US 11,853,026 B2
Configurable distributed-interlock-system
Eric Tu, San Jose, CA (US); Dirk Rudolph, Dundee, OR (US); Ales Janhar, Fremont, CA (US); John Folden Stumpf, Portland, OR (US); and Justin Remulla, Union City, CA (US)
Assigned to Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US)
Appl. No. 17/052,778
Filed by Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, CA (US)
PCT Filed May 6, 2019, PCT No. PCT/US2019/030918
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Nov. 3, 2020,
PCT Pub. No. WO2019/217315, PCT Pub. Date Nov. 14, 2019.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/667,865, filed on May 7, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2021/0232115 A1, Jul. 29, 2021
Int. Cl. G05B 19/05 (2006.01); G05B 19/042 (2006.01)
CPC G05B 19/058 (2013.01) [G05B 19/0421 (2013.01); G05B 19/0425 (2013.01); G05B 19/0426 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A distributed interlock system, comprising:
a plurality of slave nodes each having an interface translation card and an interlock (ITLK) slave device; and
at least one master device being in electrical communication with the plurality of slave nodes and programmable to prevent any combination of sequences that are detrimental to human safety, the at least one master device being configured to provide command and operational signals to selected ones of the plurality of slave nodes, the at least one master device being further configured to evaluate signals received from the selected ones of the plurality of slave nodes in substantially real-time, the at least one master device having at least a preventative-interlocking portion configured to evaluate interlock conditions and prevent unsafe conditions prior to one or more command executions, related to the unsafe conditions, being transmitted to one or more of the plurality of slave nodes, based on a lookup table readable by the at least one master device, the lookup table being at least partially configured for the at least one master device to determine whether any combination of chemical sequences is detrimental to human safety.