APC Introduction :

APC is the abbreviation of Advanced Process Control, usually mentioned in the same breath with AEC - Advanced Equipment Control, one of the newly developed factory automation technologies. The concept of AEC/APC was first originated in 1988. In 1998, some IC chip makers in the United States and also in Germany began to apply AEC/APC techniques to help their production in semiconductor fabs. In Taiwan, there is no any AEC/APC application until 2000. Nowadays, AEC/APC symposiums take place every year in North America, Europe and also Asia. They provide good occasions for new technology sharing between industrial and academic fields.

APC is a highly automatic and pro-active monitor/control system. It plays a role of knowledge management as well. With the aid of modern IT technology, APC can collect all detailed and valuable process information for in-line fault detection, feed-forward/feedback run to run control and then store it in a central database server for further applications. All manufacturing sensor signals are collected with an extremely high sampling rate of at least 1 point or more per second, night and day. Engineers can monitor and control real-time process with automatic Fault Detection and Run to Run Control systems through various human interfaces ( PC/PDA/Mobile Phone ) in anywhere besides staying inside factory. It is more effective than the traditional way of using manual data sheets transcribing by the in-line operators. Additionally, every product will have its own historical process data in the APC server before it is delivered to the customer. It helps for quality analysis, yield enhancement and even valuable information for upstream product designers. Besides, APC charts help engineering discussion and the accumulative knowledge APC database is very educative. Having an APC system is gradually essential for modern factories.