| A recent study (1) shows that control system failure accounts for fifty percent equipment failure in semiconductor fabrication. In response to this study, an overview of today's Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) systems for equipment control and process control in fabs is presented here. Three CIM systems developed in different environment are investigated. They are the Strategic Cell Controller developed in SEMATECH, the semiconductor consortium industry, the MIT Computer Aided Fabrication Environment developed in academia, and the Microelectronics Manufacturing Science Technology CIM system developed by Texas Instruments under the industry and government's support. These CIM systems are being studied in the areas of computer architecture, user interface, distribution of software and hardware, supporting resources, development tools, and development and implementation cost.;Six equipment and process control systems and three CIM implementation projects will be presented here to highlight the adaptability and flexibility of control systems in today's CIM environment. |
