Critical Manufacturing to show AI MES with ASMPT in Taiwan

Critical Manufacturing will demonstrate its manufacturing execution system platform for semiconductor production with ASMPT in Taiwan, focusing on more intelligent factory operations.

The presentation centres on what Critical Manufacturing describes as an industrial operations platform, with manufacturing execution software at its core and links to factory equipment, production data, analytics and artificial intelligence tools. The company is positioning the system as chipmakers face more complex production flows across leading-edge manufacturing, advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration, AI chips and silicon photonics.

Taiwan remains one of the most important hubs in the global semiconductor industry, and suppliers are seeking to align their software and equipment with demand for greater visibility across production lines. Continued investment in AI is also reshaping requirements across the semiconductor manufacturing chain, as factories process larger volumes of data and manage tighter quality controls.

Execution and data

Critical Manufacturing says its approach goes beyond a traditional manufacturing execution system, or MES, by using MES as an operational layer within a broader software environment. In practice, production data is captured at the source, organised across systems and sites, and used to support decisions on process control, quality and output.

The system is designed to create a closed-loop process in which information from machines and shopfloor systems can be analysed and acted on in real time. The aim is to help manufacturers move from reacting to production problems after they occur to identifying issues earlier, before they affect yield, delivery schedules or product quality.

That reflects a broader trend in industrial software, as MES vendors seek to combine plant-level execution with analytics and automation tools. For semiconductor manufacturers, the appeal is the ability to manage highly interconnected processes without relying on separate systems that can be difficult to integrate later.

Critical Manufacturing also highlighted the use of natural language interfaces within the MES environment. Its AI Copilots allow users to query manufacturing data and generate dashboards, charts and insights without writing complex queries or relying on specialist data teams.

The company says this could help engineers, operators and managers investigate process changes and identify trends earlier. In semiconductor production, where small shifts in process conditions can have significant effects on yield and quality, easier access to contextualised data has become an increasingly important selling point for software suppliers.

Joint approach

The joint presence with ASMPT also underlines the growing importance of tighter links between software and hardware in semiconductor production. ASMPT supplies equipment and software for semiconductor and electronics manufacturing, and the relationship gives Critical Manufacturing a route to present its software in a broader production context.

Manufacturers have been under pressure to connect machinery, process monitoring and factory management systems more closely as production lines become more automated. Suppliers are responding with more integrated offerings that span equipment interfaces, process control and operational software.

Neil Chen, Managing Director of Critical Manufacturing Taiwan, set out the company's view of the shift in customer demand. "Taiwan's semiconductor industry continues to push the boundaries of advanced manufacturing, but this progress also brings greater complexity across equipment, processes and production data," Chen said.

"Manufacturers need more than isolated systems or additional data. They need an operational foundation that can provide context, connect information across the factory and turn it into actions that support production," he added.

The demonstrations will show how information moves between equipment and manufacturing systems across the shopfloor, with an emphasis on linking process conditions to production outcomes. That kind of visibility is increasingly important for semiconductor plants, where multiple process steps and strict traceability requirements create large volumes of operational data that must be interpreted quickly.

Critical Manufacturing is a subsidiary of ASMPT, giving the software group a place within a larger supplier serving semiconductor assembly, packaging and electronics production. The ownership structure also helps explain the emphasis on presenting software and equipment as part of the same production environment rather than as separate technology layers.

Chen said the company sees that integration as central to how chipmakers will manage more advanced operations. "At SEMICON Taiwan, we will demonstrate how bringing MES, connectivity, analytics and AI together can help manufacturers respond to changing conditions, protect quality and maintain control as operations become more advanced. This is what enables the move from connected manufacturing towards truly intelligence-driven production," he said.