Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday June 24 2019, @08:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-hear-what-you-did-there dept.

At Micron's memory chip fabrication facility in the Washington, DC, suburb of Manassas, Virginia, the entire manufacturing area is blanketed in electronic detectors in all their various forms. But the primary purpose isn't to keep intruders out or anything so prosaic. "A lot of them are microphones," a spokesman for Micron said. "They listen to the robots."

It turns out that there are thousands of microphones throughout the facility, or "fab," as silicon manufacturing plants are commonly known. There are microphones inside the giant $70 million cameras that imprint the component layout on the silicon surface of a memory chip. There are microphones lining the tracks of the robot controlled railways that carry colorful plastic FOUPs (front opening universal pods) along the ceiling throughout the plant. There are microphones near essentially every moving part in the facility.

All those thousands of microphones are listening for signs of wear—for variances to develop in the noises made by the machines—so that maintenance can be scheduled before anything breaks and causes downtime. Downtime, as you might imagine, is about the worst thing that can happen to an automated chip-making facility.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/06/manufacturing-memory-means-scribing-silicon-in-a-sea-of-sensors/


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday June 24 2019, @03:30PM (1 child)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Monday June 24 2019, @03:30PM (#859373)

    I listen to everything I run - be it my bicycle's drivetrain, the motor and X/Y table in my milling machine... When you listen to a machine long enough, you get to know it's not "feeling well" long before something actually goes wrong.

    It's impressive that this process has been automated. I didn't know it could be - always assumed it was a typically human skill.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday June 25 2019, @12:47AM

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Tuesday June 25 2019, @12:47AM (#859560)

    This is one reason the silence of new cars unnerves me. While driving, I always have part of my hearing dedicated to listening to my engine and drivetrain components, so when driving a car that I can't hear anything from, I'm almost distraught. I'd bet that I could hear something was wrong in an engine that was overheating before I would smell burning if I had the AC on. A few seconds can make a world of difference.