Semiconductor Capital Equipment -- Wire Bonding Machine
Problem
The customer had ongoing problems managing hard drive life cycles and inventory as the mechanical drives went out of production. They incurred tremendous engineering resource diversions and expense to constantly requalify new models. The hard drive manufacturers' traditional solution of making large last time buys of inventory conflicted with corporate financial objectives. Additionally, vibration from the equipment mandated a higher durability solution.
Application
The equipment performs complex wire bonding and stores recipes. It operates at high speeds with moderate vibration. Cost of down time is very high and problematic. The customer wanted a reliable and cost effective drop-in replacement for 3.5-inch SCSI hard drives for use in both new build equipment and repair of field failures. Form, fit, function compatibility was an absolute requirement. The total application minimum storage capacity required was 2 GB.
Solution
Adtron determined through testing that a portable 2.5-inch IDE disk drive would meet the vibration characteristics of the storage application. Matched with an Adtron proprietary IDE-to-SCSI converter, Adtron was able to provide a low cost alternative to traditional SCSI hard disk drives.
Benefits
Adtron relieved the customer from managing ongoing storage media changes by assuring consistent status, command and response as expected by the host. Adtron also eliminated the customer's ongoing need to requalify hard disk drives or invest large sums of capital in inventory. The end product provides a robust storage medium for use in an industrial environment while also providing the durability and MTBF required.
Adtron Product
S35I2 -- SCSI storage system featuring 2.5-inch IDE disk drive as media.
