Chip Packaging Robot: Hand Bonding to ABB Arms

How the chip packaging robot followed hand wire bonding, the 1965 DIP and automatic testers, and where ABB robots could fit in advanced packaging for AI chips.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/13/20265 min read

A chip packaging robot works in the back end of semiconductor manufacturing, after the wafer leaves the fab. Here the wafer is cut into dies, each die is attached to a substrate, wired or bumped to it, sealed and tested. AI processors have made this stage far more demanding, because one package can now hold a processor, several stacked memory chips and a silicon interposer. This post looks at how packaging was done by hand, how machines took over, what is happening in advanced packaging in 2026, and where ABB robots could fit on these lines.

Chip package with a large grey processor die surrounded by four smaller memory stacks on a green substrate

An AMD Fiji graphics processor package with four HBM memory stacks on a silicon interposer, 2015. Photo: C. Spille / pcgameshardware.de / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

When chips were wired by hand under a microscope

In the 1960s most transistors and early integrated circuits went into small metal cans called TO-5 and TO-18, with a few leads poking out of the base. Fairchild mounted its first Micrologic chips in cans modified to take up to ten leads. Inside, fine gold or aluminium wires ran from pads on the die to the posts of the can, attached by thermocompression or ultrasonic bonding. Operators did this at a bench, looking through a microscope and guiding the bonding tool by hand, one wire at a time. It was slow, skilled work, and every chip needed several wires.

Close view inside a round gold metal can package with thin wires from a central chip to ten posts

An opened Fairchild metal can package, with fine bond wires running from the tiny die to the posts. Photo: Mister rf / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

That labour shaped where chips were assembled. In 1965 Fairchild opened an assembly plant on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico, and it employed over a thousand Navajo workers, most of them women. The same year Don Forbes, Rex Rice and Bryant Rogers at Fairchild devised the 14 lead ceramic dual in-line package, or DIP, with two rows of pins 100 mils apart. The DIP made circuit boards easier to lay out and allowed machines to insert chips into boards. Cheap plastic DIPs dominated production by the early 1970s, with up to 64 leads.

Bench wire bonding machine with two white work lamps and a small spool of gold wire

A manual wire bonding machine with a spool of gold bonding wire. Photo: Manfreeed / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Testing was automated even before assembly. Texas Instruments built a Centralized Automatic Tester for transistors in 1958, and Fairchild put its Type 4 tester on public sale at the IRE Show in March 1961. Its Model 4000M Automatic Test System became an industry workhorse in the 1960s. Bonding moved the same way. IBM introduced flip chip connections in the 1960s, where the die is turned face down onto solder bumps instead of wired, and automatic wire bonders later replaced the hand tools. Copper wire has since taken a large share from gold because gold costs so much more.

Rows of black and ceramic dual in-line chip packages with two rows of pins on graph paper

Chips in dual in-line packages, the DIP format Fairchild devised in 1965. Photo: Mister rf / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Advanced packaging for AI chips in 2026

Much of the recent work on AI hardware is in the package. A graphics processor with high bandwidth memory, or HBM, sits beside stacks of memory dies on an interposer, and every stack has to be bonded, aligned and tested. The industry is also moving from round 300 mm wafers to square panels, which hold more packages. On 1 October 2026 ERS electronic announced a fully automated panel level packaging system for 310 by 310 mm substrates. It combines temporary carrier bonding, debonding and detaping in one machine at 13 panels per hour.

Aerial view of large white factory buildings and parking lots surrounded by green land

Intel's plant in Costa Rica seen from the air, 2007. Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

ERS says joining the three steps removes the transfers between separate tools, and the first unit has gone to a leading semiconductor manufacturer. Any transfer that is left still needs something to carry panels, trays or magazines from one machine to the next, which is usually a robot or a person. Semiconductor Engineering reported in September that fabs use cobots and autonomous vehicles for many routine handling tasks. Lam Research's Russell Dover told the publication that a talent gap is one of three trends pushing fabs toward automation, along with cost and new fabs in new regions.

White ABB IRB 1300 robot marked Clean Room working over black fixtures in an enclosed cell

An ABB IRB 1300 Clean Room robot. Photo: ABB

ABB has no announced chip packaging customer, so any role here is a possibility. ABB sells clean room versions of its small robots, such as the IRB 1300 Clean Room, and robot cells built on ABB arms already handle wafer shipping boxes, as our post on semiconductor clean room robots describes. In a back end line, a robot like this could load trays of packaged chips into test handlers or move magazines between bonders. For small, delicate parts, the dual arm YuMi IRB 14000 can pick and assemble components next to people.

Dual arm ABB YuMi robot picking small parts from a tray at a bench next to a woman in a lab coat

ABB YuMi assembling small parts beside a lab worker. Photo: ABB

Where back end automation goes next

The likely next step is a line where nobody carries material by hand. Autonomous mobile robots such as ABB's Flexley Mover can carry loads around a plant without fixed tracks, which suits back end buildings where the layout changes as new tools arrive. Fixed robots then hand trays and magazines into the machines. Programs like this are usually built and checked first in RobotStudio, so the cell's reach and cycle time are known before any hardware is bought.

Low flat ABB autonomous mobile robot on a concrete floor between stacks of wooden pallets

ABB's Flexley Mover P604 moves loads around a plant without fixed tracks. Photo: ABB

Packages will keep getting bigger and more crowded. More memory dies per stack, larger interposers and panel substrates all mean heavier and more valuable parts to move, and dropping one costs far more than dropping a 1970s DIP. That raises the bar for gentle, accurate handling and for clean room ratings. It also makes inspection more important, since a fault caught after a package is sealed wastes every chip inside it. Robots that can pick a part, show it to a camera and sort it are likely to spread through test areas.

Silver chip package lid marked Nvidia Taiwan surrounded by small components on a circuit board

The GP100 processor package from an Nvidia Tesla P100 accelerator, made in Taiwan. Photo: FritzchensFritz / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Cost and skills are the open problems. Packaging lines run on thin margins, robot cells must justify themselves against cheaper labour in some regions, and every new package format means new grippers and new programs. Engineers who can program a cobot such as the SWIFTI CRB 1100 or the GoFa, and understand clean room rules, are scarce. The chips that come off these lines end up in home robots, phones and cars, so a shortage of packaging capacity is felt far from the factory.

Man holding a tablet next to a small white ABB SWIFTI robot arm over red trays on a bench

An engineer programs an ABB SWIFTI CRB 1100 cobot with a tablet at a small workshop bench. Photo: ABB

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