SK Hynix introduces AI solution to semiconductor process

SK Hynix Inc. said on Tuesday that it has started to improve production efficiency and yield by introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to the semiconductor process.

Gauss Labs, an industrial AI company invested by SK Hynix, introduced a virtual instrumentation solution called "Panoptes VM" (virtual metrology), which was launched in November last year, to mass production fabs (semiconductor production plants) in December last year.

The thin film deposition process, for which Panoptes VM was first introduced, predicts manufacturing process results using sensor data and is a key process for covering a thin film on a wafer.
 
Thin film thickness and refractive index are directly related to semiconductor quality, but it takes a lot of time and resources to measure them in the thin film, making it difficult to measure all of them.

Through Panoptes VM, which was introduced to solve this problem, an average of 21.5% improvement in process dispersion (size of variation in the quality of manufactured products) has been attained.

SK Hynix and Gauss Labs plan to expand the introduction of Panoptes VM to other processes in addition to thin film deposition.

"We are working hard to realize a more intelligent smart factory through a partnership with Gauss Labs. We will continue to secure technological superiority by applying AI technology to the overall semiconductor development and production process," said Kim Young-shik, vice president of manufacturing and technology at SK Hynix.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com