Platform offers open fab development architecture

Wonderware has released new enhancements for the ArchestrA application platform focused on fab-wide equipment engineering systems.

Expanding on its technology development commitment to the semiconductor market, Wonderware has released new enhancements for the ArchestrA application platform focused on fab-wide equipment engineering systems (EES).

The enhancements provide fast correlation of process data with production events, easy ad hoc navigation through data from multiple data sources and new calculations embedded into its integrated real-time database.

Wonderware products are sold and supported in the UK and Ireland by Stockport based Pantek.

"Wonderware continues its efforts to provide the semiconductor market with a robust solution for creating and managing mission-critical production systems", said Kevin Tock, Wonderware Vice President of Advanced Applications and Alliances.

"The enhancements are designed to accelerate the adoption of the new Interface A standards by reducing the time and effort needed to use process, production and equipment data to improve manufacturing operations".

Since the introduction of the ArchestrA application platform to the semiconductor industry in 2004, the technology has seen increased acceptance among major worldwide semiconductor fabs for driving production performance improvements.

The ArchestrA application platform has been selected by International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative as the host system for validation of equipment data acquisition (EDA) interfaces on process tools and has been adopted by a major memory chipmaker for wet-etch monitoring, particle count monitoring and cryopump management.

The ArchestrA application platform also had been implemented by several major North American and Asian chipmakers for facility monitoring and control systems for production information management in research and development fabs.

The new capabilities enable semiconductor fabs to better use the ArchestrA application platform's extensive connectivity, visualisation, and data storage and management features to build fab-wide EES.

The ArchestrA application platform provides a robust distributed object environment using Microsoft.NET technologies.

"The enhanced ArchestrA application platform is well-suited to the special needs of the semiconductor industry because it enables customers to quickly and easily build EES applications for wafer fabs that meet their specific requirements", Tock said.

"ArchestrA technology enables semiconductor fabs to deploy sustainable, highly integrated applications that address their stringent requirements for agility, scalability, reliability and cost-effectiveness".

Process engineers can now quickly analyse and identify important relationships among production, process and equipment data using detailed, real-time data from many different types of devices spread across a variety of locations and time frames.

Data are automatically mapped directly to application objects and stored in the real-time database for later analysis.

The ArchestrA application platform provides a user-friendly EDA interface for definition and management of data collection plans for an entire fab.

More than 800 interfaces are available for direct connection to real-time data sources, such as sensor buses, PLCs and real-time interfaces.

These include many tried and proven serial interfaces for specialised equipment to reduce application deployment time.

Production managers can now use a new automated navigation portal feature for personalised information delivery and drill-down navigation.

They can view real-time production data and summary reports in many ways, using standard online trending, graphing and reporting tools.

The new portal capability provides ad hoc navigation across multiple data sources, such as external databases, file systems and websites.

Dynamic online dashboards can now provide user-defined and automatic queries, charts, tabular displays, KPI flags and links to other dashboards.

Storage and management of massive amounts of real-time information is as important to EES applications as connectivity.

The ArchestrA application platform addresses this need with a scalable, integrated real-time database.

It combines data collection with time-series extensions in an embedded relational database, fully integrating process data with events, summary, production and configuration information.

The new embedded database calculations provide automatic interval data between production events, integral data for rate data and advanced data sample algorithms.

Based on Microsoft SQL Server technology, this functionality is significantly faster than standard database systems and saves data in a fraction of the space.

These new features enhance the ArchestrA application platform's functionality for semiconductor advanced process control (APC), complementing the EDA interface, application integration tools, analytical clients, developer environment and intranet portal to provide a robust and scalable APC environment.

The ArchestrA application platform is a complete development, integration, deployment, execution and support environment for mission-critical manufacturing applications.

Integrated data processing, storage and management features provide high data quality and universal, secure access capabilities for all system users.

Moreover, it supports both custom in-house development and third-party package integration, allowing semiconductor IT organisations to make effective buy versus build decisions for each individual application.

The ArchestrA application platform offers fabs an open development architecture with the agility and scalability to effectively compete in the rapidly changing semiconductor manufacturing industry.

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