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SPECIAL FEATURE: Remote Diagnostics Offer Benefits Without IP Loss
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
By Chakrapani "Chuck" Vallurupalli
The fact that tool suppliers will deliver large quantities of new machines to factory floors this year and next1 should rekindle the debate within the surface mount industry over the use of remote diagnostics. This article focuses on a twist to remote-diagnostic maintenance technology, and the unyielding push to comfort PCB makers who have historically been concerned that sharing maintenance data with suppliers using Internet portals drilled into their fab will expose precious trade secrets.
For years, semiconductor executives have been called on to expand their "Internet thinking" to improve industry performance. But to enjoy the benefits of remote diagnostics, must toolmakers require fab customers to transmit huge amounts of data outside the factory and over the Internet, or allow them to control the tool remotely? What if competition-sensitive information is leaked out? What if hackers acquire remote access to the tools?
Sensitive Data Transfer Remains a Security Concern Five or six years ago, an overwhelming buzz was generated in the semiconductor industry over Internet-based remote diagnostics as a cost-effective and secure method to maintain tools on the fab floor. Tool downtime cost about $1M/day in some instances. That was enough for many to consider e-diagnostics, and the improved service and reduced expenses that would result though quicker troubleshooting and problem resolution, as well as 24/7 system monitoring.
Not much really has materialized, though. Security concerns remain a considerable industry obstacle. This feeling is not limited to the semiconductor industry. About one-third of machine makers are using a remote diagnostic tool, reports one professional survey. The main reason cited for this was that OEMs could not get customers to allow them through their firewalls.
The question becomes: what technology approach can tool suppliers successfully convince chipmakers to accept in their factories to address tool breakdowns where maintenance is required and field technicians are under pressure to make repairs quickly?
Many information technology (IT) based process-support innovations offer diagnostic options that purport to maximize efficiency and reduce the expense of diagnostic-remote maintenance. Still, many chipmakers are not convinced, or are unwilling to run the risk that moving data between the factory and equipment-support organization can be achieved securely.
Keeping Proprietary Data In-houseMost would agree that chipmakers' concerns about having market-sensitive, proprietary data transmitted across the Internet prevents too many from capitalizing on the widely accepted view that e-diagnostics will benefit productivity. The answer is not to ask fab owners to accept more risk. The most secure e-diagnostics solution is one in which no sensitive data leave the factory building. This approach, founded in engineering (not IT) could alleviate chipmakers' concerns regarding data integrity, lower long-tool down-time (LTDT) dramatically, and render the protection of the network and the chipmakers' intellectual property (IP) a non-issue.
Opting for this approach would mean fab owners would put their trust in an engineered solution, rather than Internet-based IT approaches. While remote diagnostics enable virtual presence of a skilled technician at the fab, the engineered approach makes tools smarter by enabling self-diagnosis. Tools would be engineered to isolate faults on their own. Non-sensitive repair requests describing the correct component to replace would identify corrective action with nearly absolute certainty. IP remains secure.
Not All Approaches are the SameIt is a comprehensive, model-based environment that best supports the design evaluation process for a large-scale system or systems by providing for the analysis of failure effects (including the effects of human failure), testability analysis, and reliability analysis.
Certainly, significant savings in lifecycle costs of modern systems found throughout the fab floor can be achieved if they are concurrently engineered with three design criteria: performance, reliability, and ease of maintenance. The key word is "engineered." Many IT approaches using databases full of historical diagnostics and maintenance information to support field service operations work well to collect and move critical machine data. The key to effectiveness of real-time diagnostics is a high level of fault-isolation acuity that identifies the root cause quickly and efficiently.
This approach is based on a simple "failure-space" model of equipment. Based on engineering data, field-maintenance data, and expert knowledge, the model provides a graphical representation of the system's failure modes and all diagnostic and prognostic tests the system uses (Figure 1).
While other approaches require intimate knowledge of system behavior, thorny algorithms to describe behavior, complex state diagrams, or networks of complicated relationships and numeric weights, a qualitative-system modeling approach allows the engineer to build hierarchical block diagrams, capturing failure modes, functional-failure manifestations, and testing information.
From these inputs, the modeling tool can compute testability and diagnostic-performance characteristics. Applications based on this model can be deployed quickly. For example, modeling complex, robotic-imaging equipment for PCB inspection typically takes three man-months. Like other remote diagnostics, a stand-alone handheld PC may be used for onsite maintenance. Information on the computer can be synchronized periodically with a server. A real-time diagnostic-reasoning engine can be embedded in system hardware for onboard diagnostics. This dynamic procedure takes into consideration cost, time, current symptom(s), and resource constraints, and uses information-gain algorithms to generate an optimal procedure. The results have shown more than 75% reductions in fault-isolation time, 30% or better increase in machine availability, and the ability to elevate every field service engineer (FSE) to an expert level of troubleshooting and maintenance capability with minimal training and experience. One firm that designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and services automated optical inspection (AOI) systems for bare and assembled PCBs, fine-pitch devices (FPDs), and imaging solutions for PCB production, chose this approach because of its knowledge-engineering capabilities and diagnostic accuracy. In use, the firm found that their FSEs with one or two years experience were able to solve the same problem on the same machine faster than their counterparts with three or five years experience (Figure 2). Experienced engineers were skeptical about the reliability of advanced fault-isolation approach and questioned the application at every step. Use of sophisticated fault-isolation diagnostics is not limited to the semiconductor industry. Remote diagnostics that do not involve the transfer of IP is what one aircraft manufacturing to embed this technology into jet engines being developed for the U.S. military's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a class of fighter aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and foreign militaries. NASA also has selected engineered-fault isolation to help maintain the next fleet of manned spacecraft.Positive effects resulting from a sophisticated fault-isolation-engineered approach on training costs, mean time to repair (MTTR), maintenance costs, service-call rates, reduced false pulls, and customer satisfaction are numerous. It is unlikely that database solutions (or even more sophisticated case-based solutions) can achieve this level of performance, especially when it comes to new equipment where there is no history of past problems.
Conclusion Armed with accurate diagnostic tools, FSEs require less training to perform the same tasks that senior technicians previously performed; and they can accomplish those tasks more efficiently. In today's highly competitive world of manufacturing, where companies work hard to keep whatever edge they gain, OEMs that supply the semiconductor industry might rethink how remote diagnostics would differentiate them from their competition, especially if the market think of original equipment as a commodity item.
REFERENCES1. "Semi Capital Spending Up 10% in 2006," Electronic News, March 16, 2006.
Chakrapani "Chuck" Vallurupalli, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Qualtech Systems, Inc. (QSI), may be contacted at (860) 257-8014.