The Innovation Platform spoke with Mika-Petteri Kuro, Business Director of Wisematic, to debate the corporate’s core aims and its contributions to chip and wafer applied sciences.
In at the moment’s quickly evolving technological panorama, the demand for progressive options continues to surge. Wisematic, a pioneer in automation know-how, stands on the forefront, leveraging 20 years of experience to ship cutting-edge methods tailor-made to the distinctive wants of its purchasers.
The Innovation Platform spoke with Mika-Petteri Kuro, Business Director of Wisematic, about its tailor-made options for chip and wafer improvements, emphasising flexibility, high quality, and the combination of machine imaginative and prescient and robotics to fulfill the rising calls for of contemporary know-how throughout numerous industries.
Are you able to present an summary of Wisematic, highlighting its major aims and key applied sciences?
Wisematic is a 20-year-old firm established in 2005 at Tampere College. As a system integrator, we concentrate on numerous sorts of automation, together with robotics, machine imaginative and prescient sensors, manufacturing part meeting, high quality management, and extra.
From a technological standpoint, our tasks typically contain the combination of machine imaginative and prescient and robotics, tailor-made to the particular necessities of every software. A key facet of our work is our deal with small-sized parts, which might current challenges that many different firms are hesitant to handle. At Wisematic, we embrace these specialised wants, guaranteeing our options are customised to successfully meet our prospects’ necessities.
Flexibility is a key power inside Wisematic. Our robotic cells are designed to be future-proof, which means we assess not solely the present necessities of our prospects’ merchandise but additionally anticipate future wants. The purpose is to keep away from creating overly inflexible options, permitting for adaptability to future modifications.
The corporate takes nice satisfaction in its dedication to high quality. A buyer working 24/7/365 has our resolution of their manufacturing course of with over 99% availability! It is a phenomenal efficiency for a posh automation cell together with robotics, conveyors, machine imaginative and prescient and high-speed operation. While you order a robotic cell from us for meeting or manufacturing, we constantly advocate integrating high quality management measures. We steadily utilise machine imaginative and prescient know-how, extending past seen mild to make use of shortwave infrared mild. This functionality permits us to see by way of silicone layers, making it considerably simpler to precisely place chips and carry out high quality management checks to make sure every part is appropriately positioned and oriented.
Chip and wafer applied sciences have gotten more and more integral to society. Are you able to elaborate on why they’re important to trendy know-how and the way they affect numerous industries at the moment?
Chips are in fixed and rising demand. Each system we use at the moment, whether or not at house, in our automobiles, or elsewhere, is provided with a chip. Evaluating trendy computer systems and cell phones with these from the previous, it’s clear that chip efficiency has vastly improved. Due to developments in chip manufacturing know-how, trendy chips are a lot smaller and may execute calculations rather more swiftly.
As we glance to the longer term, notably with the fast developments in synthetic intelligence (AI) and quantum know-how, it’s clear that additional developments in chip know-how are important. One promising path is using mild for information transmission, which might result in the event of photonic built-in circuits or chips.
Lasers are more and more being utilised in quite a lot of purposes, notably inside the automotive sector, the place they play a vital position within the sensors utilized by autonomous autos. Moreover, in nations like Finland, the combination of lasers in house know-how is turning into extra distinguished.
These developments will undoubtedly influence numerous industries; nevertheless, the rise in know-how presents a problem: because the variety of units rises, so does vitality consumption. Except we develop chips that may ship equal or higher efficiency whereas consuming much less vitality, this consumption will proceed to develop. Right here, the combination of sunshine as soon as once more proves helpful, and from a producing perspective, new applied sciences will have to be developed to facilitate these improvements.
What latest improvements in chip and wafer know-how has Wisematic launched? How do these developments set you aside from opponents within the trade?
Lately, we have now been collaborating with Tampere College to develop a system that assembles and performs high quality management on photonic built-in circuits (PICs). This subject remains to be comparatively new, with few firms exploring it, which makes our partnership with the college notably priceless, as they’ve facilitated our improvement to set us aside within the trade.
Moreover, we have now developed chip-flipping machines for assembling two-layer laser chips, the place the highest layer must be flipped. These machines might be customised to fulfill particular buyer wants, creating distinctive options that aren’t available off the shelf.
For the wafers, we have now a vertical storage, particularly good for use for wafers ready for the subsequent section of manufacturing or already finalised wafers ready to be shipped. This automated storage is designed for objects like wafer carriers. We now have additionally developed gear front-end modules with wafer alignment and positioning. These might be positioned in entrance of any course of machine as a feeder.
In your opinion, what are probably the most important challenges at present dealing with the chip and wafer trade, and the way is Wisematic making ready to navigate these?
There are two predominant issues. First, how can we successfully utilise PICs alongside conventional silicon and different semiconductor applied sciences?
As soon as we determine these purposes, the subsequent step is manufacturing, and that’s the place we play a vital position. Our focus is on creating units that combine these chips, together with the sunshine parts.
The third problem is the vitality, each within the manufacturing of the chips and within the chips themselves. How can we design and construct vitality environment friendly chips for the quickly rising want.
What traits in demand for wafers and chips is Wisematic observing, and what’s the firm’s long-term imaginative and prescient for adapting to the evolving know-how panorama?
Along with an growing deal with photonics, there’s a push inside the US and Europe to determine aggressive chip manufacturing capability. At the moment, a big portion of chip manufacturing takes place in China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The EU and the US are pursuing their very own chip initiatives to develop manufacturing capabilities inside their areas; nevertheless, the purpose is not only to supply normal chips however to deal with creating specialised chips.
One other necessary level is that instruments for assembling these parts will not be at all times available, and it is a issue Wisematic can also be exploring. Typically, the partially now lacking however essential instruments embrace operations with PICs, lasers, double-layer chips and different associated objects. Our purpose is to assist firms keep their automated manufacturing on the growing tempo required by the markets.
Please observe, this text may even seem within the twenty third version of our quarterly publication.
