Fab Automation Standards - SECS/GEM & EINNOSYS SOLUTIONS

The organization that defines and governs the standards for semiconductor manufacturing, equipment, automation and other relevant areas is SEMI.org. It is an international body for semiconductor manufacturers and equipment manufacturers.
Factory automation standards defined by SEMI are generally known as SECS/GEM standards, which for 200mm wafer processing is comprised of four main standards: SECS-I (E4), SECS-II (E5), HSMS (E37) and GEM (E30) standards.
Let's understand what each standard covers:
• SECS-I (E4): This standard is a communication protocol based on RS-232 serial communications. This is a much slower as compared to HSMS.
• SECS-II (E5): This standard defines how information is passed between an equipment and a factory host in the form of a series of stream and function messages.
• HSMS (E37): This standard defines a communication protocol based on TCP/IP.
• GEM (E30) : This standard not only defines how to use the core SECS-II messages to perform particular tasks, such as event report, data collection and recipe management but also takes care of the behaviour of the equipment when interfacing with the host.
Since SECS/GEM is a communication protocol, it is technology, platform as well as programming language independent. This gives both - the factory as well as the equipment manufacturer interoperability, flexibility and platform independence.
SECS/Gem standards define the communication between a host computer and the equipment typically using a single connection. The message types defined by SECS are partially asymmetric.
The practice of connection sharing is not recommended for new deployments. SECS connections are light and don't use much network bandwidth. It is possible to run several SECS connections on a simple desktop computer.
we at eInnoSys offer SECS/GEM software solutions for equipment manufacturers as well as factories.