Autonomous mobile robots join hands with chip manufacturing to help China's semiconductor industry develop at full speed

Autonomous mobile robots are industrial logistics solutions for semiconductor production. Mobile robots are mainly composed of three parts: drive, dispatch and guide. The main cost is concentrated on core components such as reducers, servo systems, and controllers. In the semiconductor industry, wafer manufacturing, chip packaging and testing require a dust-free and closed environment, and manpower is not applicable in this regard. Using mobile robots to complete logistics automation transformation and realize the intelligent upgrade of factories is becoming a common choice for semiconductor manufacturers.

Autonomous mobile robots can work 24 hours a day and are flexible in scheduling. At the same time, mobile operating robots can automatically load and unload materials based on handling, open up the material flow and data flow of the entire field, effectively ensure the yield rate and improve production capacity. The controller is the core of the mobile robot. It needs to complete multiple functions such as positioning, navigation, obstacle avoidance, mapping, identification, tracking, etc., and has rich software and hardware interfaces. In the production environment, it can run alone or realize the coordinated scheduling of robot clusters, and support rapid docking with industrial production management systems.

However, the precise production conditions of semiconductors also place extremely high demands on mobile robots. First, due to the characteristics of the industry, the cleanliness of the mobile robots themselves needs to be extremely high. Secondly, wafers in the semiconductor industry are expensive and fragile, which requires mobile robots to be accurate and stable when transporting and storing wafer boxes. In addition, semiconductor production processes are numerous and equipment layout is concentrated. Autonomous mobile robots need to frequently, repeatedly, and stably transfer between processes, which requires the robots to have a sufficiently stable operating speed and positioning accuracy accurate to the millimeter level, which places high demands on mobile robots.

Autonomous mobile robots create corresponding prototype products, which need to be continuously upgraded and upgraded to find the best balance between scenarios and product performance. Application of wafer boxes Handling robots The precise loading and unloading and handling of wafer boxes can save a lot of manpower, reduce the risk of pollution in dust-free workshops, improve the yield rate, avoid damage caused by manual handling, and reduce most of the ineffective walking of operators, greatly improving the efficiency of autonomous mobile robots.

It is not easy to combine mobile robots with semiconductor scenarios to achieve the ultimate performance. First of all, it is necessary to ensure the absolute accuracy of wafer box grabbing and loading and unloading. The OW series is equipped with ultrasonic sensors , 3D vision, in-place detectors, storage locks and other sensors at the end execution part of the robot arm . Multiple sensing protection ensures the stability of the grabbing operation.

Ultrasonic sensors have high sensitivity, strong penetration, and are less affected by the environment. They can effectively prevent the wafer box from being bumped when grabbing stacked materials, and detect manual material grabbing. The visual positioning algorithm uses a positioning compensation strategy to ensure that the wafer box is absolutely parallel to the direction of the loadport when it is placed in the material inlet, to ensure a safe distance between the wafer box and the equipment, and to avoid the risk of collision between the equipment and the wafer box due to factors such as inappropriate placement angles and narrow environments. The end of the gripper is also equipped with an end-in-place detection sensor, which detects the fixed state of the wafer box on the gripper in real time during movement. Once the in-place detection sensor is triggered, the end actuator immediately stops the operation in an emergency.

During the grasping process, ultrasonic sensors, visual positioning cameras, in-place detectors and other sensor modules will conduct continuous real-time monitoring. Only when there are no errors in the three major modules will the robotic arm perform corresponding operations to ensure stable and safe loading and unloading and handling operations of the wafer box.

During operation, the key is to keep the vehicle body carrying the wafer box stable. With its strong single-machine performance, it can effectively avoid vibration during transportation. At the same time, it is equipped with laser radar, 3D vision, pothole sensor and other detection equipment to avoid more emergencies, and ultimately ensure stability and reliability during driving.

At the same time, the series's laser radar, vision, pothole detection and other modules are all normally closed. If a module is abnormal or cannot be activated normally, the series will not perform operations; only when all modules are operating normally will the series perform operations to provide comprehensive protection. According to the current situation of customers' sites, the series products also have more specific functional modules to ensure the normal operation of the products and the safety of materials in many cases.

At present, international brands occupy the main market for core components such as drive controllers, dispatching systems, and exciting navigation sensors. Although they cannot directly monopolize my country's mobile market, they can use their key technological advantages to contain Chinese companies. During the epidemic, the supply cycle of foreign core components became longer and the price increased, which affected the on-time delivery of mobile robot projects and corporate profits.

In the long run, upstream cost restrictions will continue to affect the level of industry expansion. As the scale of China's mobile robot industry continues to expand, in order to achieve high-quality development, it is necessary to be self-reliant and self-reliant, ensure the autonomy, controllability, safety and stability of the industrial chain and supply chain, and the breakthrough of core component technology has become a top priority. At present, many domestic companies are accelerating independent research and development, realizing iterative optimization of core component technology, and accelerating the localization process.

In addition, technologies such as machine vision and artificial intelligence are being closely integrated with mobile robots, enabling them to not only have the ability to accurately detect and locate the end, but also have the ability to make real-time adjustments to their on-board robotic arms and other actuators. This type of composite robot will bring greater space for future industry development.