Archived press releases

Kitchener, Ontario – February 21, 2013

As manufacturers experiment with material sizes and ramp up new technologies, they need the flexibility to increase their investment incrementally. It is becoming essential to integrate equipment that processes multiple material sizes and different technologies to adjust to the increase in demand for new products, to gain access to new markets and adapt to changes in existing markets. Bridge tools can process material of different sizes – such as 300mm and 450mm wafers – simultaneously. To minimize costs, an equipment platform needs to easily adapt to different form factors and material types depending on the manufacturer’s needs.

PEER® Tool Orchestrator (PTO™) is the world’s most popular automation software platform managing all tool activities beyond chamber process control and data analysis. PTO takes your tool from lab to production faster than any other available solution. PTO is part of PEER Group’s OEM Automation Suite which is the only integrated solution on the market that delivers complete equipment automation software for tool control, host communications and integrated testing. The suite provides unprecedented flexibility for host communications, visualization, device integration and coordination; using our suite, OEMs can develop, adapt, and deploy quality equipment software solutions in less time than ever before.

PTO’s latest release, version 5.3, advances hardware automation control, reducing the time and cost to adapt equipment for technology changes.

Advancing Hardware Automation Control

PTO quickly automates a variety of tool topologies, with different host automation communications and material processes. Its flexible architecture gives equipment makers control over the material sizes and types processed by their automation solution. Bridge tools are now dynamically configurable at runtime through a variety of mechanisms including info pads, data from the host or the equipment’s user interface. As equipment adapts to new wafer sizes, PTO accelerates this transition and provides the processing flexibility that device manufacturers demand.

Largest Library of Hardware Drivers

Hardware selection is a key decision which impacts the overall cost, quality and performance of your equipment. Your hardware decision should not be limited by your automation software. With PTO, we have made hardware changes as easy as selecting a new device within our configuration application. Because PTO’s library of hardware drivers is the largest in the industry, you are able to quickly adapt your automation solution as you adjust your equipment design over the lifetime of the tool. The list of hardware drivers included in PTO is expanding continuously, reducing the time needed to automate your equipment and providing the flexibility to integrate into any automated manufacturing environment.

As hardware changes, PTO limits the impact it has on your automation solution in terms of communications, data visualization and hardware control. Generic hardware services ensure differences at the protocol layer do not impact high-level configuration and equipment control. PTO’s generic tag access service is the newest example of this where tag-based communication protocols such as OPC and Modbus, as well as any user-defined tag-based protocol details, are isolated allowing implementers to focus on their control logic.

By utilizing PEER Group’s OEM Automation Software Suite, engineering teams benefit from reduced integration time, increased long-term tool development flexibility and increased equipment software reliability. The OEM Automation Software Suite makes it possible to manage the cost of change while achieving higher customer satisfaction.

For a demo of PTO 5.3, contact sales and one of our sales engineers will contact you.