Momenta Insights

Semiconductor Fab Optimization | Venture Capital | minds.ai | Momenta

Written by Ken Forster | October 10, 2023

 

Momenta Invests in Minds.ai to Accelerate the Transformation of Semiconductor Manufacturing.

 

Minds.ai, a pioneering company applying AI to semiconductor manufacturing optimization and autonomy, has secured a significant investment from Momenta. Minds.ai is poised to revolutionize semiconductor manufacturing by driving significant productivity and waste reduction advancements.

 

 

The World's Most Expensive, Complex, and Productive Factories

Semiconductors are made in factories called 'fabs.' Building and outfitting a new fab costs as much as $20 billion. The latest fabs are heavily automated, with highly skilled workers augmented by robust software systems.

 

Last year, the semiconductor industry produced more transistors than the combined quantity of all goods produced by all other companies and industries in human history. Nothing else comes close. Fabricating ever-miniaturizing semiconductors has been the most significant engineering challenge of our time.

 

The potential of AI in the semiconductor industry

Semiconductor device makers have already begun their journey to generate value with AI. McKinsey believes that AI can contribute between $5 billion and $8 billion annually to earnings before interest and taxes across the industry. Within the next few years, AI could generate over $35 billion in value annually, and over the longer term, AI could contribute over $85 billion. The largest share of value creation will come from using AI to reduce semiconductor manufacturing costs and begin the move to Autonomous manufacturing.

 

Manufacturing represents the semiconductor industry's most significant cost driver because of capital expenditures, operating expenditures, and material costs involved in semiconductor fabrication. AI stands to substantially impact the industry's capital intensity via cost reduction, yield improvement, and increased throughput.

 

The investment from Momenta

Recognizing the immense potential in semiconductor manufacturing, Momenta decided to invest in Minds.ai. With a strong commitment to optimizing efficiency, Minds.ai offers innovative solutions that revolutionize semiconductor manufacturing processes. Through the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Minds.ai's products are designed to address complex scheduling and resource allocation challenges faced by professionals in the industry.

 

These cutting-edge solutions not only enhance productivity but also have the capability to perform tasks autonomously, allowing experts to focus on critical responsibilities and address intricate scheduling and resource allocation challenges. While these solutions initially assist the operating professionals in fabs, they are increasingly being used to run autonomously perform tasks, allowing operators to concentrate on more critical responsibilities.

 

"Minds.ai is privileged to count Momenta among our investors and board members, given their deep passion and engagement in smart manufacturing,” says Sumit Sanyal, Founder and CEO at minds.ai.

 

Michael Dolbec, Managing Partner of Momenta, stated, "Minds.ai is at the forefront of revolutionizing semiconductor manufacturing by pioneering deep reinforcement learning for fab automation. Their groundbreaking solutions have the potential to not only significantly reduce costs for fabs but also enhance productivity, reduce cycle time, and eliminate waste. We firmly believe that Minds.ai has a remarkable opportunity to  transform the semiconductor manufacturing industry."

 

Jerry O'Gorman, VP at Advantech IIOT division, stated, "We are pleased to support this investment in Minds.ai. Our leading role in edge computing and IoT solutions gives us a deep appreciation for the value of semiconductor manufacturing operations and, thus, the potential for AI-powered optimization solutions. We see a tremendous opportunity to collaborate with Minds.ai to co-create solutions to address the huge investment in new semiconductor fabrication facilities in North America and Europe in particular."

 

This is the thirteenth company receiving investment from Momenta's AIoT Ecosystem Fund, powered by Advantech, the world leader in digital industrial solutions. The investment from Momenta validates Minds.ai's vision and growth potential. The new funding will enable Minds.ai to extend its library of AI-enabled applications and expand its solutions to more fabs and geographies. 

 

About Minds.ai:

The products from minds.ai apply supervised learning, reinforcement learning, and generative AI to key pain points in the semiconductor industry. They're proven to deliver results that existing tools alone could never achieve. For more information, please visit http://www.minds.ai.

 

About Advantech:

Advantech has the corporate vision to "Enable an Intelligent Planet." The company is a global leader in IoT, intelligent systems, and embedded platforms. To embrace the trends of IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence, Advantech promotes IoT hardware and software solutions with the industrial IoT platform WISE-PaaS core to assist business partners and clients in connecting their industrial chains. Advantech is also working with business partners to co-create business ecosystems that accelerate the goal of industrial intelligence. For more information, please visit https://www.advantech.com.

 

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Momenta is the leading Digital Industry venture capital + growth firm accelerating deep tech innovators across energy, manufacturing, smart spaces, and supply chain. For over a decade, our team of deep industry operators have helped scale industry leaders and innovators via our award-winning executive search and strategic advisory teams.

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