Automated technical illustration for manuals

Edited by the Laboratorytalk editorial team Sep 16, 2002

Supplier of core semiconductor technologies benefits from illustration software in creating its complex technical documentation

Trikon Technologies is a leading supplier of equipment in three core technologies in the semiconductor industry: PVD (physical vapour deposition), CVD (chemical vapour deposition), and plasma etch.

The company, which has its headquarters in Newport, South Wales, was one of the first in the semiconductor equipment industry to attain ISO accreditation quality control standards.

The equipment produced by Trikon responds to the rapidly increasing demands of the semiconductor industry.

One characteristic of this industry, for example, is the continuous effort to increase productivity.

In this context, the role of technical documentation must not be underestimated.

The high-precision equipment designed for the semiconductor industry is extremely complex and therefore needs a lot of explanation in terms of correct installation, use and maintenance.

High-quality documentation ensures correct handling and excellent productivity right from the start.

Therefore, it is no wonder that Trikon equipment comes with a bulky set of manuals covering all aspects of usage.

From the planning of the installation via the correct transportation, installation and testing, to operating and maintenance instructions.

Since it is Trikon's philosophy to offer its customers high-quality support, technical knowledge and commitment it has become their natural objective to produce their documentation accordingly.

The manuals should be more pictorial-based and dispense with superfluous text.

The creation of such detailed illustrations by hand, however, would have been extremely time-consuming and, from a microeconomic view, not efficient.

Finally, with the acquisition of Itedo's IsoDraw CadProcess in September 2000, Trikon was able to achieve this aim.

With IsoDraw CadProcess it was able to import 3D models from its Unigraphics Cad system (Solid Edge) and convert them into technical illustrations.

With CadProcess, the 3D design data is automatically processed according to the stylistic demands of technical illustration: hidden lines are deleted and the thick-and thin-line technique is applied.

Only a minimum of editing - if any - is then necessary to finish the graphic.

This gives them tremendous cost savings over previous methods mainly due to the increase in speed.

Furthermore, the Itedo software contains a wide range of filters that allows the user to export the illustrations to all major DTP applications on the market.

Trikon, for example, is using the illustrations in Adobe's FrameMaker, Acrobat and Photoshop, MS Word, and CorelDraw.

"IsoDraw CadProcess gives the illustrator flexibility to work with 3D design data instead of drawing everything from scratch.

The time savings we can realise by using this software allows us to implement much more graphic material in our product manuals than before - and thus drastically improve their quality", says Martin Perry, chief illustrator at Trikon.

As a result, Trikon's manual sets have achieved full compliance with all relevant Semi standards, a major prerequisite for the semiconductor industry.

These standards specify what must be included in a manual set but do not specify particular documentation formats.

However, due to the international nature of the industry, they insist that documentation is of the highest standards in regards to quality and clarity.