Graphical configurator for electricity generators
InteliConfig
For our long-standing customer ComAp, we are developing the InteliConfig software tool to configure backup power generator controllers. It is a desktop app with the UI based on WPF technology. The development teams in this project are organized using the fully agile SCRUM methodology. This is a long-term collaboration of developing an importantconfiguration tool, and we at Edhouse are honored to be a part of it.
- Languages:C#
- Technologies:.NET C#, WPF
- Client:
ComAp a.s.
Automated preparation of electron microscopy samples
Ion gun, electron beam, focused ion beam...
It may sound like science fiction but these are everyday terms for people working with the AutoTEM application. Although it may seem misleading the AutoTEM is an application running on a special SEM microscope equipped with so-called ion cannon in addition to standard detectors and a source of electron radiation. Gallium ions are very heavy and their rectified beam thus enables "cutting" into a sample or transferring the cut parts by welding onto a so-called needle. So, the AutoTEM is an application for automatic sample preparation for TEM (transmission) electron microscopes. It is used for the preparation of so-called lamellas (a sample wafer with a thickness of about 100 nm), both in the field of biology and especially in the semiconductor industry. Just to give you an idea of how accurate the AutoTEM must be: the diameter of a human hair is between 18 and 180 μm. The diameter of a red blood cell is roughly 7.5 μm. As for processors, there can be on the order of ten thousand transistors on one square nanometre. This means that we would stack about 440 billion transistors on one red blood cell. The AutoTEM software together with a dual electron microscope can prepare a sample of even such a small transistor.
- Languages:C#
- Technologies:.NET, .NET Core, WPF, ASP.NET, Elastic, Kibana, Kafka, SignalR, gRPC, Blazor, Kubernetes, HELM, Docker, REST, Unity
- Client:
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Wide-field correlative microscopy application
MAPS - sound familiar?
Well, you’re probably thinking of Google Maps. What Google Maps are to the world, Thermo Fisher Scientific MAPS are to microscopy. Even the ultra-high magnification the electron microscopes can now achieve (more than 1 million times) would be useless without context. Just as you can look at entire continents, states, cities, streets and even individual houses in Google Maps, with Thermo Fisher Scientific MAPS, you can combine images of different magnifications and even those coming from different devices. MAPS supports the widest range of various types of electron microscopes. For example, we can look at a cell magnified using optical, scanning or even transmission microscope at different magnifications and even identify the internal structure of individual organelles.
- Languages:C#
- Technologies:WPF, .NET, .NET Core, gRPC, ASP.NET
- Client:
Thermo Fisher Scientific
- Languages:C#
- Technologies:WPF, .NET, .NET Core, gRPC, ASP.NET
- Client:Thermo Fisher Scientific
Sample preparation tool
Hardware prototype which needed software management
The customer clearly defined the technological process of use for the hardware prototype. Our task was to provide software support and enable the control and monitoring of this process. The application was to be primarily used on a computer connected to the microscope. But we decided to make it ready for web use as well. That’s why we chose the client-server structure and wrapped the client Angular application in the Electron framework. This way the web applications can run as smoothly as if they were on desktop. Besides implementing the microscope hardware controls, where the SW-HW communication was already good-to-go, the project also focused on implementing it to devices manufactured for general use. We had a say in the choice of hardware and chose one that supported .NET C# control; therefore, we could integrate the control logic directly into the server part of the application. We were also tasked to create an installation package to ensure the application could be easily implemented. The entire development phase ran on our internal CI/CD Gitlab system, which helped us with issue tracking, testing and more.
- Languages:TypeScript, C#
- Technologies:Angular, Electron, Tailwindcss, Nx
- Client:Thermo Fisher Scientific
3D Crystal Viewer
Edhouse gives voice to capable interns eager to learn from our experience.
Students bring a breath of fresh air to the workplace, and with them come new and innovative ideas. One such example is our intern Ester. She combined her work with a bachelor thesis entitled “3D Crystal Viewer”. It was a demanding assignment since she needed to study the basics of crystallography. She was tasked to create a 3D application which would visualize a unit cell with atoms in a way understandable for the crystallographers. The visualization should also allow the rendering of the crystallographic planes and directions for the given crystal. The application is predominantly written in OpenGL, and during theyear, Ester showed significant progress in that area. Since the visualizationis part of the WPF application, she decided to use OpenTK to integrate OpenGL into the existing WPF application. This means that her work will not be forgotten. On the contrary, it will help many crystallographers around the world to visualize any given crystal. We were also thrilled that Ester got an “A” for the defense of her bachelor’s thesis at the Faculty of Informatics of Masaryk University.
- Languages:C#
- Technologies:OpenGL, WPF, OpenTK
- Client:Thermo Fisher Scientific
Rapid microchip prototyping tool
Did you know that just as you debug a code, you can debug a microprocessor?
One of the projects we are involved in for the Thermo Fisher Company is the Centrios. This system based on a focused ion beam electron microscope is used for chip rapid prototyping, repairs and analysis. This is called “circuit edit”. With this project, colleagues will also visit San Francisco Bay where the Thermo Fisher manufactures these systems.
- Languages:C++, C#
- Technologies:WPF
- Client:Thermo Fisher Scientific
- Languages:C++, C#
- Technologies:WPF
- Client:Thermo Fisher Scientific
Complex software for scanning electron microscope
Axia™ ChemiSEM is a scanning electron microscope from Thermo Fisher Scientific. A few years ago, a new project crystalized in Brno aimed at making electron microscopes cheaper and accessible to the general scientific public.
As a strategic partner of Thermo FisherScientific, Edhouse was tasked with creating control software supporting such a microscope. Cutting down on costs brought in a lot of new hardware, which needed to be fitted with control software. We’ve cooperated with our colleagues from Brno and programmed new modules for controlling individual parts of the entire device. These include the pumping system, sample positioning or various service applications. The operation and service fees are a large part of the microscope’s overall costs. Axia tried to pioneer this area as well. It turned expensive (and often complicated) service tasks into regular user activities. In order to achieve this, we needed to program smart and automated procedures which even a lesser experienced user could operate. Even though the Axia project did reduce costs, it mainly brought about a microscopy breakthrough: color imaging! Based on its chemical composition, the examined sample can be viewed in color, and the software instantly provides the user with a new perspective. The entire Edhouse team – programmers, system engineers, and testers – was instrumental in introducing the Axia microscope to the market and making it accessible to the customers.
- Languages:C++, C#
- Technologies:C++20, WPF, TDD, OpenCV
- Client:Thermo Fisher Scientific
Data management for chip production
A data management application which we developed from scratch.
Onsemi is an important customer manufacturing semiconductor components, ranging from the smallest diodes to very complex chips. Its products are used in various industries and manufactured in dozens of factories worldwide. Each component or set of components has its own specific data record stating when, where and how it was manufactured or tested. If we consider the number of factories and components produced daily, we are left with a massive amount of data that needs to be stored and managed. For that purpose, Onsemi uses the DataPort web application, whose development began several years ago with us at Edhouse. It is a Java-based application using the Spring framework, Oracle database and Amazon’s cloud storage. There are currently around twenty instances running, each managing data from factories in a specific territory. We are continually improving its operation and quality based on the customer’s requirements.
- Languages:Java
- Technologies:Spring, Oracle
- Client:
Onsemi
