Computer hardware company Asus has in the last week announced a major development in the automation of their product manufacturing.
The Taiwanese company has announced a new line of graphics card products which are built using what they call ‘Auto Extreme Technology’.
This technology entails the use of complete, end-to-end robotic manufacturing, meaning that their no human hands touch their products throughout the entire manufacturing process.
Previously, all companies have had to use at least some level of human interaction within their production lines.
“Until today, every graphics card in the world was hand-built to exact specifications. Now, incorporating 180 innovations, Asus is the first graphics card brand to achieve 100% automated production,” explained Asus in release video.
New chips produced using this Auto Extreme Technology will also make use of Asus’s new ‘Super Alloy Power II’ components.
Asus believes that the use of automated robotic manufacturing will enable much highly quality products to be made and create graphics cards which are well-suited to high-performance tasks such as overclocking.
“Product quality is always at the forefront of our minds. With the principle of design thinking we are persistently finding ways to optimise every minute detail of components, circuit boards and production processes,” explained Ken Liu, Chief Engineer of Asus graphics cards.
The new graphics cards will be initially marketed as “premium workstation products”, meaning they will likely come with a hefty price tag.
Greater automation within silicon-on-chip (SoC) industry
Following on Asus’s new 100% automated manufacturing of plans, other SoC manufacturers are likely to pursue their own robotic manufacturing systems.
The owner of China’s behemoth Foxconn factory, which makes the iPhone, has famously said he wants to employ 1 million robots at his electronics factory.
Should the Asus model of automation prove to be commercially successful, it could easily spread to the production other kinds of high-tech computer components such as CPUs or even whole motherboards at plants around the world.
