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Telepresence: A New Paradigm for Solving Contamination Problems

Published

Author(s)

Michael T. Postek, Marylyn H. Bennett, N J. Zaluzec

Abstract

When a contamination event occurs in a semiconductor fab, a process engineer must act quickly to find the cause. It is cost-prohibitive to maintain a full compliment of analytical tools in a fab that would be necessary to identify very small particles and processing anomalies. Enter the world of Telepresence Microscopy (TPM) to provide a solution. Part of the mission of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory is to improve and advance length metrology in aid of U.S. industry. The successful development of a collaboratory for telepresence microscopy provides an important new tool to promote technology transfer in the area of measurement technology. Telepresence microscopy is an advanced concept in the integration of computers and high speed networks with scientific instruments for operation, control, communication and research. NIST and Texas Instruments, under the auspices of the National Automated Manufacturing Testbed and in collaboration with the University of Illinois and Argonne National Laboratory have developed a collaboratory testbed.   The goal of this work is to demonstrate the value of TPM within organizations having a large distributed manufacturing facility such as Texas Instruments and between scientific research organizations such as NIST, ANL, and UIC. Large distributed manufacturing sites need rapid response when problems threaten to disrupt multi-million dollar production facilities. This is particularly important when expertise needed to solve the problem is not locally present. The resulting delays are inevitable and often costly. Telepresence minimizes these delays. Once a sample has been received by a research facility, collaborators from multiple remotely located sites can rapidly access the collaboratory from their respective locations and collaborate in real-time to solve the problem using only their desktop computers and connections to the Internet. This presentation demonstrates the power afforded by this technology.
Proceedings Title
Proceedings of Electrochemical Society
Volume
99
Issue
16
Conference Dates
January 1, 1999
Conference Location
Unknown, USA
Conference Title
Electrochemical Society

Keywords

collaboratory, internet, metrology, scanning electron microscope, telepresence, transmission electron microscope

Citation

Postek, M. , Bennett, M. and Zaluzec, N. (1999), Telepresence: A New Paradigm for Solving Contamination Problems, Proceedings of Electrochemical Society, Unknown, USA (Accessed March 19, 2024)
Created January 1, 1999, Updated February 19, 2017