May 2005: Adventa Announces Development of Generic Control for Semiconductor Industry. ControlWORKS-ITC provides New Controls for Refurbished Tools.

Since 1993, semiconductor equipment manufacturers worldwide have used ControlWORKS to run production tools and their processes. The ControlWORKS technology is now available for previous generation tools that are refurbished and put back into production by device manufacturers worldwide.

From 1993 to 2005, the ControlWORKS product has evolved to meet all applicable SEMI standards for machine and process control, including the most stringent standards for 300mm production tools. According to an Adventa representative, “Many 150 and 200mm tools are refurbished and installed in automated fabs that require more contemporary capabilities in terms of process control, factory communication and the ability to support fault detection and run-to-run process control. With the recent softening of the equipment market, dealers in the tool aftermarket have approached us to provide a generic semiconductor equipment controller that may be installed on a wide range of process tools. Our response to this need for an Integrated Tool Control is ControlWORKS-ITC. Starting with the ControlWORKS based control that the semiconductor industry is presently using on 200 and 300mm tools, we bring a lot of additional functionality to refurbished tools.” In addition to a graphical user interface that meets the SEMI styleguide and an I300I GEM interface, a ControlWORKS ITC-based control provides all of the functionality required to support an automated fab, with data collection capability to support real time fault detection and run-to-run process control, the basis for an Advanced Process Control environment.    

Adventa has had many inquiries for a state-of-the-art control for older generation semiconductor process tools, as well as non-semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Our object-oriented control platform is the perfect environment for rapid prototyping and control development. With the high code reuse that we enjoy in the ControlWORKS environment, this makes ControlWORKS-ITC a perfect solution for a myriad of production tools.