AUSTIN, TX -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 12/22/05 -- International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) announced today that it will provide royalty-free industry access to a design reference artifact that can be used to develop and confirm equipment data acquisition (EDA) implementations.

The artifact, EDA Client Connection Emulator (ECCE), acts as a representative EDA client during equipment software development and verification. EDA, also known as Interface A, has been developed as a SEMI standard to help meet the industry's need for high-speed access to more and better data, essential to increasing future fab productivity. Factory equipment use EDA to deliver data to a factory level data collection system. The ECCE simulates the factory side of this interface.

ECCE software and a licensing agreement will be offered online. Users will be asked to execute a licensing agreement on ISMI's public website at http://ismi.sematech.org/emanufacturing/ecce.htm. Upon receipt, they will receive instructions on how to download ECCE. The artifact was developed for ISMI under contract with Cimetrix.

"We felt that a royalty-free software approach was the best way to enable the supplier community and accelerate availability of EDA," said Steve Fulton, ISMI project manager. "ISMI also will be able to offer some level of support for ECCE users."

EDA is a critical enabling technology for providing high-speed, rich equipment data. Current deficiencies in the availability and quality of data are considered constraints to improved factory productivity and cost controls beyond the 90 nm technology node.

"ECCE represents the consensus-based, common characteristics of the factory-side clients of our member companies," said Fulton. "This artifact is based on Cimetrix' mature EDA technology. This provides realistic samples of factory client environments for the supplier during development."

ISMI is a global alliance of the world's major semiconductor manufacturers, dedicated to reducing cost per wafer, and ultimately cost per die, through cooperative programs focused on manufacturing effectiveness. The consortium conducts programs in manufacturing infrastructure, methods, standards, and productivity, with the aim of reducing the costs of producing finished wafers and chips and driving solutions to major productivity challenges. ISMI is a wholly owned subsidiary of SEMATECH of Austin, TX. http://ismi.sematech.org/corporate/index.htm.

ISMI Contact:
Dan McGowan
512-356-3440
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