South African Micro-Electronic Systems (SAMES) has implemented Lotus Development SA`s Lotus Domino as a platform for the Quality System International (QSI) quality assurance system.
SAMES is a local commercial manufacturer of integrated circuits and by using its own resources has developed an extensive portfolio of application-specific products. These are in the areas of energy measurement, telecoms, ID and security as well as the development and manufacture of Customer-Specific Integrated Circuits (CSICs) and Silicon Foundry.
"Today our company enjoys more than 70% export business with devices being sold in every continent of the world. We are aligned to a number of international design houses offering them product development and manufacturing services, which include the design of many complex digital, analogue and mixed signal products, enabling our customers to choose the most economical implementation of their product," says Frank Schoombie, QA manager at SAMES.
He says that in the manufacture of semiconductors, experience has proven that one of the most important tasks of quality management is the effective control and monitoring of the manufacturing processes. Such control and monitoring has a two-fold purpose: to assure a consistently good product and to the desired degree of reliability.
To effectively achieve these objectives, SAMES has developed a Product Assurance Programme consisting of three major functions: quality control, quality assurance, and reliability analysis.
Schoombie says: "Each function has a different area of involvement, however, all share the responsibility for consistently delivering a reliable product."
The SAMES product assurance programme is certified to international quality system requirements, outlined in ISO 9001. Under this program, SAMES manufactures CMOS devices for all segments of the commercial and industrial markets, and under special adaptations of the basic program also manufactures high reliability devices according to specific customer needs.
"We needed a platform on which we could run the QSI system, which is essentially an electronic document generation, distribution and approval system," says Schoombie. "We`ve been happy with the stability that the Lotus solution has provided us."
Fifty workstations were deployed at the plant and offices in Pretoria.
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