Development of a web-services-based e-diagnostics framework for semiconductor manufacturing industry

Recently, the emerging Web-Services technology has provided a new and excellent solution to the data integration among heterogeneous systems. A Web-Services-based e-diagnostics framework (WSDF) is proposed. It can achieve the automation of diagnostic processes and diagnostics information integration for semiconductor equipment. First, the system framework and the system component model are designed. Then, the object-oriented analysis and design of system components are accomplished. In particular, for the purpose of code reuse, several common functions, such as simple object access protocol communication, universal description discovery and integration registration, security mechanism, data exchange mechanism, and local database access, are built into a generic component called Web-Service agent. By inheriting the Web-service agent, other system components can be constructed and have these common functions. In addition, a unified authentication-service mechanism and a safe network connection are also designed in the framework. WSDF is intended to support the e-diagnostics functions defined by International SEMATECH. It is believed that WSDF can be applied to construct e-diagnostics systems for the semiconductor manufacturing industry.