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Tell me more: The difference between shareable and nonshareable data (SEMI E190)

The success of advanced analytics – Fault Detection (FD), Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) – in the factory can only be built upon a foundation of data.

As the volume and complexity of collected equipment data increases, so does the tension between factories and equipment suppliers concerning who has access and rights to this very valuable information.

Factories believe that since they purchased the equipment, all collected and processed data should be freely available to them. At the same time, they resist sharing what specific types of data they are interested in as it may give insights to others about what the factory thinks are critical indicators of their manufacturing process.

On the other side, equipment suppliers don’t want to share all the data from their equipment as some of it contains proprietary information they want to remain private. This data and insight may also present commercial opportunities for them.

The North America Equipment Data Publication (EDP) Task Force under the North America Information & Control (I&C) Technical Committee has started to address this problem. SEMI E190 – Specification for Equipment Data Publication (EDP) is the core standard in a new standards suite around how equipment suppliers can categorize equipment data. Part of this standard defines the concept of shareable and nonshareable data. This is a key element for equipment suppliers and equipment users to frame their discussions around who has access to what equipment data.

SEMI E190 defines shareable and nonshareable as follows:

  • Shareable Data – Accessible from the manufacturing equipment through software interfaces (streaming interfaces and local data sources).
  • Nonshareable Data – Equipment data that is not shareable; equipment supplier does not make this data accessible to the equipment user. This data can include the supplier’s private information, intellectual property (IP), and information that is only accessible through graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and hardware instrument panels.

Equipment suppliers and the factories they sell to negotiate what equipment data is considered shareable and nonshareable through agreements, such as commercial or non-disclosure agreements (NDA). Typically, these negotiations consider:

  • Some equipment data is always accessible. For example, if the equipment claims compliance to a SEMI Standard such as SEMI E30, suppliers cannot turn around and say variables defined by that SEMI Standard are nonshareable.
  • Some equipment data, such as proprietary or IP, is private to the equipment supplier and will not be shared with the factory. Equipment suppliers may also define some of the equipment data as being always available to whichever factory purchases the equipment without the need to negotiate details.
  • The rest of the supplier defined data can be subject to negotiation. For example, an equipment supplier has an agreement with Equipment User A to share data from Sensor Group 1. That data, along with all other shareable data, is included in the Shareable Data bucket. However, the equipment supplier does not have a similar agreement with Equipment User B, so Sensor Group 1 Data is not included in the Shareable Data for Equipment User B.

Shareable and nonshareable data

Shareable and nonshareable data

Other EDP Standards in the SEMI E190 Standards suite will help equipment suppliers categorize the equipment data for a particular component type. This will help everyone understand what is grouped together and the data’s relationship to each other. The first SEMI E190 Subordinate Standard has been published (SEMI E190.1 – Specification for Common Data for Etch Components)

For more details, read the SEMI Blog article on the new EDP Standards.

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