 sources for these: 1) outgassing of wafers after certain kinds of processes (which can be addressed with N2 purging), and 2) the difference in post-process waiting time, which must now be considered at the individual wafer level rather than the lot as a whole.

This conference and its sister conference in Europe 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!

Join us as we meet the Leadership Team of Cimetrix in our “Meet the Team” series.

David Warren is the Director of Software Engineering for Cimetrix where he manages a team of software engineers that develop the company’s product line and improve and maintain existing products. David has over 20 years of total experience and expertise as a software developer. He started with Cimetrix in 1994 and has also worked at Design Synthesis and Philips. David has helped create, develop, and maintain software products for factory automation for many different industries including semiconductor, packaging, surface-mount technology, assembly, and CNC machining. He holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

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What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

Cimetrix was a robotics company when I joined, almost fresh out of school.  For me, working with robots was a dream job, combining my passions for mechanical engineering and computers.  Today’s emphasis on connectivity and equipment control is just as fascinating!

What's your favorite thing about working here?

I can’t narrow it down to just a single favorite thing.  I love the industry we are in, being able to make a difference in the world, and definitely the people.

What do you think makes a great Director of Software Engineering?

That’s a good question.  The mission of Software Engineering is to make great products—and there is a lot that goes into making that possible.  I believe the vast majority of software engineers have a desire or even a need to create great products, so it’s probably more accurate to reverse that—what is preventing us from making great products?  A great Director of Software Engineering can recognize and remove impediments, whether that is getting better requirements, changing processes, making sure there is adequate time, training, or anything else.  In short, like great point guards and quarterbacks, they make everyone around them better.  That’s the kind of person I want to be.

Do you have a favorite quote or saying? Why?

K.I.S.S., or Keep It Simple, Stupid.  For whatever reason, getting the right level of simplicity is never simple and seemingly undervalued.   If you have something simple and are thinking about adding some complexity or have something complex that might be simplified with a little more work, it is good to have a reminder of the value of simplicity.

How do you deal with challenges that come up in your work life?

A brief moment of panic followed by a flurry of hard work—just kidding.  Though difficult in the moment, taking the time to understand the challenge, going beyond the initial presentation and discovering the underlying problem often can turn a challenge into an opportunity.

What do you like to do in your free time?

My family knows whenever I’m asked, “what did you like most about …”, my answer is always “spending time with my family”.  It’s absolutely true, though.  Whether we are camping, four-wheeling, hiking, working in the yard, or just hanging out, I like spending time with my family!

What's the best thing that's happened to you in your time working at Cimetrix?

I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in many amazing technological achievements here at Cimetrix, but the very best thing is the people.  I can’t count the number of times someone has taken the time to help me grow both professionally and personally.  The mentoring I’ve received is without question the best thing that’s happened to me.

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