Enterprise Information Management for the Production of Micro- and Nanolayered Devices

Many modern high-tech products gain their functionality from structured nanoscale layers. This is the case for e.g.nanoelctronic circuits, MEMS and NEMS sensors and actuators, photovoltaic cells, but also macroscopic structures with functional nanolayer coating. The production of these nanolayers is accomplished by chemical/physical processes performed in clean rooms under extremely controlled conditions. IT support for nanolayer production is currently available for the fabrication machinery on the one hand (MES - Manufacturing Execution Systems) and for the global controlling of enterprise operations (ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning) on the other hand. There is a gap between these two areas covering the whole field of project and product related planning, design, optimization and verification of a specific fabrication flow. Currently first PDES (Process development execution Systems) are available to close this gap and hence achieve a holistic enterprise information management (EIM). This article will give a brief introduction to EIM for nanolayered devices and will then present the benefits of PDES systems by the example of the first comprehensive solution in this field – the XperiDesk suite. This software system has originally been designed at Siegen University and is now available on the market place from ProcessRelations GmbH in Dortmund, Germany.