Semiconductor Plant Incorporates Advantech’s DeviceOn/iEdge I.App to Enable Real-Time Monitoring of Air Pressure Conditions
4/1/2021

Advantech’s DeviceOn/iEdge Industrial App has been adopted by a global semiconductor company to enable monitoring of equipment air pressure in real time. By ensuring the immediate reporting of emergency events, the App can effectively reduce system downtime resulting from abnormal air pressure conditions.
Staff of a packaging plant operated by a global semiconductor company were having a monthly meeting in the centralized monitoring room when the chief engineer’s mobile phone suddenly received an emergency notification. He checked the phone and found a text message that read, “Urgent! Irregular air pressure detected for machine 3 on production line A.” Before he could contact production line staff, he received a message from the production line manager that read “A production line abnormality has been detected. I’m on the way to fix it.” Because the equipment air pressure meters had been fitted with additional sensors, and Advantech’s DeviceOn/iEdge Industrial App had been deployed, plant managers were able to determine the real-time air pressure conditions on production lines. This allowed them to monitor air pressure changes and avoid equipment downtime and production interruptions.
Four functions enable real-time monitoring of
production line air pressure
Sammy, product manager at Advantech, pointed
out that semiconductor manufacturing equipment is
extremely varied and fixed air pressure levels are
required to support diffusion equipment. Accordingly,
semiconductor plants typically use a centralized air
delivery system for each production unit, which can result
in less than ideal air pressure levels. Moreover, although
each machinery set can be monitored independently whether sufficient air pressure is provided cannot be
accurately determined, which eventually results in low
yield rates.
To address this issue, the semiconductor company
contacted Advantech and Mirle for an effective solution.
Mirle installed pressure sensors capable of detecting
various gases, such as argon, oxygen, and nitrogen.
These sensors were coupled with an edge intelligence
server featuring Advantech’s DeviceOn/iEdge software
for intelligent edge management. By enabling realtime air pressure monitoring and immediate warning
notifications, this solution effectively reduced the risk of
equipment downtime, while boosting production capacity
and improving yield rates.
Sammy explained that Advantech’s DeviceOn/iEdge
solution has four major features that address typical
factory pain points. First is the communication protocol
and data integration function, which facilitates the
digitalization of analog air pressure data for convenient
collection and visualization. Second is the edge
computing and analysis function, which enables prompt
air pressure detection at the edge without transmission
to the cloud. Third is the remote control and centralized
management function, which allows air pressure data
processed at the edge to be accessed throughout the
entire plant. Fourth is a pre-loaded instrument panel
management interface, which enables easy development
of instrument panels with minimal editing and rapid deployment. Sammy asserted that although most semiconductor
plants conduct a high degree of intelligent
manufacturing, some traditional facilities still use
sensors to support monitoring and management. Thus,
Advantech’s DeviceOn/iEdge provides a solution that
integrates software and hardware for comprehensive
intelligent manufacturing.
DeviceOn/iEdge deployed in diverse vertical
industries
Besides semiconductor manufacturing, DeviceOn/
iEdge has been widely deployed in various vertical
industries. For PCB factories, it can be used to collect hotair oven data, automate oven temperatures, and integrate
collected data with manufacturing execution systems to
accelerate intelligent production. For the CNC machine tool industry, DeviceOn/iEdge can be used to monitor and
analyze CNC machine data via servers equipped with the
OPC-UA communication protocol. It can also be used for
real-time detection of consumables to enable preventive
maintenance.
Because different IT segments have varying environment
needs, DeviceOn/iEdge is flexible. It supports private
edge-to-cloud solutions and allows users to scale up
deployment through public clouds such as Microsoft
Azure and AWS Marketplace. Additionally, because
vertical industries have differing requirements for smart
applications, Advantech has collaborated with many domain focused solution integrators (DFSIs) to ensure DeviceOn/
iEdge can be adopted by many industries. Looking to the
future, Advantech plans to continue partnering with DFSIs
to accelerate intelligent manufacturing across a wide range
of vertical industries.