SKHynix Cuts Transaction Response Time by 77%, Improves Fault Detection and Classification System’s Performance and Efficiency
 
 

SKHynix Cuts Transaction Response Time by 77%, Improves Fault Detection and Classification System’s Performance and Efficiency

  • Oracle Customer:  SKHynix
    Location:  Seoul, Republic of Korea
    Industry:  High Technology
    Employees:  24,000
    Annual Revenue:  Over $5 Billion

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Established in 1983, SKHynix manufactures semiconductors, such as DRAM and NAND flash memory products and CMOS image sensors, for the IT industry. The company has grown rapidly along with the digital sector, especially in the emerging markets of China and India. It is ranks eighth in the world in the semiconductor market and employs around 24,000 employees in more than 30 offices, worldwide.

SKHynix wanted to reinforce its capabilities by researching, developing, and manufacturing innovative, new semiconductor products. It needed to implement a robust and scalable infrastructure that would support rapid and challenging changes within the company and in the global semiconductor market.

The company implemented Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance to improve the performance, stability, and efficiency of its next-generation fault detection and classification (FDC) system. It has cut transaction response times by 77%, compressed data storage by more than 50%, lowered CPU usage by around from 44% to 16%, and can complete daily batch processing tasks up to 13x faster.

 
Next-Generation FDC System Requires New Hardware

A word from SKHynix

  • “Oracle Exadata has significantly improved the performance, efficiency, and stability of our fault detection and classification system, cutting transaction response times by 77%. It was also much easier to transfer existing databases and applications to Oracle Exadata than it would have been for competitors’ products.” – Park Chel Soo, Director, Head of Automation Group, Business Transformation Division, SKHynix

SKHynix’s FDC system is a core component of the company’s manufacturing execution system, which it uses to track the semiconductor manufacturing process. The FDC system enables engineers to analyze data from manufacturing processes (including equipment sensor data), detect defects and abnormal conditions, and trace them back to the machinery causing the problem. Engineers can then perform corrective repairs, and proactively schedule maintenance before the equipment fails. This level of advanced production control is especially important in the complex semiconductor manufacturing industry, where each semiconductor goes through several hundred production steps.

The FDC system needs to process up to 18,000 transactions per second (TPS) and approximately 1.5 billion transactions each day, drawn from around 40TB of data. SKHynix wanted to improve the FDC system’s data processing performance and reduce the transaction response time, enabling the company to more efficiently monitor its manufacturing processes as the size of its operations grew.

“We wanted a highly available, stable infrastructure for our FDC system, with multiple database and application servers and clusters,” said Song Jae Young, senior manager, head of automation team I, SKHynix. “This would allow the system to easily process thousands of transactions a second and scale to accommodate an increase in data volumes in the future without experiencing performance issues or unscheduled downtime.”

SKHynix wanted to reduce and stabilize the high rates of CPU, memory, and I/O resource usage in its legacy database. It also wanted to improve the storage capacity of its FDC system. This would ensure the system would remain cost-effective and efficient as the volume of data about semiconductor manufacturing increased.

 
Transaction Response Times Cut by 77%

 
Daily Batch Processing Twice as Fast

 
CPU, Memory, and I/O Usage Reduced

 
Data Compressed by More Than 50%

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from SKHynix

  • “Oracle Exadata has significantly improved the performance, efficiency, and stability of our fault detection and classification system, cutting transaction response times by 77%. It was also much easier to transfer existing databases and applications to Oracle Exadata than it would have been for competitors’ products.” – Park Chel Soo, Director, Head of Automation Group, Business Transformation Division, SKHynix

  • Implement a stable, robust, and highly available infrastructure to support an FDC system, which monitors semiconductor manufacturing equipment
  • Improve the FDC system’s data processing performance, to ensure it can process 18,000 TPS and up to 1.5 billion transactions a day
  • Ensure the database and server infrastructure can scale to accommodate increasing volumes of data and transactions without experiencing performance issues
  • Improve the amount of available storage to accommodate 40TB of data and ensure the system remained cost-effective and efficient as the volume of data increased
  • Lower and stabilize the usage of CPU, memory, and I/O resources

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Processed up to 1.5 billion transactions a day, enabling the company to quickly detect any equipment issues that would affect manufacturing processes
  • Reduced the data transaction response time in the FDC system by 77%—from more than 30 milliseconds to around 7 milliseconds
  • Processed 8x more transactional load without any performance degradation in tests, ensuring the company can increase its semiconductor manufacturing operations without adding more hardware
  • Completed daily batch processing tasks 2x as fast on average and up to 13x faster in some instances, using Oracle Exadata features such as Smart Scan
  • Retrieved, analyzed, and reported on data about manufacturing equipment performance by increasing SQL execution speed for key units of data by an average of 2.5x
  • Lowered the system’s CPU usage from 44% to 16%
  • Cut memory usage from 215 GB to 67 GB, reducing memory usage rates from 84% to between 65% and 70%
  • Maintained I/O usage at an average of 5%—ensuring stable processing speeds for the FDC system—by monitoring and managing I/O resources for different processes
  • Reduced storage consumption by using the Oracle Hybrid Columnar Compression feature to compress the entire data table to less than half its previous size
  • Improved the overall efficiency of manufacturing equipment and the analytical accuracy of the FDC system by retaining three months of historical data rather than one
  • Ensured the system is always available by providing a dual infrastructure that balances data processing load across a number of servers
  • Gained faster backup and restore speeds by deploying the Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance

Why Oracle

SKHynix chose Oracle Exadata as it was impressed by the database machine’s overall throughput, SQL execution, application processor response speeds, and ability to dramatically improve the performance of its batch processing.

The company was attracted to Oracle Hybrid Columnar Compression technology in Oracle Exadata, as it would maximize the efficiency of its storage resources and ensure the FDC system could accommodate business growth without needing extra hardware. It also wanted to take advantage of Oracle Exadata’s real application clusters and automatic storage manager features to ensure high availability.

“In addition, we found Oracle Exadata was superior to competing products as it was easier to transfer existing databases and applications to it,” said Park. “After also considering its scalability and flexibility, we decided Oracle Exadata was the best platform to handle and manage our vast amounts of data.”

Implementation Process

SKHynix chose Oracle Exadata X2-2 Half Rack in May 2012 after conducting an extensive proof-of-concept.

The company needed to complete Oracle Exadata implementation in a short timeframe. It installed the machine in just a few days, before migrating the database and testing applications in two phases in June 2012.

SKHynix then completed a 10-day introductory and stabilization period before going live in July 2012. The FDC system has been operating stably and efficiently since then.

Partner

Oracle Specialized Partner Youngwoo Digital worked with Oracle and SKHynix to provide consistent and stable support throughout the proof-of-concept, product selection, and implementation. The company also provides SKHynix with postimplementation assistance.

“We’re happy with how smoothly Youngwoo Digital carried out the implementation, including the simple and hassle-free data transfer and integration process,” said Song.

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