Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

by DeAnn Rowan,
Marketing

As a blog reader, we would like to ask you a question:

So….What do you think?

We’ve been at this blogging thing for 6 months (almost to the day) now. We’ve seen a lot of interest as the traffic to our blog posts continues to rise at a rapid pace. The entire Cimetrix team has provided contributions and feels passionate about the information that we have been sharing with readers.

Some of our most popular posts to date – and ones you’ll want to check out if you haven’t already - include a narrative touting the benefits of software frameworks, a comparison of the data collection functions of SECS/GEM and Interface A, and the answer to the “He Said/ She Said” game between equipment and host.

What have you found to be the most valuable?
What topics would you like to see discussed more? Or less?

We want to be a resource of information for you regarding the SEMI connectivity standards and their implementation. As you read through our blog, please feel free to ask questions or provide insight on the topics being discussed. We welcome your comments!

In addition to this blog, we encourage you to interact with us, and others within the manufacturing community, via various social media networks:

Use these avenues as an alternative means to ask questions, provide feedback, and stay abreast of any industry or Cimetrix updates.

Thank you for your continued readership and we look forward to future discussions.

Connect with Us on LinkedIn:

• Bob Reback, president and CEO
• Jodi Juretich, CFO
• Dave Faulkner, EVP Sales & Marketing
• Bill Grey, Director of Research & Development
• Brent Forsgren, Director OEM Solutions
• Doug Rust, Director Product Engineering & Customer Support
• Brian Rubow, Manager Customer Support
• Stu Benger, Director of Sales North America
• Bruce Febvret, Director of Sales Europe

by Bill Grey,
Director of Research and Development

2009 was a tough year and it is good to see the Semiconductor industry coming back. With development projects ramping up, here is a peek at the new technologies coming out this year:

AMD has some new 45 nm Phenom II and Athalon II CPUs out and has the 6-core 45 nm Thuban CPU coming out later in Q2. 2011 will follow with a Llano 32 nm quad-core APU and 32 nm Bulldozer core CPU called Zambezi with up to 8 cores.

Intel has 32 nm rolling strong with the release of the Clarkdale CPU with 2 cores this quarter. They will follow up with the Gulftown processor around mid-year with 6 cores.

It doesn’t look like processing power will be much of a problem any more. =)

For developers, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 in April. 

Among the changes that got me excited are:

• better support for parallel code development and debugging
• debugging of mixed-mode native and managed code on 64-bit operating systems
• the Visual F# programming language
• reference highlighting in the editor (finally!)
• call hierarchy navigation for C# and C++
• box selection for copy/paste (finally!)
• .NET background garbage collection instead of concurrent garbage collection for better performance
• .NET tuple objects for structured data
• .NET memory-mapped files (shared memory)
• .NET String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace method indicates whether a string is null, empty, or consists only of white-space
• Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) to build extensible and composable applications

Office 2010 comes out the first half of this year with some new collaboration features such as co-authoring and PowerPoint presentation broadcasting.

On the Windows side, Windows 7 is here in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors and is being adopted much faster than Vista was when it released. Windows Server 2008 R2 is out for the server platform. For embedded systems, Windows Embedded Standard 2009 has replaced Windows XP Embedded and a new version is on the way called Windows Embedded Standard 7 (Windows 7 based).

How many semiconductor manufacturing tools will need or will go to a 64 bit operating system this year?

One item that could spur the move to Windows 7 is a change in hard drive technology that is not targeted to be supported by Windows XP. Hard drives are moving from 512 byte sectors to 4 kilobyte sectors and will be incompatible with Windows XP. Some of the smarter drives may have a compatibility mode for Windows XP, but at a cost of reduced performance. This will start in early 2011.

Would you be interested in learning more about these emerging technologies and their effect on Cimetrix products? If there is a significant interest, Cimetrix plans to host a webinar on this topic in the near future.

This week, SEMICON Japan 2009 will be invading the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. The largest international exhibition of semiconductor equipment and materials, vistors can expect over 1500 exhibiting companies as well as co-organized events including the SEMI Technology Symposium (STS). SEMICON Japan takes place Wednesday, December 2 - Friday, December 4.Exhibits will be open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

We hope to see you there!

by Bob Reback,
President and CEO

Running a company during an industry downturn presents quite a challenge. I have always thought I would someday be the president of a company. However, during this severe semiconductor down cycle, the thought that you should “be careful what you wish for” certainly came to mind a few times. Even though Cimetrix is a small company, successfully navigating a business through a severe downturn that hit the semiconductor industry requires a combination of critical thinking, tough decisions and a durable stomach.

The decision making process must consider the perspectives of all stakeholders - including investors, customers, employees and suppliers. The primary objective is clearly to make sure the business survives through the downturn. The secondary objectives relate to how to best satisfy customers, investors, employees and suppliers while making sure objective number one is met.

More than ever, this requires extensive communication with all parties. Not every party will be happy with your decisions. However, having sound analysis for your decisions, along with open and honest communications can ensure that all parties understand and, most importantly, accept the decisions.

Like almost all companies that serve the semiconductor industry, Cimetrix’s revenues suffered severe declines in the first half of 2009. The dramatic decline in revenues was the root cause of the crisis, as revenue brings in the necessary cash flow to pay employees and other business obligations. In addition, the severity of this down cycle caused more customers than anticipated to cease operations as a result of either bankruptcy or a parent company shutting down a division. Even though our primary competitor filed for bankruptcy and ultimately sold off its assets, there is no joy as you empathize for all of the affected employees without a job.

Fortunately, Cimetrix has a great team and everyone pitched in to help ensure the company successfully navigated through this down cycle. This includes our customers, employees, suppliers and investors. We are now seeing evidence that our customer’s businesses are starting to improve and the industry is on the mend, which is leading to increased revenues for Cimetrix. By retaining all of our key customers and a solid team of employees, we are well prepared and positioned for growing the business going forward.

by Dave Faulkner
Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing

It is starting to feel like a recovery in the semiconductor industry.  Wall Street is saying to keep on eye on semiconductor stocks and even semiconductor equipment stocks.  SEMI just reported that worldwide semiconductor equipment bookings for Q2 2009 were 83% greater than Q1 2009.  Capacity utilization is likely to reach 88% in Q3 2009 according to IC Insights, up from 57% in Q1 2009.   And the SEMI World Fab Forecast is now calling for a 64% increase in fab spending in 2010.  The fear is starting to subside.   Q1/Q2 2009 appear to be the low point for equipment suppliers and we appear to be heading up the hill, but starting from a very low elevation.  I think we are finally in the recovery.

We have a very unique look at the semiconductor industry.  Our customers report tool shipments based on license orders.  And our customer base is very broad including all tool types in the frontend and backend.  We see who is booming and who is busting.  While we would never, never, never discuss individual company progress, I can say that shipments (via way of license revenues) have hit their bottom and are on the way back up.  And we are seeing this in all areas of the semiconductor industry.  It is like seeing a bit of blue sky during the storm, it gives us hope for all.  We just need to give the rest of the storm clouds time to move on…..