Samsung, SK hynix and Micron are working with SEMI on one charging standard for fab robots

Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron are in talks with SEMI, the global semiconductor equipment and materials association, on a common charging standard for robots in their chip plants, Seoul Economic Daily reported on Nov. 8, citing the industry. The target is older fabs, such as Samsung's Giheung campus and parts of SK hynix's Cheongju site, where workers still load wafer carriers onto hand-pushed carts.

The three companies hold more than 70% of the global memory market, the paper says, and that share is what matters. In fabs, the buyers are about to write the spec for mobile robots, and robot makers that ship their own docking stations will have to fit a charger they did not design.

Old fabs have no floor space for one charger per robot brand

The robots in question are humanoids, mobile manipulators (robot arms on wheels) and AMRs. Most mobile robots follow no common specification, so each developer's charger is different. Older fabs lack the spare floor area to install a separate station for each type. One standard would let fewer chargers serve robots from several makers.

Charger compatibility comes first, according to the report. The second step is to feed charging data into the fab's manufacturing execution system (MES), so each robot's work and charging time can be scheduled around production. The talks cover charging parts, equipment and communications, but the chip and robot industries have not yet agreed who takes on which item.

The chip industry has wanted this for a decade

Voices in the chip industry called for a robot standard about 10 years ago, the paper reports; the current robot boom and chipmakers' record earnings have sped the effort up. Park Su-han, a robotics professor at Kwangwoon University, told the paper that mixed charging methods make safety verification harder, and that "the practical gains from setting a standard are large."

The nearest precedent comes from carmakers. Germany's automotive industry association, VDA, published a standard robot communication interface in April. The memory makers' version would reach further, into charging hardware and the software that runs the fab.