Crossing Automation
Larry Wise
VP of Engineering
Automation Technology As I See It: Larry Wise
Like many of my associates at Crossing Automation, I've been a customer for wafer automation in my career, spanning more than 25 years. I've had the opportunity to develop platforms and products for lithography, etch, and e-beam tools used in fabs world-wide. During that time, I experienced many frustrations that are well-known to equipment designers: trying to integrate bare component-level elements or facing prohibitively-expensive integrated systems that didn't meet my needs, much less at a usable price-point. In many cases, we integrated components that were very difficult and expensive to service, an outcome of designs that paid minimal attention to the DFX's that equipment designers were increasingly being measured against by the chipmakers. Finally, the software/firmware provided often required extensive software development to interface and control, was not always reliable, and was minimally controlled to ensure stability over time.
Crossing Automation is developing the products and modules that I believe directly address these concerns that many of us personally experienced.
Our designs revolve around the following principles:
- Simplified, partitioned, and compact mechanical designs
- Good partitioning lowers manufacturing and service costs
- Simplified designs are easier to control and service
- Systems-level design applied all the way to the component level
- Make it easier for the customer to integrate the appropriate level of automation and turn an either-or situation into a win-win
- Provide integrated systems that ARE affordable and configurable for specific needs
- Relentless application of commonality and standardization guidelines, coupled with reuse of modules / designs / interfaces / components
- Software developed to leverage the hardware simplicity, and lower the adoption and sustaining costs faced by the customers
I sincerely believe Crossing Automation's products will demonstrate the power of systems-oriented, rather than component-oriented design, done with modularity, simplicity, and reuse as central attributes.