Chip makers gain an edge by shoring up industrial networks to achieve greater resiliency and zero downtime.
“At any given moment, semiconductor companies can have several million dollars’ worth of product in production, and a bump for a fraction of a second could end up costing millions,” says Ahmad Jodeh, owner and principal of Altas Core of Engineers. “Building a robust system with PROFINET is worth it.”
The Players
Altas Core of Engineers is an industrial controls and automation firm that caters to a wide range of engineering needs. With a specialty focus on process control systems, Atlas serves customers across a range of industries, many targeting a common business goal: Building complex systems and applications that have robust requirements for resiliency and little appetite for downtime.
The semiconductor industry is a case in point. Atlas is working with a variety of semiconductor companies to stand up new facilities and retrofit brownfield installations to drive more automated operations and to shore up assets and industrial networks in support of greater resiliency and zero downtime.
“We specialize in customers that never turn off the plant and where interruptions are unacceptable”, says Ahmad Jodeh, owner and principal of Altas.
Key to Atlas’ work in the semiconductor space is helping the industry transition away from legacy systems like PROFIBUS that have dominated automation networking solutions, towards PROFINET. PROFINET builds on the PROFIBUS pedigree to deliver advanced Industrial Ethernet in addition to greater redundancy. “The semiconductor industry is very change-averse,” Jodeh says. “Atlas is walking customers through how PROFINET works, what it offers, and proving out all of the bells and whistles that come with it.”
The Challenge
While PROFIBUS is well established in the semiconductor space, many of Atlas’ customers have struggled with limitations, including bandwidth constraints and difficulty troubleshooting networks and industrial control devices effectively and efficiently. The latter is perhaps the most significant challenge associated with PROFIBUS. It becomes extremely difficult to adapt networks and modify automation infrastructure without interruption to operations and mission-critical systems—a downtime scenario that is unacceptable in the ultra-competitive world of semiconductor manufacturing. “Unless you are an extremely experienced engineer, modifying a PROFIBUS network without interrupting the business is stressful and delicate,” Jodeh explains.
The specialized nature of working with PROFIBUS is another hurdle for manufacturers, given the shrinking talent pool. Long-time PROFIBUS experts are aging out of the workforce, while younger automation engineers are not as familiar with the networking protocol, which is much harder to master compared to the Ethernet-based PROFINET.
Global industry forces create another wrinkle. The semiconductor industry has always been a technology-leading, fast-paced business, yet the sector is experiencing even more high-stakes change and innovation as competition heats up on a global stage. China is shifting from a second-world economy into a first-world influence threatening Taiwan’s dominance in the semiconductor sector. At the same time, U.S. manufacturers are stepping up plans and pouring billions of dollars into domestic chip research, development, and manufacturing in response to tax and financial incentives emanating from the CHIPS and Science Act, a federal law enacted in 2022. U.S. chip makers are also intent on building new domestic semiconductor infrastructure as they pull back from offshore outsourcing contracts and partnerships.
As they build out new U.S.-based facilities and retrofit existing brownfield infrastructure, all eyes are on leveraging the latest technologies to bolster new levels of automation efficiency. “Given that U.S. labor and materials costs are higher [than overseas], the push for automation capabilities is greater,” Jodeh says. “PROFINET is key to delivering greater capacity.”
Read the full application story here: PROFINET Fabricates Higher Redundancy for Semiconductor Fabs