SSMC, a joint-venture of Koninklijke Philips Electronics, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), and the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDBI) is in the advanced semiconductor foundry business. Set up with an investment of over S$2 billion, production commenced ahead of schedule, with plans to advance beyond 0.18 micron technology to supply a large volume of strategic and customized integrated circuits to the global market.
The SSMC plant deploys state-of-the art engineering fields like Etch, Thin Film, Diffusion and Photolithography to sustain and improve the process and equipment capability and output to meet operational goals. The plant has also invested in advanced integrated IT and manufacturing automation technologies to facilitate high productivity and timely access of information for quick decision making. One such automation technologies is the Facilities Monitoring and Control System (FMCS) designed and installed by CNA.
The FMCS controls major equipment including the chiller system, process cooling, exhaust system, make-up air units and air-handling units, using robust, hot-redundant PLCs. CNA also provides high-level interfaces to third-party systems such as chemical dispense, slurry, waste water, ultra-pure water (UPW) and smoke detection systems for comprehensive systems monitoring.
The FMCS and third-party PLC systems are integrated over an industrial Ethernet-H1 fibre optic network. A separate fibre optic network running on TCP/IP protocol provides the communication link for human-machine interface stations. The system is based on client-server platform, with a total of four servers and five clients. In addition to these PCs, there are a number of third-party HMI stations sitting on this network. Communication between PLCs and remote I/O units is provided by dual fibre optic Profibus for added reliability.
The common communications protocols adopted for the SSMC plant has enhanced interoperability. Simply put, interoperability is the capacity for different systems, made by different manufacturers to perform different tasks, to operate together and share communications, data, and command capabilities. This ensures better operating efficiencies, ubiquitous data sharing and enhanced management and reporting.
CNA's partnership with SSMC has gone beyond helping SSMC achieve world-class performance in reliability, quality, yield and cost efficiency . CNA has also supported SSMC in its environmental and energy-efficiency efforts. Investing in such programmes makes good economic sense. It helps SSMC create energy-efficient, comfortable, productive and sustainable environment over the long term.
|
