Posted on Thu, Jul 08, 2010
The semiconductor industry's largest event of the year, SEMICON West, is right around the corner. And with the market in recovery, we expect it to be a good turn out and a great show.
This year, Cimetrix has several exciting new developments to discuss at the show:
- GEM Implementation - Faster & Better
We've been at work developing a new solution that enables an even faster GEM implementation... while still improving the already high level of quality you've come to expect from Cimetrix. Designed to cover 90% of typical GEM interfaces, the new solution helps reduce time to market (and headaches) for our customers.
- The Year for Interface A - Are you Ready?
ISMI announced the new Freeze Version of the Interface A Standards on June 17. Also, with increased SEMI investment and fabs requiring implementation, this has quickly become a hot topic. Is your software able to support multiple versions of the Interface A standard at the same time? Are you set up to adopt the new version effectively and efficiently?
We would love the opportunity to discuss your unique needs and projects with you further at the show.
Not registered for the show? Email us for a free pass.
We will be in the South Hall - Booth #2331.
See you at the show!
Posted on Tue, Jun 08, 2010
by Brian Rubow,
Product Manager
I have been a Scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts of America for about 5 years now. Our troop goes camping several times a year. Utah offers a lot of beautiful and interesting camping areas. The variety is remarkable. In our troop we spent a lot of time teaching and preparing the boys to not only have fun, but also be safe and wise in their fun. Some planning ahead, training and common sense can make a huge difference. Nearly every week, I have our Senior Patrol Leader help all of the scouts in our troop recite a number of memorized phrases including the Scout Oath, Law, Slogan, Motto and sometimes even the Outdoor Code. The Scout Motto is the famous one known to almost everyone in the world; "Be Prepared". Reciting it every week helps our minds to remember to focus on being prepared for whatever may come. We prepare the boys to handle emergency situations such as medical and weather related emergencies. "Be Prepared" applies not only to scouting activities like camping, canoeing and hiking, but also to school, our careers and everything we do.
At Cimetrix we also like to "Be Prepared". In particular, at the time we designed our EDA (Interface A) products, CIMPortal and EDAConnect we recognized a need to support multiple versions of the standard. Since 2006, there has been only one allowed version of the EDA standards. This is the ISMI Freeze Version which specifies the 1105 version of the SEMI® standards. At Cimetrix we knew that at some point in the future the 1105 ISMI Freeze Version would not be the only version implemented. As co-chair of the DDA Task Force responsible for the development of the SEMI EDA standards, I can personally attest that the standards have continued to change, mature and improve. At Cimetrix, we predicted from the start that at some point in the future, factories would want these new features in the standards and that ISMI would announce another EDA Freeze Version.
Due to the nature of the underlying SOAP/XML technology, the client and equipment are required to use the same version of the SEMI standards. With one and only one ISMI Freeze Version, this is easy. Everyone's implementation works with everyone else's implementation. With more than one ISMI Freeze Version, it is more complicated. Each equipment supplier has to support each ISMI Freeze Version to communicate with the different client software at different factories or even in the same factory. Each factory has to support each ISMI Freeze Version to communicate with the different equipment implementing different versions.
ISMI is poised to announce another EDA Freeze Version soon. Certainly the factories using the EDA standards will expect equipment suppliers to adopt the new version as soon as possible. And certainly factory data collection applications will want to adopt the new version and take advantage of the new features.
To "Be Prepared" for the future, Cimetrix originally designed both EDA products, CIMPortal and EDAConnect, for the future. Each product is designed with an abstraction layer to be able to support multiple EDA versions at the same time. This makes it possible for Cimetrix to adopt the new EDA versions without rearchitecting the products. In turn, this passes on tremendous value to our customers who also will not have to rearchitect their solutions. In fact, Cimetrix customer should be able to upgrade to new Freeze Versions with relative ease. It is nice to "Be Prepared".
Schedule a meeting at SEMICON® West 2010 to discuss your Interface A needs further!
Or visit us at Booth #2331, South Hall.
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Posted on Thu, Mar 18, 2010
by Doug Rust,
Director, Product Engineering & Customer Support
The time shift for daylight savings this week is going to cause me some grief for some time. Most countries in Europe will not adjust until March 28. Many countries in Asia (India, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Japan for example) are not adjusting for daylight savings at all in 2010. Since our customers are all over the world, I’m going to have a tough time keeping in sync. It’s inevitable that I’ll miss some important event this month. So, I thought it would be very àpropos to submit a blog about Time Synchronization.
SEMI® standard E148 defines software standards for the equipment communication interface to enable the equipment control computers to automatically synchronize their clocks from a standard time base. Although this standard was just published a couple years ago, it is not new technology. Computer systems have been using internet technology to synchronize their clocks with a common time base for over 20 years now. The Network Time Protocol (NTP – a.k.a RFC1305) is the internet standard for time synchronization that is designed to enable any computer to synchronize with a reference clock (most commonly the atomic clock in Colorado) through various time servers available on the internet. SEMI E148 specifies the NTP standard as the mechanism for synchronizing the equipment control computer with the factory computer systems (as well as some other requirements).
This is becoming a critical capability as factories begin to adopt other information technology that enables them to collect thousands of precise data points from each run on each tool. Making effective use of this data requires that the time-base for data source ‘A’ is the same as the time base for other data sources so that the raw data can be assimilated and correlated to produce valuable manufacturing information. If there was some important “event” in manufacturing that we need to analyze the first thing we will do is to try to determine what else was happening at the time of that event. So the first question we ask is “when did that occur?” That’s where we can run into serious problems if there is no common time base.
Most modern operating systems have the NTP client software built-in. It’s possible to synchronize with reliable time servers on the internet and there are many affordable commercial time servers available. Even if users do not implement all of the E148 requirements, I suspect we are going to see more and more factory networks using NTP to synchronize the manufacturing equipment with factory hosts over the next year (if they haven’t already done it). For me, I guess I’m going to be out of sync at least until May 28.
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Posted on Mon, Nov 30, 2009
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.
Cimetrix representatives will be available for discussions and meetings at the Rorze booth in Hall 4, #4B-509. To view the map of Hall 4, please click here. Please stop by to learn about our new tool control solution, CIMControlFramework™.
We hope to see you there!
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Posted on Tue, Sep 22, 2009
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…..