Bridging SECS/GEM and MQTT: How a US Fab Achieved Global Real-Time Visibility with EIGEMBridge

A leading U.S.-based semiconductor wafer fabrication facility, part of a global manufacturing network, wanted to extend its existing SECS/GEM infrastructure to the cloud without disrupting production. While equipment was already connected to the local MES, the customer needed a secure and scalable way to publish real-time equipment data via MQTT for centralized monitoring across worldwide fabs.

The Challenge

The customer required a solution that could:

Publish real-time equipment data to a global cloud platform using MQTT.
Preserve the existing SECS/GEM communication between equipment and the MES.
Eliminate production downtime during integration.
Support rapid deployment across multiple global fabs using a standardized architecture.

The Solution

EIGEMBridge was deployed as a non-intrusive protocol bridge that simultaneously:

Maintained the existing SECS/GEM communication with the local MES/Host.
Converted SECS/GEM data into MQTT in real time.
Published equipment status, alarms, events, and process data to the corporate cloud platform.
Enabled a repeatable deployment model for additional manufacturing sites worldwide.

Key Results

• 75% faster onboarding of new fabs to the global cloud platform.
• 75% reduction in engineering effort for each site integration.
• Zero production downtime during deployment.
• Real-time global visibility across multiple semiconductor fabs.
• 40–50% lower overall integration costs by eliminating parallel data collection infrastructure.
• Standardized MQTT data model for enterprise dashboards, AI/ML analytics, and cloud applications.