The Taiwan PCB Association (TPCA) established SECS/GEM as the basis of communication in the semiconductor industry in 2015. After six expert meetings, it was simplified to PCBECI that meets the needs of the industry as a two-way communication format between the PCB board fabrication factory and the equipment.
In 2016, an Automation Committee was established under the International Semiconductor Association (SEMI) to make efforts to internationalize PCBECI. After three standard proposals and technical replies, it finally passed the global technical vote in 2018 and became the official standard document of SEMI in September this year.
TPCA said at the PCBECI Device Networking Demonstration Team Launching Conference earlier this year that 85% of PCB operators are in the state of stand-alone automation.
Among them, most of the equipment production means of large-scale plate mills have been connected to the Internet, but the stations are still isolated from each other. Small and medium-sized plate mills are willing to invest in smart manufacturing, but do not know where to start, or fear that the cost is too high to step back.
Therefore, TPCA hopes to help Taiwan's PCB industry enter into smart manufacturing more easily through the initiation of PCB-ECI equipment communication agreement.
It is understood that in the past, PCB production was based on manual scheduling and line change.
It is difficult to analyze the abnormal situation and to ensure the correctness of the problem detection.
On the equipment side, the abnormal machine can not be found in the first time, only when the product is detected can we know the problem, which leads to long downtime, and consequently causes cost waste and production capacity decline.
In addition, PCB manufacturing process is complex and equipment networking specifications are different, the data of each station and machine can not be integrated, and the data analysis of single point equipment can not show its value.
After the introduction of networked production equipment, the future means of production can be recorded and monitored in real time, pay attention to production status and automatic line change reminder at any time, and diagnose and warn in advance for abnormal equipment, so as to prepare materials well in advance, so as to ensure high crop productivity.
Liang Maosheng, deputy chairman of TPCA and chairman of Zhisheng Industry, has appealed in the past that the upgrade of Intelligent Manufacturing in mainland China should be carried out overwhelmingly. Especially, their factories are open-ended. They watch and communicate with each other among their peers, and their growth rate is rapid.
It is hoped that with the promotion of standardization of PCB-ECI communication agreement, Taiwan's PCB industry will accelerate the upgrading of smart manufacturing. It will also be able to advance the armed and preemptive business opportunities for the upcoming 5G field.
TPCA also expressed the hope that through this standardized communication framework, the cost of communication between board mills and equipment manufacturers would be reduced, and the semiconductor industry would be the teacher to accelerate the development of Intelligent Manufacturing in the industry.
