For years, many factories have been partially automated. But they still need people for supervisory and decision-making tasks. That will change soon. Samsung is developing a semiconductor factory without human workerswhich he wants to have ready by 2030.
The Internet of Things and the 5G connection have boosted the factory automation in recent years. But the big catalysts will be artificial intelligence and robots.
Technology companies “sell” us the use of robots and AI in the workplace as a way to “help” human workers, a kind of “co-pilot.” But the reality is that most of them are working on technologies that will allow factories to operate only with robots equipped with artificial intelligence.
Towards manufacturing without workers
According to the Chinese media ExPreviewAsus opened an AI-enabled factory last year, with pioneering technologies such as a 3D digital twin system, an AR platform, autonomous mobile robots for factory logistics, and an AI-powered defect detection system.
Samsung wants to go one step further, with the development of Smart Sensing Systema sensor system designed to change the way semiconductor factories operate.
Smart Sensing System is capable of monitoring and analyzing the production process in real time. Is about sensors that use AI to determine key aspects of the quality of a semiconductorsuch as plasma uniformity, etching, deposition and cleaning.
This work had to be carried out through human supervision, but these sensors already take care of it. Furthermore, they are so small that can be introduced into the assembly lines of current factories.
It is an essential step to be able to manage semiconductor factories without human workers, a goal that Samsung wants to have ready by 2030, according to the Chinese media.
Companies do not say it openly, but it is obvious that Replacing human workers with robots is a tremendous advantage: they do not receive salaries, they do not get sick, they do not complain, and they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
The first semiconductor factory manufactured by robots, without human workers, could arrive in 2030, thanks to Samsung. Until recently it seemed like science fiction, but it is here… Will it be an exception, or the rule in the labor market of the future?