Samsung, SK hynix and Micron pursue a common charging standard for fab robots

What happened

Samsung, SK hynix and Micron pursue a common charging standard for fab robots, according to Crypto Briefing. Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), SK hynix (000660.KS) and Micron are working on a shared charging standard for the mobile robots that roam semiconductor fabrication plants. Samsung is an electronics company based in Suwon.

The goal is to replace a messy patchwork of vendor-specific batteries and charging stations with one common rulebook. What the chipmakers are trying to fix The effort was reported by The Seoul Economic Daily on November 8.

According to the report, working-level staff from the three companies have set up an early-stage consultative body to hash out the details. SEMI, the global semiconductor equipment and materials association, is also part of the discussions.

That matters because industry standards tend to stick better when a neutral trade body is involved, rather than one company dictating terms to the rest. The group is looking at harmonizing battery specifications, how charging stations communicate, the charging equipment itself, charger connections and battery management systems, often shortened to BMS.

Add your holdings to find related stories in Pro. Create a free account Right now, battery specs and the way charging stations operate differ from one robot vendor to the next.