Software Engineer Tokyo Electron Limited /System Development Department Fuchu, Tokyo, Japan
In semiconductor manufacturing fabs, the adoption of fully automated material handling systems since the 300mm generation has led to reduced work safety risks and improved management of production material in-Fab logistics. However, particularly in the front-end semiconductor manufacturing lines, automation of equipment maintenance has not progressed, leading to challenges in adapting to Smart Manufacturing (unmanned operation of production lines and more advanced data-driven management). Additionally, there is an increasing expectation for semiconductor equipment manufacturers to adopt robotic maintenance in response to the quality risks of manual maintenance and the need for improved maintenance accuracy through automated data acquisition. This has led to a rise in experimental initiatives in this area in recent years. However, in factory lines where manual maintenance operations have been the norm, implementing autonomous robotic maintenance presents several common challenges specific to semiconductor manufacturing lines that need to be addressed, such as: - Establishing communication systems and specifications with related controllers for the autonomous operation of maintenance robots. - Automating the supply of maintenance materials to the maintenance robots. - Ensuring coexistence between maintenance robots and human operators. - Addressing power supply and storage needs for maintenance robots. Therefore, we believe that solutions from the following perspectives should be essential to promote automated equipment maintenance using robots: - Enabling standards for production systems to enhance equipment uptime and ensure traceability of maintenance parts through the utilization of maintenance robots. - Integrating data analysis systems for analyzing maintenance quality data generated by maintenance robots. - Implementing safety measures for the overall equipment in production lines characterized by high-density equipment layouts in order to operate maintenance robots effectively. We would like to propose and discuss a more detailed framework for these solution spaces.
