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By 1970 the semiconductor industry had been building momentum for at least a decade. Yet the companies supplying the equipment and materials that made possible the miniature wonders known as "chips" were all but invisible. The newly emerging industry was tiny then – only a few million dollars in global revenues – but a handful of visionary leaders came together to create a forum to shine the spotlight on equipment and materials suppliers. The resulting organization was called SEMI®.
SEMI is a global industry association serving companies that develop and provide manufacturing technology and materials to the global semiconductor, flat panel display, MEMS and related microelectronics industries. SEMI maintains offices in Austin, Beijing, Brussels, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose (Calif.), Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.
The SEMI International Standards Program, established in 1973, is one of the key services offered for the benefit of the worldwide semiconductor, MEMS and FPD industries. Standards afford a way to meet the challenges of increasing productivity while enabling business opportunities around the globe. The program started 30 years ago in North America and became truly international in 1985 with the expansion of activities to Europe and Japan, and later to Taiwan, Korea, China and other regions.
Companies utilizing standards can decrease manufacturing costs, increase reliability and productivity, and access global markets. On an individual basis, participation helps to reduce design work, provides access to evolving technology and technical developments, and aides personal development. Through its involvement in the SEMI standardization bodies, Siemens can provide its customers in the semiconductor industry with compatible products coinciding with the approval of the standard.
So e. g. our SIMATIC S7 "F" series is compliant with the requirements of the SEMI S2 standard. Or take our SITOP power supply units. They are SEMI F47 compliant. Two recently released SEMI standards, SEMI E54.14 (PROFINET) and SEMI E54.8 (PROFIBUS) describe modern communication strategies for equipment and facilities. All SIMATIC products supplied by Siemens to the semiconductor industry, especially in the equipment sector, are already suitable for use with PROFINET. Future additions will also be promptly integrated.
With SEMI F97 the first of a series of standards is now in place fab building automation. This standard specifies the requirements of the architecture, common services, data and their semantic meaning in order to integrate facility package units (e.g. chemicals, cooling, power supply, access control) into the Facility Monitoring and Control System (FMCS). This standard has also already been implemented in Siemens products for the semiconductor industry. The use of concepts based on SIMATIC S7, SIMATIC WinCC and SIMATIC PCS 7 for fab building automation will therefore lead to a reduction in lead time and planning, as well as project execution costs for users. For more information regarding SEMI standards and SEMI Standards activities, please refer to SEMI Standards.
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