Modern and legacy equipment alike
Current tools speak SECS/GEM over a network link. Older tools speak it over serial. Outpost handles both, so the age of a tool never decides whether it can be automated.
The product
Outpost
A control plane for equipment automation. Outpost connects your tools, shows every running interface in one place, and records what happened, all from a single program on your own server.
Where it sits
Between your equipment and your factory systems.
Outpost supervises the interfaces that already talk to your tools. Your MES and host systems keep working the way they do today.
What it does
Four jobs, done in one place.
Connect
Supervise
Every interface, visible
Outpost is built so you can see which tool interfaces are running, their state and their logs from a browser, without logging into a server or reading a terminal.
Record
A history you can rely on
Outpost is built to append every event to a log that is never rewritten, so you can always answer what happened, when, and in what order.
Control access
Designed for individual sign-in
Outpost is designed so every user signs in as themselves, with roles that separate what the fab floor can do from what administrators can do. Configuration is never open to everyone.
Example trace
What a tool conversation looks like.
A tool and its host exchange short, numbered messages. Outpost keeps every one of them, readable, in order.
| Time | Dir | Msg | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:14:02.117 | H→E | S1F13 | Establish communications |
| 08:14:02.131 | E→H | S1F14 | Communications established |
| 08:14:05.402 | E→H | S6F11 | Event report · lot started |
| 08:14:05.409 | H→E | S6F12 | Acknowledged |
| 08:31:47.866 | E→H | S5F1 | Alarm set · chamber pressure |
| 08:31:47.871 | H→E | S5F2 | Acknowledged |
Illustrative sequence. H = host, E = equipment.
Deployment
Designed to install like a tool, not a project.
- Runs on
- Your own Linux server, inside your fab
- Install
- One self-contained program, copied onto the server
- Network
- Stays on your network. No cloud service in the path
- Equipment
- SECS/GEM over HSMS, and SECS-I over serial
- Existing systems
- Unchanged. Outpost runs alongside them