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Overview

SENTIO® is MPI Corporation's probe station control software. This document is a reference for the SENTIO Remote Commands interface — a text-based command/response protocol that lets an external host application (test program, script, or other automation software) remotely operate a SENTIO-controlled probe station over TCP/IP, GPIB, or RS232.

Through the remote command interface a host application can, among other things:

  • Query and control the chuck, scope, and motorized positioner stages (position, contact/separation/hover heights, vacuum, speed, theta)
  • Load, save, and manipulate wafer maps, dies, bins, subsites, and stepping/routing
  • Load, unload, transfer, and prealign wafers on automated (loader) systems
  • Control vision system functions (pattern search, auto-focus, alignment, compensation, cameras/lights)
  • Control the thermochuck (temperature set point, operation mode, purge)
  • Drive QAlibria VNA calibration and measurement
  • Drive SiPH (silicon photonics) fiber alignment positioners
  • Perform miscellaneous device control (doors, ink markers, signal tower, swap bridge, file transfer)

Commands are grouped into a small set of Low Level Remote Commands (*-prefixed, SCPI-style, always processed with priority) and a much larger Remote Command List organized by functional module (Status, Chuck, Door, Scope, Thermochuck, Project Handling, Map, Module, Auxiliary Sites Substrate, Vision, Setup, QAlibria Host, Automation Handling/Loader, Motorized Positioner, Other, and SiPH Application commands).

SENTIO can also emulate the remote command sets of other probe station vendors (Vector, ProberBench, Nucleus); the active command set is switched with the *RCS low-level command. This document describes the native Sentio remote command set only.

Document version: User Manual — SENTIO Remote Commands_UG_V6.0 AST-RC-001, 03-2023. This document applies to SENTIO V23.1.0 or above. © Copyright 2017 by MPI Corporation. All rights reserved.

Sample remote-command client scripts (C#, Lua, and Python) are published on GitHub: https://github.com/SentioProberDev

Command entries below include a Sentio Version value where the source document specifies one — this is the SENTIO software version in which the command was introduced or last modified, not a version of this document.