Plant Automation in a Structured Distributed System Environment

As VLSI technology evolves, miniaturization demands more sophisticated tools, instruments, and controls to manufacture the VLSI components. IBM's facility at East Fishkill, New York, has the responsibility for the development and manufacture of semiconductor products used in IBM data systems. This requires a sophisticated set of processes, inspections, and tests operating as a fully integrated system. In this paper, the design and implementation of a hierarchical distributed system for manufacturing control of integrated electronic components are described. The implementation includes distributed data bases and inter-level decoupling to ensure 24-hour manufacturing capabilities. Reasons for the choice of the processors used at various levels in the hierarchical network, and the communications required between them, are discussed.