Equipment Connection

Factory Automation is a key driver for increasing efficiencies by reducing manual labour requirements, reducing the possibility of misprocessing and eliminating manual data entry.

Monitoring downtime and throughput by getting this data directly from equipment drives continuous improvement programmes to improve equipment utilisation.  Implementing automatic feedback control loops can only be done with automation.

Simple, Configurable Automation

Ascari's equipment manager and connection technology can interface easily with tools that comply with SECS / GEM, XML, SCADA and PLCs.  Other protocols including flat-files are supported with plug-ins.

Overview of Ascari's Java Equipment Manager (JEM) Technology 

The Equipment Manager provides bi-directional tool communication into virtually any Enterprise Service Bus for example Oracle Fusion, Eyelit SOA Base, JBoss or Mule.

Connecting production tools to higher level systems like MES and ERP is now much easier and more rapidly achieved using the configuration aspects of the Ascari Equipment Manager.

The Equipment Manager provides a number of features:

• A configurable generic & extendable equipment automation framework
• Standard GEM compliant processes for handling Tool Communication, Tool Status Monitoring, Tool Event Handling and Tool Alarm handling
• XML based equipment drivers built with a GUI Application
• ‘Out of the box' functionality that already copes with a wide range of automated equipment scenarios.

Benefits

• Reduce the time to create SECS I, HSMS or TCP-IP/TELNET connections to Process Equipment
• The Generic Equipment Model provided already handles a large range of potentially differing operational scenarios
• Use the inherent connection, event, scenario, alarm and tool status managers to simplify any custom coding that may be required

Customers can licence the Equipment Manager and undertake some training to develop their own equipment interfaces or they can use Ascari's development team to undertake the entire automation project.

 For a product overview sheet please click here

Automation Experience

Ascari have undertaken many automation projects across process areas that include Photolithography, Films, Etch, Wet Process, Diffusion and Metrology interfacing to many different tool types including Applied Materials, Novellus, Gasonics, TEL, LAM, Semitool, ASML and Schlumberger.

We have also written the control software for material transportation systems that move product automatically throughout a manufacturing process.

Key automated scenarios we have addressed include:

Automatic Recipe Selection
Automatic Data Collection
Recipe Management
Equipment Maintenance Management
Advanced Process Control (APC)
Material Movement and Transport

Based on this experience and taking best practices Ascari Software developed the Java Equipment Manager technology.