Semiconductor Facility Audit & Design with Glumac

Semiconductor Industry Leader

Customer Background

The Client of this project is a leading semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California. Having maintained over 60% market share for decades, it’s a company that is no stranger to innovation. The company’s commitment to groundbreaking advancements is a testament to the complex world of semiconductor lithography and etching.

Project Background

Faced with maximizing the uptime of their clean-room, vibration-sensitive facilities, the Client wanted to streamline their workflows to support frequently fluctuating automation infrastructure. They decided to hire expert help to audit and design optimized solutions to meet this goal.

The project was executed in collaboration with a Tetra Tech sister company, Glumac, a renowned firm specializing in sustainable building design and MEP engineering. It is known for its expertise in creating innovative, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly buildings. Glumac brought EA to assess and conduct control system audits for five buildings in the Client’s Hillsborough, Oregon.

The scope of the audits encompassed over 80 control systems, totaling 21,000+ input and output (I/O) points. In tandem with the audit, EA was tasked to design control systems for storing, transferring, and neutralizing acid waste and volatile compounds.

EA Solutions

Enterprise Automation (EA) executed a thorough audit, employing P&ID analysis, redundancy assessments, network evaluations, and I/O validations to fortify the semiconductor facility’s control systems. With over 21,000 I/O points scrutinized, site walks, and panel inspections, the audit yielded crucial insights, providing a comprehensive understanding of the operational intricacies of each of the five facilities.

Through this process, EA identified areas for optimization, including documentation, near-end-of-life components, and unnecessary I/O. Furthermore, they strategically reorganized redundant I/O across existing Allen Bradley PLCs, maximizing the benefits of redundancy. This design overhaul aimed to minimize the risk of downtime for critical processes such as waste management, compound neutralization, HVAC, and other essential processes in semiconductor manufacturing.

In tandem with the audit, EA was tasked with the design of precision-driven control systems tailored for storing and transferring various types of acid waste products. These designs covered corrosive solvent waste, solvent acid waste, phosphoric acid waste collection, nitric acid waste collection, volatile organic compound solvent exhaust, and the bulk caustic feed system. Each design adhered to stringent industry standards, was thoroughly documented, and aligned with the system redundancy principles defined in the audit.

EA’s comprehensive audit and control system expansion of the Client’s facility reflects their commitment to ensuring the resilience, efficiency, and future-ready nature of the Client’s semiconductor automation infrastructure. This integration of audit precision with innovative designs solidifies EA’s position as a trusted partner capable of delivering high-performance solutions, irrespective of the industry’s dynamic nature.