A semiconductor production system has storage devices for storage of all
kinds of information including, but not limited to, the information
concerning semiconductor design and information as to semiconductor
manufacture along with information relating to semiconductor inspection
processes, while representing as a class an instance added with meta data
indicative of the role of the information in accordance with a logical
expressive form. The system has a network for the storage device use,
called the storage area network or "SAN". The SAN is for interconnection
between respective ones of the storage devices, semiconductor
manufacturing apparatuses and a semiconductor inspection apparatus. The
storage devices are seamlessly accessible from any one of the
semiconductor manufacture apparatuses and the semiconductor inspection
apparatus and also from a semiconductor design environment associated
therewith.