Presentation
Virtual prototyping of new features for a legacy conveyor transport system
When ramping production capacity within an existing fab many obstacles have to be overcome. One challenge might be restrictions in the current transportation system layout. These restrictions need to be identified and alleviated well before the actual ramp happens as substantial changes to a legacy system usually require a long lead time.
Faced with this situation Infineon Dresden, together with FlowLogix GmbH, developed a detailed simulation model of its 200mm conveyor transport system. The model was verified and used to show that actions needed to be taken to support the planned ramp operations.
Subsequently, the same model was employed to develop a new functionality, the so-called Cluster Manager, in simulation first. This allowed us to evaluate its potential with a high level of confidence and to mature the algorithm without any impact to production. Once it worked in simulation we were able to implement it into the real control systems in a very short time without any major setbacks and were subsequently able to observe the improvements we predicted.