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Ways Automation Can (And Will) Impact The Manufacturing Industry

Many of us have seen photos of and read stories about robots working on the production floor in factories, speeding up old-school assembly lines to build products more quickly. And while the robotics trend in manufacturing is continuing to grow, that’s not the only way technology (including artificial intelligence) and automation are impacting the industry.

From enhancing worker safety to more efficiently moving goods and materials from point A to point B, automation is making its mark on the manufacturing industry, and tech experts expect even more changes and improvements in the near future. Below, 17 members of Forbes Technology Council discuss specific manufacturing tasks that are (or soon will be) handled more efficiently, safely and productively by technology and automation.

Intel to Build Next-Generation Chips Using ‘Glass Substrate’

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The new manufacturing method deals with the packaging substrate, the material to which chip dies are bonded. Intel and others have long used plastic (also known as organic) substrates, but the material can shrink or warp during the chip-making process, leading to defects.

Intel notes the warping risk grows as more silicon is placed on the substrate. “As the demand for data-centric, AI-centric compute increases, we are seeing an increasing amount of silicon being packed onto the package substrate, which organic packages have come to some kind of limitation in terms of handling it,” Manepalli added.

The company found a solution in glass, a homogenous substance that can remain rigid under a higher chip load. “Compared to today’s organic substrates, glass offers distinctive properties such as ultra-low flatness and better thermal and mechanical stability, resulting in much higher interconnect density in a substrate,” Intel said in its announcement.

Strong AI Is A Theoretical Impossibility

Thesis:

Part I: It has been proven that the human mind cannot be analogous to an electronic (or any other type of) computer, and the functioning of an intellective mind cannot be reproduced (though it can certainly be simulated) by any type of mechanical device, including modern artificial intelligence systems.

Part II: It is further impossible that the human mind is a purely material thing (including some “emergent property” of matter).

Atomic-scale semiconductor process technology and clean hydrogen technology join hands

To enhance this efficiency, there is a requirement to fabricate electrodes with a . Unfortunately, existing technologies face challenges in achieving a uniform coating of ceramic materials within electrodes possessing intricate porous structures.

A collaborative research team, comprising Professor Jihwan An and Ph.D. candidate Sung Eun Jo from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), and others, has successfully produced porous electrodes for SOFCs using latest semiconductor processes. This research has been featured as a back cover article in Small Methods.

The process of atomic layer deposition (ALD) involves depositing gaseous materials onto a substrate surface in thin, uniform atomic layers. In a recent study, Professor Jihwan An’s team, known for their prior work in enhancing the efficiency of SOFCs using ALD, developed and applied a powder ALD process and equipment. This enabled them to precisely coat nano-thin films on fine powders.

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