Patent ID: 6839601

Claim:
A semiconductor fabrication facility architecture comprising: a fabrication facility, the fabrication facility including a manufacturing execution system and a real time dispatch system, the manufacturing execution system tracking overall processing of semiconductor wafers, the real time dispatch system providing near real time information regarding processing of semiconductor wafers; a middleware component, a real time dispatcher application program interface coupled between the fabrication facility and the middleware component, the real time dispatcher application program interface providing a common interface for providing information to the middleware component; and, a work in progress application program interface coupled between the fabrication facility and the middleware component, the work in progress application program interface providing a common interface for communicating to the fabrication facility from the middleware component; and wherein the fabrication facility includes a front end portion; the real time dispatcher application program interface includes a front end real time dispatcher application program interface coupled to the fabrication facility front end portion; and, the work in progress application program interface includes a front end work in progress application program interface coupled to the fabrication facility front end portion.