"The key to building the Humanoid Robot market is speed, not price. Using ST's portfolio and turnkey solutions is overwhelmingly advantageous for development speed and system integration compared with sourcing individual parts one by one. Price competitiveness will naturally follow within one to two years as the market grows."
Park Jun-sik, head of the Korea office at STMicroelectronics, met with ChosunBiz on the 26th at the Westin Josun Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul, and offered this assessment of the Humanoid Robot market. A Humanoid Robot must balance on two legs, handle objects designed for human hands, and interact in real time in the same space as people, making it one of the most challenging examples of physical AI that implements artificial intelligence (AI) in real-world physical actions. ST plans to leverage its broad product portfolio to support all areas other than the AI processor that serves as the robot's "brain"—including microcontroller units (MCUs), power devices, sensors, and connectivity—positioning itself as a strategic partner for robot developers.
Park emphasized that in implementing physical AI, what truly matters is not the AI processor but the MCUs and power devices that drive actuators and motors, as well as various sensors. He said dividing the robot by zones—head, arms, legs—and having each zone's MCU process sensor data locally in a "distributed architecture" enables immediate responses similar to the human autonomic nervous system. Handling vision and gesture recognition on-device, inside the chip rather than in the cloud, follows the same logic.
Regarding the Korea market, he said Korean corporations stand out in developing core robot modules such as actuators and grippers. ST said it is discussing various forms of collaboration with Korean module corporations, including technical cooperation as well as joint design and marketing, and expects these talks to lead to concrete partnerships. The following is a Q&A with Park.
—There have been major partnerships and product launches related to physical AI in recent months. What industry trends or issues is ST watching most closely right now?
"Physical AI does rely on main chipsets such as AI processors that handle sensing and central decision-making, but I consider connectivity for communication, and the MCUs and power devices and drivers for actuators and motors, to be even more important. AI processing itself has long advanced and can already deliver strong performance, but the precise actuation of actuators still requires a lot of research and development, and I see this as the point when that progress is truly beginning. To compensate for what cameras alone cannot determine (whether something is glass or not, whether it is a photo or a real environment), sensors such as time-of-flight (ToF) or lidar must complement cameras, and I think many new sensor domains need to be developed going forward."
—You divide the robot into head, arms, and legs, with separate MCUs processing sensors locally in a "zonal architecture," that is, a distributed structure. What are the advantages of such distributed design for robot manufacturers?
"Far more functions are needed than expected when a robot hand moves its joints. A sensor must detect if an object is slipping and immediately grip it, but if sensing information is sent to a main processor and then a command is sent back, it takes time and the structure becomes more complex. The biggest advantage of a distributed structure is that it can react instantly like the human autonomic nervous system, and it can also distribute AI compute loads across multiple points. When picking grapes, squeezing too hard bursts them and squeezing too lightly drops them; having the MCU in the hand make the force-judgment immediately is far more efficient than sending it to a central processor or the cloud."
—Products like ST's STM32N6 handle vision and gesture recognition on-device without a host. Deciding whether to send robot AI workloads to the cloud or keep them at the edge also raises real-time and security issues. How do you see this balance?
"I believe most simple execution functions should be handled by local intelligence. Due to security concerns, cloud-based decision-making can have side effects, and even processing in the main AI brain entails latency and high energy consumption. For fast responses, I think distributed intelligence is the system closest to and most efficient like the human nervous system."
—Your collaboration with Nvidia goes beyond supplying parts to jointly offering simulation models. It looks like ST intends to shift its position from a "giant corporation that sells semiconductors" to a "robot development platform company." What do you think?
"Not only for robots, ST independently operates Competence Centers and segment organizations for the applications we focus on. Competence Centers build demo boards to provide references to customers, and segment organizations track global robot and AI trends and reflect requests from customers and the ecosystem in future development. Rather than selling semiconductors individually, we broadly define which systems can be built, focus our development accordingly, and continuously evolve the semiconductors that fit."
—By offering simulation models like demos, isn't there also an element of enjoying a customer lock-in effect?
"Rather than a lock-in effect, many customers start from absolute zero, so we provide a starting point for design development to help them quickly build systems that meet their own requirements. It means we are moving beyond supplying individual parts to strengthening a system-level, turnkey-solutions approach that provides integrated solutions."
—ST offers a portfolio of more than 500 semiconductors applicable to Humanoid Robots. How do such a broad product lineup and system-level approach benefit customers in terms of development speed and system integration?
"With reference designs and guidelines, customers can develop much faster. Rather than sourcing parts from individual vendors, using ST's broad portfolio and system-level, turnkey solutions lets them proceed more efficiently with design and system integration. At this early market stage, the advantages in development efficiency and system integration outweigh price; as the market expands and production volumes rise, we expect price competitiveness to improve."
—Among multiple product lines such as MCUs, sensors, and motor drivers, what differentiating points does ST feel most confident about compared to competitors?
"The STM32N6 is the first in the STM32 family to integrate ST's own Neural Processing Unit (NPU), the 'Neural-ART Accelerator,' delivering up to 600 giga-operations per second (GOPS) of AI performance. It can leverage the existing STM32 software and development tool ecosystem, and some customers are already using it in product development, which is another strength. For image sensors, we have a decade of mass-production know-how and infrastructure in ToF and global-shutter technologies for the consumer market (such as Face ID), which have expanded into Autonomous Driving and driver monitoring systems (DMS), and we expect these technologies to extend into robot vision and ranging sensors as well."
—The growth pace and margin structures differ across automotive, industrial, and robotics markets. Where is ST currently investing the most resources?
"It varies by region. Industrial markets are much more developed in Europe and China than in Korea, while automotive is a balanced focus in the United States, China, and Korea. In robots, the market broadly splits between China and the West, and Korean firms are particularly notable in hands, grippers, and actuator joints in the West-oriented segment."
—Korea is stronger in parts and materials than in finished goods for robots. How does ST's collaboration with Korean parts and materials suppliers differ from that in Japan, Taiwan, and China?
"In Korea, development activity is particularly active in high-performance robot actuators and modules. A notable feature is that many corporations are developing not only finished goods but also core modules such as joints and grippers for the global market, and compared to other regions, design and development at the module level are very active."
—If there is a particular area the Korea office is emphasizing this year, how does it align with ST's global strategy?
"In Korea, development in core robot modules such as actuators and grippers is active, and not only small and midsize companies but also large companies are entering development, so ST's strategy aligns well with Korea's needs. For Korean customers, overseas demand outweighs domestic demand. ST is discussing various collaboration possibilities with Korea's robot module corporations, including technical cooperation as well as joint design and marketing, and we expect these to lead to specific cases of collaboration in the future."