Lam Research announced on the 11th that it has launched Dextro, a collaborative robot designed to optimize maintenance operations for wafer manufacturing equipment, making it the first in the semiconductor industry. Dextro is currently deployed in advanced wafer fabs around the world, minimizing equipment downtime and production variability through precise maintenance, while improving the limit yield through first-time-right (FTR) results.
As nano-level precision is required, advanced physics, robotics, and chemical technologies are utilized in semiconductor manufacturing equipment. This has led to the installation of hundreds of processing equipment that require regular sophisticated maintenance in wafer fabs. Dextro is designed to enhance the expense efficiency of equipment by repeatedly conducting critical maintenance tasks that require sub-micron (less than 1µm) precision.
Chris Carter, vice president of customer support at Lam Research, noted, “Dextro represents a significant leap in semiconductor manufacturing equipment maintenance.” He emphasized, “It is designed to work alongside engineers in cutting-edge fabs, performing complex maintenance tasks with precision and repeatability that exceeds human limits, thus increasing uptime and improving manufacturing yield.”
As the scale of fabs grows and geographic diversity and equipment complexity continue to increase, optimizing engineers' work efficiency through automation and enhanced efficiency has become a critical challenge for chip manufacturers. This is becoming increasingly important as the growth rate of semiconductor jobs outpaces the increase in the number of skilled engineers worldwide.
Kim Young-joo, executive director and head of the memory etching technology team at Samsung Electronics, said, “When maintenance is required for semiconductor manufacturing equipment, work must be done quickly and efficiently to reduce equipment downtime and prevent expense wastage.” He stated, “Dextro's error-free maintenance contributes to process variability reduction and yield improvement.”
Park Jun-hong, CEO of Lam Research Korea, said, “Improving customer yield and maximizing productivity are our top priorities, and the company is overcoming these challenges through solutions that integrate AI into manufacturing processes.” He explained that Dextro, one of those solutions, maximizes efficiency and productivity by enabling collaboration between humans and robots in cutting-edge fabs.