AutoOLP - Linking CAD and Manufacture in chip fabrication.

AutoOLP was an AutoCAD based solution provided by Dr. DWG for a manufacturer of wire bonders for semiconductor chip fabrication.

Business Problem
K&S Industries are the leading manufacturers of Wire bonders for the semiconductor industry. Bonding is the process in the manufacture of a memory chip or a CPU where gold wire is used to connect the integrated circuit, the brains, to its surrounding package called the lead or substrate. K&S provides various chip manufacturers with bonders which do the process. For each type of chip, and depending on the circuit design, the bonders need to be 'taught' where and how to bond. Customers had AutoCAD drawings representing the circuit layouts. Thus the design had to be linked in a most effective manner to the bonding process with minimal human intervention.

Dr. DWG's Solution
Dr. DWG provided an ObjectARX based Add-on to AutoCAD, by which a user could teach the wire bonders from within AutoCAD, using existing customer's AutoCAD drawings. Each customer had his own way of making AutoCAD drawings for the layouts. So an intuitive user interface was provided for the user to choose various lines in the drawings which represented wires. The wires could be chosen as a group using the AutoCAD selection methods, and given names. Bond points could be chosen on these wires.

For placement of wires, reference coordinate systems could be chosen to be associated with each wire group. For example the user can choose the reference system associated with the integrated circuit or "die", and define the wires in that reference system. Otherwise the substrate reference systems could be chosen. Each reference system could be defined within AutoCAD by specifying "eye points" which the wire bonder machines could recognize. There were features for creating device groups and associating reference systems with them.

The "teaching" inputs were stored within the AutoCAD drawings. After the teach, on the click of a button, programs would be generated, depending on the type of bonding machine. The programs where files that the bonder machines could read and take as input for the bonding process.

Technology
Dr. DWG combined its skills ObjectARX, the powerful customization platform provided by Autodesk, and in VC++ and MFC to provide appropriate user interfaces within AutoCAD. Users could choose from various lists and associate list items with other items. They could also interact with AutoCAD directly for selecting wires and node points. All this information was stored into the AutoCAD drawing itself in the dictionary section, so that it need not be entered again. Custom graphical objects were created for defining reference systems.