Dresden/Germany, Oporto/Portugal – Critical Manufacturing, an enterprise which creates leading edge software solutions for the high-tech manufacturing industries of solar, electronics and semiconductors, announced today that Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT), selected and implemented cmNavigo Productivity Suite, comprising of a Manufacturing Execution System and Equipment Integration, in its facilities in Dresden, Germany
The business areas of Fraunhofer CNT include the development of processes and materials as well as the physical and electrical characterization of high performance logic, derivates (e. g. embedded DRAM) and memory technologies for volatile and non- volatile devices . In close cooperation with industrial partners and other R&D organizations, the objective of the institute is to develop innovative unit process solutions and modules for systems as well as enabling production on 300 mm silicon wafers on their approximately 40 tools in an industrial clean room environment. The aim is to transfer research results fast into industrial manufacturing.
“CNT operates in a demanding environment, in projects with some of the top semiconductor companies based on 300mm technology. Beyond the know-how of our employees, in order the be able to perform our projects successfully and in time, we needed a system that would allow us the right levels of flexibility, reliability in data collection and feature richness as well as automation” says Prof. Dr. Peter Kücher, Director of Fraunhofer CNT. “From the different systems we looked at during our evaluation, cmNavigo was the more promising. We’re now confirming the choice was absolutely right and will yield outstanding results for our customers” he adds.
cmNavigo is a lean Manufacturing Productivity solution developed from the ground up on proven Microsoft technologies which provide extensive benefits and lower total cost of ownership. The system is completely scalable making it ideal from small R&D environments to large scale high volume production facilities. A full range of MES capabilities facilitate increased control, visibility and productivity for manufacturers seeking higher profitability and a competitive edge.
“Advanced semiconductor R&D environments like CNT are extremely challenging for MES systems” states Tom Bednarz, Critical Manufacturing Deutschland’s Managing Director. ”On one side, it requires key features of a volume production, ranging from equipment integration and process control, up to business intelligence; on the other, it requires enormous flexibility to handle the large numbers of smaller runs with unique characteristics, data collections and flows in an efficient way.”
Additional information on cmNavigo is available here
Fraunhofer CNT opened on 31st May 2005 and is an example of the close cooperation between research and manufacturing for which Dresden offers excellent conditions. Due to its advantageous location within the “Silicon Saxony” cluster , it provides ideal collaboration opportunities for research institutes and material/equipment manufacturers in the field of nano- and microelectronics.
Fraunhofer CNT focus on the development and characterization of special process steps for the manufacturing of high-density memory chips as well as high-performance transistors and innovative processes in cooperation with leading equipment suppliers . With more than 30 scientists additionally work is carried out on the development of new analytic and metrology methods and on the electrical characterization analysis of wafer processing results. For more information, visit www.cnt.fraunhofer.de or contact us at contact@cnt.fraunhofer.de.
Critical Manufacturing is an enterprise founded from the established business of Critical Software and the inspiration and experience of a team of internationally renowned industry experts, that creates leading edge software solutions for advanced manufacturing industries. The company is part of Critical Group, a private group of companies founded in 1998 to provide solutions for mission and business critical information systems. Critical Manufacturing has its headquarters and main technical centre in Portugal and additional facilities in Germany and China. For more information, visit criticalmanufacturing.avitamina.pt or contact us at contact@criticalmanufacturing.avitamina.pt.