Safety Plugin for Semiconductor Wafer Manufacturing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Complex machines in industrial settings, such as silicon wafer manufacturing, lack the ability to assess whether combined instructions from different machines could result in unsafe conditions, despite individual instructions being safe when considered independently.
Innovation Solution
A computing device system that stores the state of each machine, generates pending outputs, and determines whether issuing those outputs would result in an unsafe condition, blocking them if necessary, using a safety plugin that references a lookup table of machine states and corresponding safe and unsafe conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If individual machine safety mechanisms are used to prevent unsafe operations, then machine-level safety is improved, but system-level unsafe conditions caused by combined machine operations cannot be detected
Solution Approach 1:
A safety plugin acts as an intermediary component between the control server and machines. It receives pending outputs from the control server, evaluates them against stored system states and safety rules, and determines whether to allow or block the outputs. This intermediary structure enables centralized safety monitoring without disrupting individual machine operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring machine states through sensors and communicating them to the control server. The safety plugin uses this feedback information to evaluate pending outputs and make real-time safety decisions, ensuring that system-level unsafe conditions are detected and prevented.
2Productivity
If a control server issues instructions based on individual machine needs, then operational efficiency is improved, but system-wide unsafe conditions may occur due to lack of holistic state assessment
Solution Approach 1:
The safety plugin performs preliminary evaluation of pending outputs before they are executed by the machines. By assessing the combined system state and potential unsafe conditions in advance, the system prevents hazardous operations from occurring, while still allowing efficient operational control through the control server.
3Strength
If safety mechanisms block potentially harmful instructions, then machine protection is improved, but system coordination and productive operations may be hindered
Solution Approach 1:
The safety plugin serves as an intelligent intermediary that distinguishes between truly harmful instructions and those that are safe when considered in the context of the overall system state. It blocks only those outputs that would create unsafe conditions while allowing productive operations to proceed, thus maintaining both machine protection and system coordination.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for preventing an unsafe operation of a plurality of semiconductor wafer manufacturing machines communicatively coupled to a computing device. The system includes the computing device, which includes a processor coupled to a memory. The memory contains processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computing device to perform the steps of storing, in the memory, a first state of a first machine of the plurality of machines, generating a first pending output to be issued to the first machine, determining whether an unsafe condition would result if the first pending output is issued to the first machine in the first state, issuing the first pending output upon determining that issuing the first pending output would not result in an unsafe condition, and blocking the first pending output from being issued upon determining that issuing the first pending output would result in an unsafe condition.