Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International Interface and Communication Standards

This chapter overviews the fundamentals of the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Equipment Communication Standards, commonly referred to as the SEMI Communication Standard (SECS), its interpretation, the available software tools, and case study applications. It describes a transmission interface for passing messages between the equipment and a host over the RS-232 communication. The chapter presents a case study in the design and implementation of SECS-I, SECS-II, and Generic Equipment Model (GEM) driver for a case where a new machine is to be integrated with a computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) system. SECS-I uses software-based time-outs to handle communication synchronization between the host system and the equipment. The fundamental GEM requirements form the foundation of the GEM standard, which are basic requirements for all types of semiconductor equipment. High speed message service (HSMS) is designed with the intention that existing SECS-II and GEM-compliant applications could be easily converted to use HSMS instead of SECS-I.