GUMI -- LG Innotek on Thursday opened the doors of its cutting-edge “Dream Factory” in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, to the local media for the first time, showcasing the company’s ambitious move to position itself as a major player in the next-generation semiconductor substrate market.
Spanning 26,000 square meters -- about three times the size of a soccer field -- the Dream Factory is an ultra-modern smart facility equipped with the latest IT innovations, including artificial intelligence, deep learning, robotics and digital twin technology.
Located about 260 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the facility serves as LG Innotek’s flagship production hub for flip-chip ball grid array, or FC-BGA, a high-value semiconductor package substrate.
LG Innotek entered the FC-BGA business in 2022, acquiring the Gumi Plant 4 from LG Electronics to establish the Dream Factory. Mass production began in February last year.
The factory, true to its name, operates with minimal human intervention. All production processes have been automated, digitized and smart-enabled -- eliminating four major variables that typically hinder manufacturing competitiveness: manpower, failure cost, breakdown losses and safety accidents.
To access the main production area, The Korea Herald reporter was required to remove shoes and wear double-layered gloves, masks, sanitary caps and full-body cleanroom suits -- a reflection of the ultraclean environment necessary to prevent even microscopic particles from contaminating sensitive chip components.
One of the first things that stood out inside the facility was the line monitoring system, a massive digital display powered by digital twin technology. It provides a real-time overview of factory operations, including equipment status, production performance, product flow and inventory levels.
Beyond the LMS room, dozens of autonomous mobile robots buzzed through the aisles, seamlessly transporting raw materials to the production lines. Production orders are issued automatically based on real-time customer delivery schedules through the real-time scheduler.
When AMRs deliver materials, the production systems scan the barcodes and, via the recipe management system, automatically configure the equipment for precise processing according to each product’s specifications.
Even delicate tasks, such as detaching protective films from panels, are now performed by robots to prevent issues like micro-scratches or dust contamination. According to the company, such nontouch production lines dramatically reduce handling defects and improve overall quality.
The Dream Factory generates over 100 gigabytes of data and more than 200,000 files daily from its FC-BGA production lines. The massive data stream is continuously processed and analyzed by AI-based systems designed to predict defects and accelerate inspections.
“AI-powered vision inspections have helped us cut lead times by up to 90 percent and reduce the manpower required for sampling inspections by 90 percent as well,” said an LG Innotek official. “We’ve also slashed failure costs by over a half.”
The company aims to implement an intelligent-quality management system by next year, which would enable the real-time detection, analysis and auto-correction of quality issues across the production process -- essentially completing full automation of FC-BGA manufacturing.
With over five decades of experience in the substrate materials business, LG Innotek has accumulated key technologies such as ultrafine circuit processing and high-density, multilayer substrate alignment.
Building on this expertise, the firm is set to enter the FC-BGA market for PCs and servers this year, with plans to expand into high-end applications such as server-use FC-BGA by as early as next year.
According to LG Innotek, demand for PC and server-grade FC-BGA is expected to surge due to advancements in AI and semiconductor performance.
The global market, valued at 11.3 trillion won ($7.97 billion) in 2024, is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 percent to reach 20.4 trillion won by 2030.
To meet the demand, the company has already installed critical equipment for server-grade production, including systems for edge coating, which prevents particle generation during manufacturing.
“With our cutting-edge Dream Factory, we will continue to deliver differentiated customer value and expand our FC-BGA business into a trillion-won operation by 2030,” said Kang Min-seok, head of substrate and material business unit at LG Innotek.
By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)
