Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

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.

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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!

Yufeng Huang of Cimetrix China, talks about Equipment Control in the factory. Read now in Chinese or below in English.

在和半导体设备制造公司的接触中我们遇到这么一个尴尬的问题，很多懂得设备控制的优秀软件工程师对于GEM，GEM300和EDA标准不是很有经验。这些公司往往是在设备在实验室研发成功，准备产业化送入客户工厂时发现设备没有实现或只有部分实现GEM/GEM300标准，尤其是当客户工厂要求EDA（Interface A）通信接口的时候，这些设备制造商的软件工程师往往一脸茫然，不知道如何在短时间内开发出完全遵循GEM/GEM300/EDA标准的软件。

对于大多数设备公司而言，限制于有限的人力、财力资源，公司很难聘请到足够多富有经验的工厂自动化软件工程师开发自己的GEM/GEM300，甚至EDA软件模块。另外一个棘手的问题是我们发现很多软件工程师不是特别有意愿加入到半导体行业，而是选择比较热门的互联网、游戏，手机App等软件行业。纵观半导体工厂自动化软件市场，虽然已有多家公司提供GEM/GEM300/EDA的软件开发包（SDK），但软件工程师仍旧需要掌握一定的工厂自动化基础知识才能着手编写软件集成代码。工厂自动化涉及大量SEMI标准，譬如GEM标准大概有450页文档，包括E4，E5，E30，E37，E37.1，E172，E173，GEM300标准大概有280页文档，包括E39，E40，E87，E90，E94，E116，E157，E148，而更为复杂的EDA标准大概480有页文档，包括E120，E125，E128，E132，E134，E138，E164，对于大多数非专业的工厂自动化软件工程师而言，工厂自动化软件的集成工作是一件极其繁琐而艰难的任务。

Cimetrix Control Framework^TM (CCF) 是基于微软.Net技术的设备自动化控制软件框架，该软件不仅为设备制造厂商提供了监督控制和生产控制框架代码，而且完全实现了GEM/GEM300/EDA标准。借助CCF软件平台，软件工程师无需深刻掌握工厂自动化的所有SEMI标准，就能轻松变身为工厂自动化开发专家。CCF软件框架内的工厂自动化模块基于Cimetrix公司的CIMConnect，CIM300，CIMPortal Plus三个独立的软件开发套件（SDK）实现，分别对于实现GEM，GEM300，和EDA标准。全球任意一家300mm的芯片制造工厂都有安装了CIM300软件的设备运行，在支持EDA数据采集的工厂都有安装了CIMPortal Plus软件的设备运行。CCF软件框架将所有工厂自动化的开发工作交给Cimetrix公司来完成，设备软件工程师可以把更多的时间花费在如何设计自己的设备控制软件上。

在CCF框架下，CIMConnect/CIM300/CIMPortal Plus的底层API函数都被很好作了封装，软件工程师只需通过CCF框架提供的函数或接口就能轻松实现和工厂主机程序的所有GEM/GEM300标准。实现EDA标准的一个重要任务是创建一个支持分层次结构的设备模型，以及按照标准生成XML数据，此外生成的模型还需满足E164标准。在CCF软件初始化运行时会动态生成设备模型，软件工程师几乎不需要书写EDA代码，设备即可很好的遵循EDA标准。

采用CCF软件框架降低设备控制程序和工厂自动化程序的开发难度和开发周期，但并不意味着我们的客户一定得推翻自己已有的软件平台或已经测试过的稳定代码。CCF是一个提供源代码的完全开放的自动化控制程序框架，你可以将CCF理解成一个已经拼好的乐高玩具，用户既可以将自己的代码模块集成到CCF中，也可以挑选部分CCF功能模块并将其转移到用户自己的框架中。我们用户将CCF中工厂自动化模块（包括GEM/GEM300/EDA）搬迁到自己的程序框架中，在保证完全遵循工厂自动化诸多SEMI标准的同时，对用户已有程序的影响非常小。

得益于CCF框架的完全开放性，像玩乐高积木一样，软件工程师可以轻松享受自由裁剪自己想要的控制系统框架带来的乐趣，这是其他任何一家提供设备控制软件框架程序的公司都很难做到的一件事情。

在未来几年，越来越多的工厂往智能生产制造的方向发展，由此对数据的需要越来越高，EDA标准越来越成为工厂主流的数据采集方法，CCF无疑成为了设备制造商更快更好实现各种工厂自动化标准的最佳武器。 

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We encountered an interesting issue when working with semiconductor equipment manufacturing companies. Many excellent software engineers who know equipment control are not very experienced with the GEM, GEM300, and EDA standards. Sometimes after equipment is successfully developed in the laboratory and before the equipment is shipped to the factory, we discover that the equipment did not implement or only partially implemented the required GEM/GEM300/EDA standard. This is especially prevalent when the factory requires the EDA (Interface A) communication interface. Equipment software engineers sometimes do not know how to develop software that fully complies with GEM/GEM300/EDA standards in a short period of time.

For most equipment companies with limited human and financial resources, it is difficult for the company to have the resources to develop their own GEM/GEM300/EDA software. Another issue is that we have found many of the more experienced software engineers are more interested in high-profile  internet, gaming, mobile phone apps and other software industries rather than the lower profile semiconductor industry.  Although many companies in the semiconductor factory automation software market have provided GEM/GEM300/EDA software development kits (SDKs), software engineers still need to master certain basic knowledge of factory automation to start writing software integration code. Factory automation involves a large number of SEMI standards. For example, the GEM standard has about 450 pages of documents, including E4, E5, E30, E37, E37.1, E172, E173. GEM300 standards have about 280 pages of documents, including E39, E40, E87, E90, E94, E116, E157, E148. The more complex EDA standard has about 480 pages, including E120, E125, E128, E132, E134, E138, E164. For less experienced factory automation software engineers, the integration of automation software can be an extremely tedious and difficult task.

Cimetrix CIMControlFramework^TM (CCF) is an equipment automation control software framework based on Microsoft .Net technology. This software not only provides equipment manufacturers with supervisory control and equipment control framework code, but also fully implements the GEM, GEM300 and EDA standards. With the help of the CCF software platform, software engineers can easily turn into factory automation development experts without having to master all the factory automation SEMI standards. The factory automation components within the framework of the CCF software are based on CIMConnect, CIM300, and CIMPortal Plus, three independent software development kits (SDKs) from Cimetrix for the implementation of the GEM, GEM300, and EDA standards, respectively. All 300mm chip manufacturing factories in the world have equipment installed which uses CIM300 software. Any factory requiring EDA data collection has equipment installed that uses CIMPortal Plus software. With the CCF software framework, Cimetrix has already done the work of integrating all factory automation into the framework. The equipment software engineer can spend more time on how to develop their own equipment control software.

Under the CCF framework, the underlying API functions of CIMConnect/CIM300/CIMPortal Plus are well encapsulated. Software engineers can easily implement all the GEM/GEM300/EDA standards of the factory host program through the functions or interfaces provided by the CCF framework. An important task in implementing the EDA standard is to create an equipment model that supports hierarchical structures and generate XML data in accordance with standards. In addition, the generated model must also meet the SEMI E164 standard. The equipment model is dynamically generated when the CCF software is initialized. The software engineer needs to do very little to have an equipment control application that is fully compliant with the EDA standard.

The use of the CCF software framework to reduce the difficulty and development cycle of equipment control programs and factory automation programs does not mean that our clients must replace their existing software platforms or stable code that has been tested. CCF is a fully open automation control program framework that provides source code. You can think of CCF as a LEGO toy that has been put together. Users can either integrate their own code modules into CCF or select some of the CCF functional modules and transfer them to their own framework. Our clients can reuse the factory automation modules (including GEM/GEM300/EDA) in CCF in their own program frameworks. While ensuring that all SEMI standards for factory automation are fully complied with. The impact on the user's existing programs is minimal.

Thanks to the complete openness of the CCF framework, like LEGO bricks, software engineers can easily enjoy the freedom of tailoring the control system framework that they want. It is hard for any company that provides an equipment control software framework program to implement such a rich library of functions. 

In the next few years, more and more factories will move in the direction of smart manufacturing. As a result, the demand for data is getting higher and higher. EDA standards are increasingly becoming the factory's mainstream data collection method. CCF will undoubtedly become the best weapon for equipment manufacturers to quickly and completely implement the various factory automation standards.

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.

The DDA Task Force has officially kicked off the development of the next EDA standards, already deemed “Freeze 3” by many. Several ballots have been authorized for creation and voting early next year. This includes ballots to modify E125, E132, E134 and E138, which includes many of the core EDA standards. Additional work is also planned for E164. Most of the changes are expected to be straightforward, with a few corrections, clarifications and new features that various SEMI members have requested. E125 is probably the biggest proposed change in this set, where new messages will be added to provide the list of all parameters and the list of all events. Then the equipment nodes in the model will always reference parameters and reference events. This should clarify some of the confusion surrounding parameter definitions and parameter references.

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.

SEMICON West 2017 has come and gone! The trade show and technical conference was held this year at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and turned out to be a very busy show for the Cimetrix team. While the show was only two halls strong, we had many meetings with current clients, met with new potential clients and even made a few new friends along the way.

A major highlight of the event for all of Cimetrix took place Tuesday evening at the SEMI Standards Awards reception where our own Brian Rubow, Director of Client Training and Support at Cimetrix, took home the prestigious SEMI Leadership Award. Brian, who has over 20 years of experience in the industry, has been a long-time leader and key contributor to the SEMI Standards programs throughout his career.  We were very proud of his work and so glad he was able to receive recognition from the SEMI organization. 

The sales team was hard at work during the entire show and it wasn’t often the Cimetrix booth was empty! Meeting with many new companies made the show very exciting. Our team was especially pleased to meet for several hours with the CEO of our newest client from China! The relationships we establish and cultivate while at these tradeshows make them an invaluable part of our sales, marketing and support efforts. 

The Cimetrix team members that attended were Bob Reback (President and CEO), Dave Faulkner (EVP Sales and Marketing), Ranjan Chatterjee (V.P. Emerging Business & Technology Office), Stu Benger (Director of Sales, North America), Brian Rubow (Director of Client Training and Support), David Francis (Director of Product Management), Alan Weber (V.P. New Product Innovations) and Kimberly Daich (Marketing Manager). Several team members were able to attend for just a day including some of our newest engineers. It was a great chance for them to get to know the show, meet some clients and see some of the machines our software powers in action.

The Moscone Center is undergoing major renovations in preparation for SEMICON West 2018; and we were able to secure a premium spot for next year’s show. SEMICON West is always a great show and we were pleased to be able to attend this year, and as always we’re already looking forward to SEMICON West 2018!

SEMI held the spring 2017 North American standards meetings during the week of April 3 at the new SEMI facility in Milpitas, CA. The new facility had only been occupied for a few weeks prior, yet SEMI was able to hold the meetings with few technical difficulties. The new facility is quite attractive with improved accommodations for standards meetings.

There is a lot of activity currently, in the two task forces that I lead; namely the GEM 300 task force and DDA task force.

Every five years SEMI re-approves every active standard. Without renewal, the standards become “inactive”. During the Information & Control Committee (I&CC) meeting a few standards were re-approved this cycle with a few editorial changes including:

• Ballot 6066A: E130 (Specification for Prober Specific Equipment Model for 300 mm Environment) and E130.1 (Specification for SECS-II Protocol for Prober Specific Equipment Model for 300 mm Environment) 
• Ballot 6068A: E116 (Specification for Equipment Performance Tracking) and E116.1 (Specification for SECS-II Protocol for Equipment Performance Tracking)
• Ballot 6064A: E121 (Guide for Style and Usage of XML for Semiconductor Manufacturing Applications)

Additionally, during the Information & Control Committee (I&CC) meeting, the following ballots were passed which make changes to standard:

• Ballot 5549A: E30 (Generic Model for Communications and Control of Manufacturing Equipment) with the following changes to the GEM standard
  • The title was changed to “Specification for the Generic Model for Communications and Control of Manufacturing Equipment”
  • The initial sections were reorganized to have sections Purpose, Scope, and Limitations which results in renumbering all following sections
  • The Application Notes were renamed Related Information
  • Equipment Constant “EnableSpooling” was added to the Variable Item List.
• Ballot 5738: E87.1 (Specification for SECS-II Protocol for Carrier Management)
  • Title was changed to remove the provisional status. All other references to provisional status were removed.
  • Numerous editorial changes were made for clarity, misspellings, incorrect references
  • Format codes were clarified for consistency
  • The only “technical” change was to allow for up to 255 slots in a carrier for attribute “Capacity”. This makes E87.1 more consistent with E87 which does not restrict carrier capacity and with known existing implementations that have more than 25 slots in a carrier. 

Ballot 5872B, an update to the E172 Specification for SECS Equipment Data Dictionary (SEDD), failed to pass. This update adds numerous optional features to the SEDD file for documenting GEM interfaces in an XML file. With this update, GEM interfaces can be documented almost entirely in an XML file; virtually eliminating the need for the traditional GEM documentation. The most valuable addition is the list of supported SECS-II messages and the expected format for each message. By documenting GEM interfaces in an XML file, factories can write software to parse the SEDD file and automatically configure host software to adapt to an equipment’s GEM implementation. The GEM 300 task force expects this ballot to pass later this year after making a few small changes.

In the next SEMI voting cycle for North America, called “Cycle 5”, the GEM 300 task force plans to resubmit ballot 5872C to update the E172 SEDD.

Additionally, a new ballot 6114 will be submitted for vote. Ballot 6114 introduces a new set of SECS-II messages for transfer of large strings or binary data. The new messages are initially intended for transfer of large Recipe files to/from the host system. Currently, the typical stream 7 SECS-II messages are limited to 16.7 MB. With these new messages, recipes could theoretically be allowed up to about 4 GB. Additionally, the new messages could be used to transfer other types of large strings or binary streams. The new messages include a “type” field to indicate the type of object being transferred. For recipes, field will most likely be “SEMI:RECIPE”, but other types could be defined in other standards like “ProductionRecipe” for E170 or “SEDD” for E172.

In the DDA Task Force, more plans were discussed for the EDA Freeze 3. The Korea DDA Task Force leaders have committed to working with North America DDA Task Force in this effort and presented several ideas for changes. The most dramatic change they presented was to consider using WebSocket technology instead of HTTP in order to make the SOAP/XML messages perform much better by maintaining a socket connection.

The GUI task force has begun its work to revise the E95 standard. It is still a great time for new task force members to join and contribute.

The Japan GEM 300 task force have previously made some announcements concerning a GEM300A initiative to expand the traditional GEM 300 standards (E30, E37, E39, E40, E87, E90, E94) to also include newer standards developed in the Japan GEM 300 task force. Namely E170, E171 and E174. E174 has been very controversial. During the North American GEM 300 task force meeting, it was requested that if there be any initiatives to declare a GEM300A set, that this be a collaborative effort between the various GEM 300 task forces and also consider including E116, E148, E157, E172 and E173.

During the GEM 300 task force, a representative from the Japan GEM 300 task force presented some possible future ideas to have a separate GEM connection for recipe management, to ensure that data collection reporting is not hindered by the transfer of large recipes files.

 SEMI North America Information & Control Task Force and Committee fall meetings were last held at SEMI headquarters November 7 through 9, 2016. During these meetings, SEMI announced that they are relocating their headquarters to Milpitas, CA. That move is currently underway. In the GEM 300 task force, all of the ballots failed to pass. This include ballot 5872A, 5549, 6026, 6066, and 6068. In the DDA task force, ballot 6064 also failed.

Ballot 5872A is work driven by Cimetrix to complete to work initially proposed for the E172 standard SEDD files, a feature to enable an electronic format for GEM documentation. Ballot 5872A failed due to some minor issues. SEDD files already provide partial GEM interface documentation in an XML file by listing the data variables, status variables, equipment constants, collection events and alarms. The ballot proposes to enhance SEDD files by adding a list of supported SECS-II messages, remote commands, SEMI standards (with compliance tables), and default event reports. The ballot will be reworked and resubmitted as ballot 5872B.

 Ballot 5549A is a title change and organizational change to the GEM E30 standard. Several years ago, SEMI required all standards to have an official designation, such as Guide or Specification. E30 currently has a title that fails to establish an official standard designation. Additionally, the standard currently fails to have the mandatory sections “Purpose”, “Scope”, “Limitations” like other standards. The ballot was delayed several years due to the SML copyright claim by Peer Group and the ensuing legal confrontation with SEMI. The ballot was finally submitted in 2016 and failed because it renamed the Application Notes as an Appendix instead of “Related Information”. Additionally, there was some confusion because the ballot was based on the 0611 version of E30 rather than the 0416 version which had just been published. This ballot will be reworked and resubmitted as ballot 5549B.

 Ballots 6026, 6066, 6068 and 6024 are reapproval ballots for standards E109, E130/E130.1, E116/E116.1 and E121. SEMI automatically submits all standards for re-approval every five years if a standard has not been revised. These standards all failed due to outdated references. They will all be resubmitted in 2017 with minor changes to correct the outdated references.

 The new GUI task force was approved to create a new major revision of the E95 standard. In particular, the new revision will accommodate new software and hardware technology when laying out equipment user interfaces.

 Cimetrix proposed a new activity to define new SECS-II messages for transferring recipes. The activity will result in a new ballot 6614. Currently, the GEM standard defines two ways to transfer unformatted recipes. Using simple Stream 7 messages S7F3 and S7F6, the entire recipe is part of a single message. This makes is really easy to implement in the host and equipment GEM software, but recipes are limited to about 16.7 MB (the maximum size of a single data item in any SECS-II message). The second way is using the large recipe scenarios which involve using a sequence of messages S7F43/F44, S13F1/S13F2, S13F3/F4, S13F5/F6 (repeated iteratively until there is an error), S6F11/F12 and finally S13F7/F8. Even for an expert, this is very complicated. Ballot 6614 will propose simple new messages for transferring a large recipe using a single message where the recipe can be broken up into multiple parts where each part is up to 16.7 MB in size. If approved, another ballot will attempt to add this to GEM standard. This will open the door for the GEM standard to be used more effectively and in more application where the 16.7 MB limitation posed an issue.

 Japan Information & Control committee (I&CC) announced the official withdrawal of OBEM standards E98 and E98.1. Japan also announced a GEM300A initiative which includes standards E170 and E171 and E174. E170 is the Production Recipe Standard which allows equipment to designate production and non-production recipes; where production recipes are given change protection. E171 defines predictive carrier logistics. Ballot 5601 defines Wafer Job Management. It is not clear whether or not there any IC makers will demand any of these newer standards. Of the three, E170 seems to be most useful and interesting. Predictive carrier logistics seems to be useful only for equipment that have carrier internal buffers. It attempts to help the equipment report when carriers will be ready for removal. It is not clear how E171 will compete with the upcoming E87 ballot 4946 to be submitted by the Korean Information & Control Committee in 2017. Ballot 4946 modified the E87 standard to predict when carriers will be ready to unload. Wafer Job Management is a controversial standard. Japan I&CC announced the passing of ballot 5601 (now E174) despite the strong opposition by multiple knowledgeable voters in other regions, and despite very underwhelming support from regional leaders in North America, Korea, Europe and Taiwan.

 Korean Information & Control committee announced plans to submit ballot 5832, a proposal for a new Generic Counter standard which is built upon the GEM standard. The standard would allow an equipment to define various types of generic “counters” that can be reset by the host. The counters could be used a wide variety of applications; particularly predictive maintenance. The standard as defined in the current ballot defines digital counters, analog counters and collection event counters. Voting period for this ballot just ended recently.

 Next North American I&CC meetings will be held first week in April, 2017.

In a recent blog posting we introduced the topic of EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) standards testing and sub-divided the domain into three parts:

• Compliance testing – does the equipment adhere to the specifications described in the SEMI Standards?

• Performance and stability testing – does the equipment meet the end users’ performance and availability specifications?

• Equipment metadata model conformance testing – does the equipment model delivered with the interface represent the tool structure and content anticipated by the end customer?

Today’s post deals with the equipment metadata model conformance testing in greater detail.

The impetus for the metadata conformance requirement is SEMI Standard E164 – Specification for EDA Common Metadata. Although this standard is not part of the original core suite of EDA standards, it is now being required by GLOBALFOUNDRIES and a number of other major semiconductor manufacturers on EDA-enabled equipment.

The purpose of the standard “is to promote commonality among implementations by defining common representations and conventions of equipment metadata based on SEMI E125.” (Section 1.1 of E164)

In other words, conformance to E164 requires a consistent implementation of E125. All state machines required by the GEM300 standards must be implemented and use the same names for required events, parameters, state names and transitions. It requires that all process modules implement the E157 Module Processing state machine using specified names. As a result, E164 ensures a high level of implementation commonality across all equipment types. This commonality enables better automation of data collection processes across the fab, driving major increases in engineering efficiency. In summary, E164 is to EDA what GEM was to SECS-II.

Currently, the only E164 conformance tester is Metadata Conformance Analyzer (MCA) that was commissioned by Sematech and implemented by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). In our discussions with potential users of an EDA test tool, most clients agree that the sooner a replacement can be created for MCA, the happier they will be.

In a previous post, we mentioned that Cimetrix has automated the EDA compliance evaluation procedures. We are also in the process of designing the performance testing components of this tester. The plan is to also create an E164 conformance tester that will replace MCA.

If you want to know more about EDA testing and/or discuss your specific needs or provide input on what you would like to see included for E164 conformance testing, contact Cimetrix for a demonstration of this exciting new capability!

 

Update: Cimetrix EDATester Datasheet available now!

In a recent blog posting we introduced the topic of EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) standards testing and sub-divided the domain into three parts:

• Compliance testing – does the equipment adhere to the specifications described in the SEMI Standards?

• Performance and stability testing – does the equipment meet the end users’ performance and availability specifications?

• Equipment metadata model conformance testing – does the equipment model delivered with the interface represent the tool structure and content anticipated by the end customer?

Today's post deals with the performance and stability testing in greater detail.

In our discussions with EDA users (both OEM implementers and fab end users) about EDA testing, they all acknowledge the need for compliance testing. However, the vast majority have said, “If you can help me automate my performance testing, I would be able to save a huge amount of time.” Most thought they could reduce testing time from several weeks to just a couple of days.

Everyone has different ideas about what should be included in performance testing of their EDA software. Everyone can agree that generally they need to test if the equipment meets the end users’ performance and availability specifications in terms of data sampling intervals, overall data volume transmitted, size and number of DCPs (data collection plans) supported, demands on the computing/network resources, and up-time. They also need to know if the software will support the range of application clients expect in a production environment.

Data Volume

EDA users want to know the sheer volume of data that can be collected.

ISMI has reported in public forums that IC makers expect EDA to achieve data rates of 50+ variables per chamber at rates up to 10 Hz. In EDA specifications, IC makers have requested the ability to gather 1,000 to 2,000 parameters using data collection rates from 5 to 20 Hz, which translates to 40,000 values per second.

These rates are easily achievable with today’s computing platform technology, but users also want to know the upper limit. In other words, at what point does the ability to collect data break down?

Data Quality

EDA users want to know that the data comes in at the specified rates and that the values and timestamps that are received at those rates are accurate.

Resource Usage

EDA users want to know how different data collection rates and volumes will affect the system resources. Will memory usage be too high? How will different collection rates affect CPU usage? Is the network bandwidth sufficient for gathering the required data at the required speeds and still maintain high data quality?

In a previous post, we mentioned that Cimetrix has automated the EDA compliance evaluation procedures. The newly released Cimetrix EDATester^TM is the integrated solution that supports the broadest range of use cases in SEMI Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA/Interface A) standards compliance testing in the industry. The Cimetrix EDATester automates the execution of the ISMI EDA Evaluation Method and features performance testing that characterizes the capabilities and limitations of a tool’s EDA interface. Download the data sheet and see how the Cimetrix EDATester supports your objectives. 

If you want to know more about EDA testing and/or discuss your specific needs, contact Cimetrix for a demonstration of this exciting new capability!

 

In a recent blog posting we introduced the topic of EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) standards testing and sub-divided the domain into three parts:

• Compliance testing – does the equipment adhere to the specifications described in the SEMI Standards?

• Performance and stability testing – does the equipment meet the end users’ performance and availability specifications?

• Equipment metadata model conformance testing – does the equipment model delivered with the interface represent the tool structure and content anticipated by the end customer?

Today’s post deals with the first of these parts in greater detail.

To begin, we should point out that standards compliance testing is not a new idea – it has been an integral part of the acceptance testing process for automated manufacturing equipment for decades. As each new generation of SEMI’s communications standards (SECS-II, GEM, GEM300, and now EDA / Interface A) reached critical mass, the compliance testing process naturally evolved from an ad hoc, manually driven set of procedures to a more thorough, formal process supported by automated testing software. Moreover, the use of this kind of software and the reliance of leading chip makers on its results has greatly contributed to the efficiency of the overall new fab startup and initial yield ramp process, so its importance to the industry cannot be overstated.

So where does the industry turn for information about how to test for EDA standards compliance?Although the Sematech manufacturing consortium’s R&D program no longer includes SEMI Standards definition, validation, and promotion support, the work that its ISMI subsidiary (International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative) did in the formative years of the EDA standards is still directly applicable. In particular, the “ISMI Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA) Evaluation Method for the July 2010 Standards Freeze Level: Version 1.0” is the globally accepted approach for checking compliance of an equipment’s EDA interface.

 

This document takes an automation test engineer through the entire set of steps for connecting a tool to a known-compliant test client (in this case, the Cimetrix Equipment Client Connection Emulator, or ECCE Plus product), adding entries to the interface’s Access Control List (ACL), uploading and inspecting the equipment metadata model, managing Data Collection Plans (DCPs), and invoking all the other services defined by the SEMI EDA Standards suite (E120, E125, E132, E134, E164, etc.). Its appendices not only define the required procedures in detail, they also describe the expected results and suggest a format for reporting these to interested stakeholders.

Of course, those familiar with the use of this method and the associated software tools know that it can take 2-3 days to execute this process manually, which is an inefficient way to check compliance for the incoming tool set of an entire fab. Fortunately, there IS a better approach. Cimetrix has automated these evaluation procedures in a way that ensures the target equipment meets the automation software purchasing requirements to the satisfaction of both the equipment supplier and the semiconductor manufacturer, while leaving the door open for factory-specific requirements that represent unique competitive advantage.

Note that ISMI and its member companies also recognized that much of the potential value of the EDA standards would be derived from (and limited by!) the content of the equipment metadata model, so they funded the development of another software tool to check these aspects of a supplier’s implementation. But that is a topic for an upcoming blog – watch for it.

So… if you want to know more about EDA testing and/or discuss your specific needs, contact Cimetrix for a demonstration of this exciting new capability!

Alan Weber
VP, New Product Innovations
Cimetrix Incorporated