Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

In less than a week, two of the industry’s largest European shows will begin. The 2019 productronica show is co-located once again with SEMICON Europa in Munich, Germany from November 12-15 at the Messe München expo center. For the first time ever, Cimetrix will be exhibiting at both shows, and we welcome you to join us! 

Productronica is the world's leading trade fair for electronics development and production. Cimetrix will demonstrate our Smart Factory products, including Sapience, to show how we can help with your Smart Factory needs. Sapience is a simple solution for connecting multiple machines in a manufacturing line to a factory host system. It offers an economical and scalable solution that can support machines using many communications protocols, including SEMI SMT-ELS, the latest machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity standard. Please be sure to visit us at our productronica booth #451 in Hall A3.

Over in Hall B1, the SEMICON Europa show will be going strong. SEMICON Europa attracts an audience from every segment of the European microelectronics industries including semiconductors, PV, HB-LED, MEMS, and other adjacent markets.  The combination of SEMICON with productronica is the largest single exhibition for electronics manufacturing in all of Europe. We are excited to once again participate in this event to show how our products can fulfill your Smart Equipment needs.

Equipment manufacturers who want to embrace Industry 4.0 and all its benefits must first put the right digital building blocks in place. The foundation of this digital transformation is connectivity, and that's where Cimetrix can help. Whether you are an equipment manufacturer or an electronics factory, we can address your connectivity requirements. 

We invite you to drop by either of our booths at productronica or SEMICON Europa, or you can make an appointment ahead of time by clicking the button below. We look forward to seeing you there!

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in the development, testing, and integration of the Cimetrix ELS library that encompasses the SEMI A1, A1.1, and A2 (SMT-ELS) standards. It’s been exciting to see how ELS has increasingly been embraced as a connectivity solution for electronic manufacturing equipment.

I was first introduced to the SMT-ELS standard in June 2019 by Alan Weber (VP, New Product Innovations, Cimetrix). To begin, I obtained a functioning ELS implementation from Siemens Japan as well as the needed hardware. To make sure I fully understood ELS, I attended a 2-day class presented by Siemens and began studying the ELS standard and the Siemens ELS implementation.

It took a significant amount of time to get familiar with Siemens Implementation and gain an understanding of what they did to support the ELS standard. Siemens Japan has done a great job with their SEMI SMT-ELS implementation, and their assistance with my efforts is greatly appreciated. Once I felt familiar enough with ELS, I built a SMEMA interface driver to simulate the conveyor signals.

Using the SMT-ELS communications library, the Cimetrix development team designed a sample equipment application which I was able to use for initial connectivity testing. At first, it was fairly difficult to get the two libraries to communicate. However, when I used the Cimetrix EquipmentTest^TM software, I was able to find defects in our library, which were quickly and easily resolved by our development team. 

While it was beneficial to have a known ELS implementation to test against, it is now clear how valuable using a testing tool would be for anyone creating or validating their own SEMI SMT-ELS implementation.

Even though the SEMI A1, A1.1 and A2 standards are not long, they are dense. As adoption of these standards increases, it becomes paramount that equipment manufactures can test their SMT-ELS implementations during development. It is not effective or efficient for equipment manufacturers to test against other equipment as their primary form of testing. This is why the Cimetrix EquipmentTest SMT-ELS plug-in is so valuable.

I am currently working on test are written in C# and the code is easy to follow. The tests are split into two categories; one for horizontal communication between equipment ,and vertical communication to a factory system.

Horizontal Tests

For Panel Transfer verification, EquipmentTest connects to the first and last equipment in the line. This allows EquipmentTest to send messages to the first equipment and validate the format and content of the message from the last equipment. 

For this test, the user defines the panel parameters. The panel is sent to the first equipment. Once the last equipment in the line sends the panel to EquipmentTest, the Material Data Content is verified. 

In addition to actual tests, EquipmentTest can be used to send user defined atomic messages such as SetMDMode.

Vertical Tests

EquipmentTest Connects directly to the vertical port of the equipment. Using EquipmentTest, I can set and validate the Net Configuration.

The EquipmentTest software has been pivotal in developing and test our SMT-ELS Implementation. A demonstration of EquipmentTest SMT-ELS and the Cimetrix EquipmentConnect^TM SMT-ELS software will be given at Productronica from November 12-15, 2019 in Munich, Germany. Please drop by our booth any time, or feel free to set up an appointment in advance. We look forward to meeting with you and discussing your ELS needs!

The Industrial Transformation Asia Pacific (iTAP) Conference is taking place at the Singapore EXPO on 22-24 October, 2019. We invite you to visit the Cimetrix booth #1K21 in the Singapore Pavilion. Cimetrix and our partner Electrotek will be on hand to discuss your Smart Manufacturing needs. There are many industry terms that you may be wondering exactly how they apply to you. Whether it's "Who is Cimetrix?", or "What does Industry 4.0 mean for me?", we have answers to your questions! See the list of items below that we will be on hand to discuss. 

• Industry 4.0/Smart Factory
  • Basics
  • Terminology
  • Trends in I️ 4.0
• I4.o Applied to SMT Processes: Data with SEMI Standards
  • Explanation of SECS/GEM | SMT-ELS | And other SMT Standards
  • Six Sigma Black Belt Lessons
• Cimetrix Company Overview
• Cimetrix Sapience Smart Factory Platform
  • How our Platform Sapience, uses standards to provide data

Cimetrix® Sapience is an extensible platform used to connect varying factory equipment within a single event-driven framework. Sapience provides rapid-deployment tools for factories to mine the treasure trove of data available from shop floor equipment, driving actionable insights for optimal decision-making.  Manufacturers, OEMs and 3^rd-party developers use Sapience to gain access, through the web, to all kinds of factory equipment without having to understand the details of the myriad of shop-floor communications protocols. 

We hope to see you at our booth any time during the show, or you can schedule a meeting with us ahead of time by clicking the link below.

The TPCA show is coming soon and we will be there! You can read about it now in Chinese or below in English

TPCA（臺灣印刷電路板協會）2019年展會即將舉行，Cimetrix很高興能連續第三年參展！展覽將于十月二十三日至二十五日在臺北南港展覽中心舉行。我們邀請您#J-132參觀我們的展位。 

今年的TPCA展會的關鍵亮點之一將在PCB智慧製造論壇上舉行——"PCBECI機器應用互聯網引領智慧製造之路"。新的 PCBECI 標準是特色，Cimetrix 將宣佈我們已經在我們的 CIMConnect 設備連接產品和我們的設備測試合規性測試中支援此標準。

"通過符合成熟的半導體設備通信標準，臺灣PCB行業在全球同行中處於領先地位，利用PCBECI作為全球PCB行業智慧製造標準，有效解決了多樣化的設備通信標準。"

PCBECI論壇將于2019年10月24日（星期四）930至12：00在臺北南港展覽中心R402AB舉行。 

TPCA 展會彙集了 PCB 製造商 SMT 製造和測試設備供應商，預計將有來自 50 多個國家的約 4000 名參觀者參加。展區將有400多家參展商和1,400多個展位。 

Cimetrix 再次很高興成為本次展會的一部分，我們期待討論我們支援智慧製造和 PCBECI 標準的創新軟體產品如何滿足您的設備通信需求。您可以在展會期間到我們的展位停留，或提前預約。

The TPCA (Taiwan Printed Circuit Board Association) 2019 show is coming soon and Cimetrix is excited to be exhibiting for the third year in a row! The show will be held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center from October 23-25. We invite you to visit us at our booth #J-132.

One of the key highlights in this year’s TPCA show will take place at the PCB Smart Manufacturing Forum – “PCBECI Internet of Machines Applications lead to the smart manufacturing path.” The new PCBECI standard is featured, and Cimetrix will announce that we already support this standard in our CIMConnect equipment connectivity product and our EquipmentTest compliance tester.  

“By complying with the mature semiconductor equipment communication standards, the Taiwan PCB industry takes the lead among its global peers as they utilize PCBECI as the worldwide PCB industry Smart Manufacturing standard, effectively solving the problem of diverse equipment communication standards.“

The PCBECI forum will be held on Thursday, October 24, 2019, from 9:30 – 12:00 at R402AB in the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.

The TPCA show brings together PCB manufacturers SMT manufacturing and test equipment suppliers and expects about 4,000 visitors from over 50 countries. There will be over 400 exhibitors and more than 1,400 booths in the exhibition area.

Cimetrix is once again happy to be a part of this show, and we look forward to discussing how our innovative software products that support Smart Manufacturing and the PCBECI standard can help with your equipment communication needs. You can stop by our booth during the show, or schedule an appointment ahead of time.

The 31^st annual APC Conference is coming up later this month (October 28-31), and will be held at the Embassy Suites Riverwalk in the scenic and historic setting of San Antonio, Texas.

This conference is one of the longest-running events specific to the semiconductor manufacturing industry, and always features speakers and topics that are germane to the industry’s leading practitioners of equipment/factory data collection, analysis, optimization, and control.  This year’s agenda promises more of the same – click here for a closer look at the details.

Specifically, as the automotive industry’s use of semiconductors continues to grow in anticipation of self-driving cars and their supporting infrastructure, the first keynote address from Steve Frezon of NXP Semiconductors (“Automotive Semiconductor ZERO DEFECT Enablement”) highlights the challenges that automotive customers place on the wafer fabs. A second keynote by Dr. Ben Rathsack of Tokyo Electron America (“SMART Tools: Intelligent Controls in Semiconductor Manufacturing”) focuses on the implications of the global Smart Manufacturing initiative for equipment suppliers, which has been a consistent theme of the conference under a variety of monikers since its earliest days.

The rest of the Technical Sessions Agenda includes presentations, posters, and exhibits across the semiconductor value chain: sensor and subsystem providers, software suppliers, equipment manufacturers, universities, standards organizations, and semiconductor IDMs and foundries. Given the importance of equipment connectivity and control across the product and technology spectrum of these companies, Cimetrix will participate directly as it has for many years. Alan Weber, VP of New Product Innovations, will present a summary of a chapter (“Semiconductor Smart Manufacturing: An Evolving Nexus of Business Drivers, Technologies, and Standards”) in a soon-to-be-published 2-volume book on Smart Manufacturing. He will also present material jointly developed 1) with SK hynix on customer-driven automation requirements development, and 2) with SEMI Japan, Applied Materials, and others on new standards for flow shop style manufacturing, such as semiconductor back end and PCB assembly.

Central Texas can be a beautiful place to be in late October, so mark your calendars today and plan to join us in San Antonio!

The Cimetrix Resource Center is a great way to familiarize yourself with standards within the industry as well as find out about new and exciting technologies. 

Our resource center features information about equipment connectivity and control, data gathering, GEM (SECS/GEM), EDA/Interface A, and more. These standards are among the key enabling technologies for the Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 global initiatives that are having a major impact on the electronics assembly, semiconductor, SMT and other industries. Manufacturers and their equipment suppliers must be able to connect equipment and other data sources, gather and analyze data in real time, and optimize production through a wide variety of applications.

The many presentations featured in our resource center provide in-depth coverage from Cimetrix expert's presentations at many different conferences and expos around the world. Some of our most popular presentations are below.

• Getting the Most from the GEM Standard
• Addressing Connectivity Challenges of Disparate Data Sources in Smart Manufacturing
• Standards-based Multi-Source Data Collection in the Smart Manufacturing Era
• Smarter Manufacturing through Equipment Data-Driven Application Design

Be sure to stop by our Resource Center any time or download the presentations directly from the links in this posting.

Last week was SEMICON Taiwan, and we left the show feeling very confident about the industry in Taiwan over the next few years. We were happy to meet with current clients, make new contacts, and participate in SEMICON in a variety of ways.

Cimetrix continues to strengthen its relationship with SEMI through our global participation and leadership in SEMI Standards meetings, as we have now done in Taiwan. Richard Howard, a Cimetrix director, and co-chair of the SEMI NA Security Task Force attended the Taiwan Computer and Device Security (CDS) task force meeting at the invitation of the Taiwan task force leadership and SEMI staff. The purpose of the meeting was to have a face-to-face discussion of how the regional task forces from Taiwan, North America and Japan could work together to define standards that address security in the microelectronic manufacturing industry. The principal goal of this meeting was to gain alignment between North America and Taiwan on an effective approach for defining these standards. Together we agreed that the best way forward was to develop a suite of standards, much like the GEM 300 and EDA standards, that subdivide this broad domain into discrete areas with specific objectives. Specifically, the international teams jointly decided to address equipment and device security by breaking out these standards separately. In this way, the global community can work simultaneously on standards development and eliminate duplication of effort. Participating in standards meetings and task forces is always a great learning experience.

The SEMICON Taiwan theme this year was “Leading the Smart Future,” and this sentiment was echoed throughout the exhibits, seminars, and special events. There was Smart Transportation, Smart Manufacturing, Smart MedTech, and even Smart Data. In recent years, Cimetrix has been a regular sponsor and participant in the Smart Manufacturing areas of SEMICON shows, and this year, our booth exhibit was in the Smart Manufacturing Pavilion. In addition. Alan Weber, VP of new Product Innovations, spoke on the topic of “Connectivity Challenges for Smart Manufacturing” at the Meet-the-Experts area of the pavilion. Speaking at SEMICON is always a great opportunity, and we are happy to share the presentation material with you here.

As always, our Cimetrix team was excited to once again be an exhibitor at the SEMICON Taiwan show. We are already looking forward to SEMICON Taiwan 2020!

Today is our next edition of the Cimetrix Book Club. Our employees are always striving to develop their skills, share information, and keep up to date with the industry. Part of this effort includes an employee book club that involves many of our team members each month. We will cover some of their favorites from time-to-time here on our blog!

Today's book is called "Don't Make Me Think (Revisited)" by Steve Krug. The book review is by Gabe Hanson, a Software Engineer based in Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

This short but dense book was written to guide software developers through their journey of building user interfaces. While it was targeted specifically for web and mobile user interfaces, the general topics and suggestions presented will benefit almost anyone developing any kind of software. The general theme of the book ties directly with the title: make the end user think as little as possible while using your software.

The book covers topics ranging from general design philosophies, to optimal user interface experiences, and even more nuanced topics like accessibility considerations and color themes. Each of the 13 chapters presents common usability issues found throughout the stages of building a website or mobile application, and discusses how a developer might approach mitigating such problems. For example, chapter 6 discusses how one might build a website that is easy to navigate by using the concepts of "street signs" to help guide the user through your website. This chapter explains simple ways of constructing web pages with easily-locatable buttons and other kinds of navigation techniques to prevent the user from getting lost, frustrated, and eventually leaving your website.

We found chapters like these most valuable because these same ideas can apply to almost every piece of software we build for the manufacturing industry. Given the potentially complicated nature of navigating through an equipment's control software, it is important we design our software to be easy to use and navigate. Not just for convenience, but to reduce user error - something that can help avoid mistakes costing potentially millions of dollars.

Not only was reading the book educational, but it presented itself in a very entertaining and engaging way. Most of the pages contain humorous illustrations and simple diagrams to explain the points the author makes. One could argue the book itself incorporates some of the lessons it teaches, by helping the reader easily digest the points presented; to not "make them think so hard" about the complicated and subjective process of designing a simple yet complex piece of software.

I can safely say this book is recommended for any and all software teams aiming to build software that is easily usable for all sorts of end-users. Our team found this book to be an excellent guide in constructing software that is not only useful but easy to use.

SEMICON Taiwan 2019 is coming soon and we will be there! You can read about it now in Chinese or below in English

台灣SEMICON將於9月18日至20日在台灣台北的TaiNEX 1（南港展覽館1館）舉行，主題為“引領智能未來”。這與Cimetrix的業務完全符合，我們將在智能製造業展出大廳位於一樓J3056展位。我們邀請所有人來拜訪我們的展位（或者您可以在演出前的任何時間安排會議)!

Cimetrix將在台灣SEMICON展示我們的最新產品和尖端技術。這包括我們的設備控制平台演示以及我們最新的設備測試產品（Cimetrix EquipmentTest），EDA產品和GEM連接產品。

Cimetrix EquipmentTest有Basic和Pro兩種版本，可滿足各種客戶類型的需求。您可以在此處了解有關EquipmentTest的更多信息。

Cimetrix還將帶來幾個不同領域的專家，以回答有關行業標準，合規性和產品信息的任何問題。專家將在GEM（SECS / GEM），GEM300和EDA /接口A等領域提供。您還可以聽到我們的新產品創新副總裁Alan Weber就“智能製造的連接挑戰”這一主題發表演講。 SEMI於9月19日星期四上午11點10分與專家展位（J3258）會面。

SEMICON台灣由台灣對外貿易發展委員會（TAITRA）和台灣半導體產業協會（TSIA）共同組織。

我們祝福您在展會上取得成功，並希望在那裡見到您！

SEMICON Taiwan will take place on September 18-20 at TaiNEX 1 (Nangang Exhibition Center) in Taipei, Taiwan with the theme “Leading the Smart Future.” This is perfectly aligned with the business of Cimetrix, and we will exhibit in the Smart Manufacturing hall at booth J3056 on the first floor. We invite everyone who is at the show to stop by and see what’s new with us (or you can schedule a meeting at any time before the show)!

Cimetrix will showcase our latest products and cutting-edge technologies during SEMICON Taiwan. This includes our equipment control platform demonstrations as well as our latest equipment testing product (Cimetrix EquipmentTest), EDA products and GEM connectivity products.

Cimetrix EquipmentTest comes in both Basic and Pro versions to meet the needs of various client types. You can learn more about EquipmentTest here.

Cimetrix will also bring experts in several different fields to answer any questions you may have regarding industry standards, compliance and product information. Experts will be available in areas such as GEM (SECS/GEM), GEM300 and EDA/Interface A. You can also hear Alan Weber, our VP of New Product Innovations, speak on the topic of “Connectivity Challenges for Smart Manufacturing” at the SEMI Meet the Experts Booth (J3258) on Thursday, September 19 at 11:10 a.m.

SEMICON Taiwan is being co-organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) as well as the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA).

We wish you success at the exhibition and hope to see you there!

In the EDA Best Practices blog series, we have discussed choosing a commercial software platform, using that package to differentiate your data collection capabilities and how to choose what types of data to publish. In this post we will review why you should choose to provide an E164-compliant equipment model.

What is E164?

Equipment Data Acquisition (EDA) - also referred to as Interface A - offers semiconductor manufacturers the ability to collect a significant amount of data that is crucial to the manufacturing process. This data is represented on the equipment as a model, which is communicated to EDA clients as metadata sets. The metadata, based upon the SEMI E125 Specification for Equipment Self-Description, includes the equipment components, events, and exceptions, along with all the available data parameters.

Since the advent of the SEMI EDA standards, developers and fabs have recognized that equipment models, and the resulting metadata sets, can vary greatly. It is possible to create vastly different models for similar pieces of equipment and have both models be compliant with the EDA standards. This makes it difficult for the factories to know where to find the data they are interested in from one type of equipment to another.

Recognizing this issue, the early adopters of the EDA standards launched an initiative in to make the transition to EDA easier and ensure consistency of equipment models and metadata from equipment to equipment. This effort resulted in the E164 EDA Common Metadata standard, approved in July 2012. Another part of this initiative was the development of the Metadata Conformance Analyzer (MCA), which is a utility that tests conformance to this standard. With this specification, equipment modeling is more clearly defined and provides more consistent models between equipment suppliers. This makes it easier for EDA/Interface A users to navigate models and find the data they need.

Power of E164

The E164 standard requires strict name enforcement for events called out in the GEM300 SEMI standards. It also requires that all state machines contain all of the transitions and in the right order as those called out in the GEM300 standards. This includes state machines in E90 for substrate locations and in E157 for process management. The states and transition names in these state machines must match the names specified in the GEM300 standards.

These requirements may seem unnecessarily strict, but implementing the common metadata standard results in:

• Consistent implementations of GEM300
• Commonality across equipment types
• Automation of many data collection processes
• Less work to interpret collected data
• Ability for true “plug and play” applications
• Major increases in application software engineering efficiency

Knowing that a model is E164 compliant allows EDA client applications to easily and programmatically define data collection plans knowing that the compliant models must provide all of the specified data with the specified names. For example, the following application is able to track carrier arrival and slotmap information as well as movement of material through a piece of equipment and process data for that equipment.

This application will work for any GEM300 equipment that is E164 compliant. The client application developer can confidently create data collection plans for these state machines, knowing that an E164-compliant model must provide the needed state machines and data with the proscribed names.

Decide to be E164 compliant

A number of leading semiconductor manufacturers around the globe have seen the power of requiring their equipment suppliers to provide EDA/E164 on their equipment, and now require it in their purchase specifications.

If you are a semiconductor manufacturer, you should seriously consider doing the same because it will greatly simplify data collection from the equipment (and most of your candidate suppliers probably have an implementation available or underway.

If you are an equipment supplier and your factory customers have not required that your EDA models be E164 compliant, you should still seriously consider providing this capability anyway as a way to differentiate your equipment. Moveover, E164-compliant models are fully compliant with all other EDA standards. Finally, it is much easier and more cost effective to create E164-compliant models from the outset than it is to create non-compliant models and then convert to E164 when the factory requires it.

Conclusion

The purpose of the E164 specification is to encourage companies developing EDA/Interface A connections to implement a more common representation of equipment metadata. By following the E164 standard, equipment suppliers and factories can establish greater consistency from equipment to equipment and from factory to factory. That consistency will make it easier and faster for equipment suppliers to provide a consistent EDA interface, and for factories to develop EDA client applications.