Samsung automates semiconductor packaging, Production efficiency can be doubled, and achieve full automation in 2030

As reported by the DigiTimes, during the 2023 Next-Generation Semiconductor Packaging Equipment & Materials Innovation Forum, Kim Hee-rye, the head of Samsung’s TSP (Testing and System Packaging), elucidated in a keynote address that Samsung has pioneered and launched the world’s first fully unmanned semiconductor packaging production line. Furthermore, the company aspires to achieve complete automation across all packaging facilities by 2030.

Traditionally, semiconductor packaging production lines have been labor-intensive. However, Samsung, leveraging sophisticated wafer transport mechanisms, elevators, and conveyors, has achieved total automation. This innovative approach has dramatically curtailed waiting and transit times during the packaging process, significantly amplifying production efficiency. Personnel previously engaged on the packaging production floor have been reassigned to an external integrated control center, entrusted with overseeing equipment and monitoring anomalies. With this avant-garde production methodology, Samsung Electronics has witnessed an 85% reduction in manufacturing manpower, a 90% decline in equipment malfunction rates, and an approximate doubling of the overall equipment production efficiency.

Samsung embarked on the construction of this automated, unmanned production line for its packaging facilities in June 2023. It’s understood that Samsung’s packaging plants are strategically situated in Daejeon and Wonju cities in South Korea, and it is here that this state-of-the-art automated line has been established. Given the nascent stage of this unmanned production line, it currently accounts for a mere 20% of Samsung’s total packaging production capacity. Nonetheless, Samsung envisions transitioning its entire packaging plant to unmanned automation by the dawn of 2030.