Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing 1998

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-118-1

ICATS: AN INTEGRATED CONFIGURATION AND TRACKING SYSTEM FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT EXPERIMENTS

DOI: 10.1615/FAIM1998.370
pages 407-416

Resumo

The output of technology development is a stable, reliable, and capable silicon technology and, at Intel, the process used to achieve the output is a series of experiments (see the first paper for a summary of the technology development model). A key contributor to technology development cycle time is the setup, execution, and tracking of experiments.
In this paper, we present ICATS, a system for setup (configuration), execution, and tracking of experiments. We first review the need for experiment, setup, and tracking and discuss the role automation plays in this function. We then review the overall system architecture and summarize the key features provided by the ICATS system. We then provide a detailed description of the key elements of the ICATS architecture - the client (user interface) and server (engine).