Contact: Jean J. Dubray IFE Technologies. 138, bd de Pontoise 95 370 Montigny Les Cormeilles France FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Paris (France) - September 5th 1994, IFE technologies announced the availability of Magellan v3.0, a state of the art object oriented supervisory control and data acquisition system running under UNIX. It is being offered on 486 and pentium PCs, HP 9000 series 700. Magellan is designed to control high precision material processes involving temperature, pressure, digital ... controls, safety interlock and in situ monitoring. Applications range from semi-conductor, thin films to ceramic and polymer production or research, involving thermal, liquid, plasma... processes. Magellan is 100 % production oriented : its unique Process Calibration Database enables day to day reproducibility and customer driven flexibility. Several working points of the reactor can be maintained in the database minimizing switching time between production batches. Recipes are adjusted automatically with the database. The user configures Magellan by instanciating individual objects corresponding to the different controllers on the reactor : PID temperature, pressure, mass flow controllers, pyrometer, pressure gauge, digital, step motors controllers ... Magellan reconfigures itself according to the object list. The Process Calibration Database is created and each source of material can be calibrated. Complex recipes are written by describing the different steps of the recipe with time or conditionnal sequencing. The Recipe Editor enables nested loops for multilayer material deposition, and non-linear set point curves that can generate any composition gradients to mach interfaces for instance. Materials layer structure can be defined in terms of thickness and composition. Magellan calculates subsequently the corresponding durations and set points according to the database. Magellan Man-Machine Interface can be defined for three process user's levels : Developper, Engineer, Operator. Operators can only execute recipes. Process Engineers can modify maintain the Process Calibration Database up to date and change parameters in the recipes, follow SPC data and write reports mixing graphs tabular data, measures .... Process Developpers have access to system configuration, can write recipes, and test non-linear set point curves. Magellan has a built-in object oriented real-time kernel : DLCs can be combined from several vendors eliminating the need for a common sequencing controller. Communication drivers are available for a large variety of controllers. Magellan v3.0g is a reduced version that enables to built grafcet controllers Man-Machine Interfaces in minutes. Magellan v3.0p can control up to 4 reactors simultaneously running individual recipes. Batch capabilities are supported for integrated production system. For processes that rely on permanent in situ or ex situ monitoring to insure constant quality by correcting long term deviations, Magellan Application Kit (MAK) enables you to implement expert behavior in hours or days, directly traducing process engineer knowledge into complex regulation loop. IFE technologies developer team will develop free of charge : - any given communication protocol. - already in Magellan's kit on a two weeks period. Magellan single-user licence purchase price is $9,990. Any subsequent operator licence is $2,990. MAK Development kit can be purchased for $ 5,990. Educational price is $5,990 for both licence and MAK development kit. For detailed information about Magellan, send electronic mail to or contact IFE technologies at 34, rue Desnouettes 75 015 Paris, France. Facsimile can be sent to (+33 1) 34 50 65 10 and voice calls are accepted at (+33 1) 39 78 61 14. IFE technologies is a privately owned company that performs Materials Science system Engineering and mission critical development since 1991.