Implemented control and visualization software for the first part of production line assembled by ON Semiconductor Ltd. producing polished silicon wafers. Main task of the control system on this part of production line is identifying the ceramic carrier plates by barcode reader against database or MES and shift them to the next position for the mounting process. This process consist of mounting silicon wafers on carrier plates fixed with special wax and compressed by the vacuum bell. Mounter allows mount up to 300 wafers in one run. Back-end of control system for all parts of production line is implemented by WCF services hosted on IIS and front-end in Silverlight 5.0 using MVVM Light Toolkit.
In case of second part of the production line is control system responsible again for identifying the ceramic carrier plates and their subsequent loading into special magazines with capacity of 4 carrier plates. Filled magazine is identified by barcode reader and transported by roller conveyor to the output where is placed another barcode reader. Stocker has two floors where the top floor contains full magazines ready for polishing process and the bottom contains empty magazines. Full magazines are transported to polishing line by AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) moving along the magnetic track on the floor. Each of three polishing line main PLC units send the material requests to stocker (related to size and type of wafers). If a suitable material is found, particular magazine is searched and loaded onto AGV by the mechanism of rotation with the whole queue of full magazines.
In this part of production line after the initial identification and verification of magazine with carrier plates the control system provides correct setup of polishing recipe obtained from MES. Production line has 3 polishing lines composed of 3 polishers with possibility to select one of 25 predefined polishing recipes. Control system send command with polishing data to the main PLC unit of polishing line. After that begin loading carrier plates from magazine to the first polisher. Than whole process of polishing continues fully autonomously.
The control system send commands to the three robots responsible for demounting wafers into prepared barcoded plastic cassettes with total capacity 25 wafers. Carrier plates with polished wafers delivered from polishing lines by roller conveyor are identified by barcode reader. After that “cassette" robot may receive instruction to load the empty cassette on one of 4 stations that are available. Then "transfer" robot receive command to transport the carrier plate to particular station containing cassette with the same type and size of wafers and "demount" robot begin process of demounting wafers from the carrier plate. During demounting process can be cassette fully filled so in this situation control system send the command to the “cassette" robot for remove cassette from the station and move into the area within reach of operator. Finally after demounting all wafers "transfer" robot takes empty carrier plate to the output where is loaded into magazine and transported by second AGV at the beginning of the production line where is washed by cleaner for new usage.
Web application visualizing polishing data in form of graphs to meet the requirements of technologists and service team. The graphs show parameters (temperature, pressure, rotation speed and flow rates) at a time when it’s possible to select time window backwards or can be activated online mode with configurable refresh period. The user has option to choose number of polishing line and the number of particular polisher for which wants to display appropriate data. Application also allows export data to Excel for further processing. Technologies used in this solution include Silverlight 5.0 with MVVM Light Toolkit on the front-end and WCF services connecting to the Oracle database on the back-end side.
Web application developed for service team of the production line producing polished silicon wafers. Application allows start or shutdown control system and manage particular parts of the production line especially during some HW issues. Through appropriate option is possible to synchronize the status of the entities in database with real situation on production line in case of an inconsistent state. Front-end is written in Silverlight 5.0 with MVVM Light Toolkit and back-end using WCF services connecting to the Oracle database.
Desktop application developed for initial characterization of the production line. Through individual options user can send commands to the main PLC unit each part of the production line that otherwise send control system in full automatic mode. This way service team can control line in semi-automatic mode for testing purposes in case of HW issues. After solving the problem there is possibility to test correct functionality of the repaired part of production line. The application is implemented in WPF and communication with PLC via RS232.
Into existing application implemented additional functionality mainly related with the production line producing polished silicon wafers. The application is used to collect technological data of silicon wafers and also to visualize the entire measurement process. This measured data are one of several inputs for the Mounter control system. Front-end is implemented in Silverlight 5.0 using MVVM Light Toolkit and back-end using WCF services reading data from RS232 which are processed and persisted into the central Oracle database.
Application fetching process and technological data related to surface of silicon wafers from measuring equipment. Communication with the equipment is implemented via RS232 or TCP/IP by the SECS (SEMI Equipment Communications Standard) protocol written as .NET library also for future usage in other applications. Front-end is implemented in Silverlight 5.0 using MVVM Light Toolkit and back-end by WCF services using "pollingDuplexHttpBinding" for notifying the client part of application by events generating on server side.
Web application processing silicon ingots at the measurement location developed for ON Semiconductor Ltd. The application retrieves data from MS Access database which are generated by two equipments during measuring control segments each individual part of the silicon ingot. After that perform some transformation on this data and persist then into MES or central Oracle database dedicated for collecting measured data. Application is written in ASP.NET WebForms in combination with AjaxControlToolkit controls and jQuery.