Semicon & Solar

Sioux takes care of designing, developing, building prototypes and serial production of high-quality, competitive production systems for OEMs in the semicon & solar sector.

Semicon & Solar

Sioux is a multidisciplinary technology partner for the semicon & solar industry Our competencies include the design and realisation of intelligent software, electronics, mechatronics, mathware and the production of high-tech modules, systems and machines. Our way of creating added value is focusing on innovation, acceleration and cost-effectiveness. You will not find another place with such a large volume of knowledge about ultra-precise motion and positioning under difficult conditions than in the high-tech region of Eindhoven, Sioux’s home base. Leading OEMs in the international semiconductor and solar industry develop and build the world's most advanced production machines there. They are extremely complex, multidisciplinary in technology and the volumes are small.

Semicon & Solar
Robbert van Leijsen, R & D manager Kulicke & Soffa

‘The joint project team has performed at top level in the field of mechatronics.’

Cases

MOORE ACCURACY

With our knowledge of mathematics and multiphysics, Sioux created insight into the dynamic thermal effects. Based on this insight, Sioux developed a model that calculates how the machine should be fine-tuned within 12 milliseconds. This way, deviations in products as a result of temperature increases in the machine during production are continually corrected.

WAFER STEPPER ELECTRONICS

Sioux designed and developed the PCB for the MU and the ICU. Before and during development, Sioux advised on EMC issues and proposed several improvements to increase testability and reliability. Sioux lowered production costs by developing only one board suitable for controlling both the MU and the ICU. Furthermore, Sioux developed the real-time microcontroller software running on the boards as well as producing, testing, and delivering the boards.

REMOTE SYSTEM MONITORING & CONTROL

To achieve monitoring and control, Sioux developed an intelligent remote service application. The machine submits data to a central server using a secure connection daily and in the event of any issues. The central server determines root causes for machine reboots, obtains higher-level information from the data and stores this for future reference. Many views are possible, such as the timeline view, which displays major machine events (machine errors, configuration changes, and reboot reasons) on a time axis and detailed information on the bottom half of the screen. This allows support engineers to quickly navigate the major events and see detailed machine information at particular timestamps. Moreover, service engineers are able to control the machine remotely through its UI and take immediate action in case anything should go wrong.

LASER-INDUCED SUBSURFACE SEPARATION

Sioux provided the necessary development and implementation of the control software. Five new mechatronic modules were added to the prototype 12’ control software (Thor). Changes were made in all layers of the Thor architecture (the I/O layer, the System layer and the Control/Application layer): wafer height mapping, recipe parsing and dicing trajectory calculation, contour mapping, wafer alignment using on- and off-axis cameras and laser control application.