Special issue on semiconductor factory automation. 1. System-level automation (From the guest editors)

S emiconductor manufacturing is an established yet rapidly growing industry, and it has highly automated factories. The automation of a semiconductor factory is a significant and challenging task because of its complicated production processes, sophisticated equipment, and harsh productivity requirements. Advanced robots, automated guided vehicles, high-precision equipment, and various information technologies have been deployed factory wide. Over the past decade, we have seen more and more research and development activities contributed to this important area. This special issue is the first of two special issues that present recent research results and industrial applications of semiconductor factory automation technologies that emphasize new trends and innovations. This issue focuses on system-level automation. " Fabulous MESs and C/Cs, " by Chung and Jeng, presents a general introduction to the automation systems for a typical semiconductor fab. Two key systems are presented: 1) a manufacturing execution system (MES) that formulates manufacturing methods and procedures and 2) a cell controller (C/C) that serves as the automation link between the upper MES and the lower equipment within a production tunnel. The article describes the interaction between the MES and C/Cs in a fully automated semiconductor fab. Qiu and Zhou, in the article " Mighty MESs, " define MESs and their relationship with other information systems components. The article summarizes the features of those significant MESs being used today. It discusses their limitations and where they should evolve in order to accommodate the customers' needs for faster real-time response, expanded func-tionality and complexity, as well as computing technologies and research areas that support such evolution. " Essential SMSs " by Cheng, Yang, and Tsai, presents a service management scheme (SMS) by applying the Jini and using the design by Contract technologies. A generic evalua-tor is also developed in the SMS, with error-detecting and function-replacing capabilities. The improvement in reliability is evaluated, and an illustrative example of the SMS is presented. The evaluation and demonstration results indicate that the proposed SMS establishes an efficient, reliable, fault-tolerant, and cost-effective mechanism for operations of semiconductor factory management systems. " SECAM, " by Lee and Lee, proposes the use of high-level fieldbus services such as PROFIBUS-FMS instead of prevalent TCP/IP for intermodule communication and an object-oriented distributed control application design framework based on the high-level fieldbus. To structure the distributed control application, the article introduces three key objects: command objects, virtual control device objects, and service objects. The proposed framework is …