www.semequip.com
SemEquip Helps Its Customers — Developers of the World’s Most Advanced Integrated Circuits — Deliver Products Better, Faster, Cheaper
SemEquip, Inc. is the technology leader in the development of cluster ion implantation subsystems and advanced ion source materials for the manufacture of logic and memory chips. SemEquip’s technologies enable the utilization of cluster beam ion implantation for manufacturing the world’s most advanced integrated circuits at the lowest cost and highest throughput.
The semiconductor industry is constantly scaling, reducing the size of each element to pack more into each chip. With each scaling step, essentially all fabrication steps must be modified to manage resulting transistor performance. For ion implant, the main result of scaling is a reduction of energy, and the vertical dimension must scale. There are also changes to the doses being implanted, with the doses usually increasing.
I highly recommend Arena for its ease of use and affordability, and because it’s very intuitive.
Stuart Zerneri
Vice President, Operations
SemEquip, Inc
SemEquip’s new thinking enables semiconductor manufacturers to cost-effectively produce lower-power, highe-speed devices with smaller geometries, while leveraging traditional ion implant technology, process, facilities and expertise.
While SemEquip’s technology provides a tremendous competitive advantage to its customers, those customers are large organizations with clear expectations about what they want from their suppliers in terms of quality control and change management. To satisfy those expectations, SemEquip must compete with organizations that invest millions of dollars into traditional client/server applications.
In 2005, SemEquip began its search for a BOM and change management solution that would provide it with a single, centralized repository for its product information and a system for managing product change. SemEquip first looked to the legacy client/server providers,until one of its investors suggested the benefits of the on-demand Arena system. With no software to install and no IT infrastructure to maintain, SemEquip was able to garner the benefits of Arena and put valuable processes in place early in the company’s development.
I’ve followed up with people who have deployed other applications and there seems to be a love/hate relationship. It’s too bad for them, because we’re having a very good time.
Stuart Zerneri
Vice President, Operations
SemEquip, Inc.
“Arena offered us a great advantage over other products we evaluated in that we didn’t have to make any infrastructure changes. All we needed was our Internet portal,” said Doug Adams, vice president of engineering and product development, SemEquip. “We were able to quickly configure and deploy Arena and benefit from the structure of the application.”
A joint SemEquip/Arena team brought the application live in just 8 weeks. Since going live with the application, SemEquip has expanded its use of the application each year, and now leverages Arena not only as the central repository for all product information, but also to manage engineering change, outsourcing relationships, new product introduction and compliance management.
“Each upgrade of the software is automatic and has no negative impact on our productivity, like traditional boxed software would,” said Adams. “As a small, fast-growing company, we’re kind of growing in parallel with Arena. The company is continually developing features to support additional business processes we’re coming on board with. We’re completely in sync.”
Results of the deployment are tangible. SemEquip is no longer concerned about the barrage of problems that come from using outdated information.
Engineering is more productive, because the right information is always available. Arena allows for anyone in engineering to pick up where someone else left off. There is no more searching for information in file cabinets and/or bogging down key personnel with questions.
Arena is serving us well. There's no question that using the right technology levels the playing field for us. This type of control becomes a check-box item and allows us to focus on the benefits of out highly educated team and advanced technology
Doug Adams
VP, Engineering and Product Development
SemEquip, Inc.
Cycles have been significantly shortened through the use of project collaboration in Arena. SemEquip has tied the product record to project execution, giving management visibility into when products will be released and any associated risks.
SemEquip has now had several years with proven returns from its implementation of Arena.
Information They Need, When They Need It. SemEquip is regularly adding new engineers, service technicians, sales people and more. All of them need access to information. Without Arena, they had to find someone who could retrieve that information and send it out. With Arena, SemEquip gave everyone access to the information. Now they are all empowered to find and retrieve the information they need, when they need it, and no one is bogged down in extra administrative detail.
Improved Engineering Productivity. With a central repository of all product information, SemEquip’s engineering team can now focus on innovation, not documentation. SemEquip’s engineering department was able to support the company’s extreme growth without adding as many expensive engineering resources.
Information Reuse. SemEquip often revises older assemblies to bring them up to new higher standards. Instead of having to recreate 100 percent of the data, the company taps into what it has in Arena and start off 90 percent of the way there, with only the last 10 percent left to rework.
Compliance Documentation. With Arena managing SemEquip’s compliance documentation, a compliance report can now be generated with the click of a button. This saves $40,000/year in engineering coordination costs.
Customer Market Share. While difficult to quantify, Arena continues to help SemEquip gain market share by being the support tool that helps it exceed its customers’ expectations with regard to quality control and change management.
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