Siemens is collaborating with Nvidia to develop adaptive AI-powered manufacturing capabilities that combine industrial software, Siemens’ Digital Twin technology and Nvidia Cosmos to accelerate production planning, inspection preparation and optimization.
The collaboration combines Siemens’ Teamcenter software for product lifecycle management (PLM) and Process Preparation X with Nvidia Cosmos to create an AI-powered workflow for printed circuit board inspection.
The system is designed to help electronics manufacturers prepare and optimize automated optical inspection (AOI) processes before physical production begins.
The solution is being demonstrated at Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen, Siemens’ Customer Zero for adaptive AI-powered production.
The goal is to create a highly adaptive factory capable of introducing changes three to five times a week without disrupting production.
Mark Hindsbo, executive vice president operations software, Siemens, said: “By connecting the comprehensive Digital Twin to the shop floor and AI we are improving both line productivity and product quality.
“At the Erlangen factory, we’re demonstrating how the deterministic nature of Siemens’ Digital Twin is the foundation for leveraging physics AI for preparing production.
“By leveraging a ‘virtual’ golden board, electronics manufacturers can change production dramatically quicker without taking the line out of production.
“This enables electronics manufacturers to respond more quickly to change and helps reach production readiness at scale and speed – while helping to reduce manual engineering effort, accelerate AOI readiness and improve manufacturing quality.”
Rev Lebaredian, vice president, Physical AI Simulation at Nvidia, said: “Manufacturers shouldn’t have to wait for the first physical circuit board to start preparing inspection.
“By combining Siemens’ industrial software and manufacturing expertise with Nvidia Cosmos, we can generate synthetic images of good and defective boards to prepare inspection virtually – helping manufacturers bring new products into production faster.”
Digital twin of SMT AOI inspection area at Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen created using the Digital Twin Composer
Factory operator capturing images of a production PCB and marking areas for potential defects prior to handoff for manual AOI programming
Preparing inspection before production
Traditionally, introducing a new product or product variant requires a physical prototype before optical inspection processes can be prepared and trained for quality control. The new approach moves more of that work into the virtual world.
Teamcenter provides PCB design, bill of materials and component information, while Process Preparation X validates, normalizes and assembles the information into a Digital Twin of the printed circuit board assembly (PCBA).
This provides the product and manufacturing context needed to prepare inspection before the first physical board reaches the production line.
The Digital Twin of the “perfect” reference board, often referred to as the “golden board”, is used with Nvidia Cosmos to create a photorealistic virtual golden board.
Synthetic photorealistic samples can then represent both good boards and fault conditions that may occur during production.
Siemens uses Nvidia Cosmos Data Factory to generate synthetic circuit-board defect images, enabling inspection-machine calibration before physical boards are produced.
AI-supported inspection
The workflow extends into production through an AI-supported secondary inspection capability.
When an AOI system identifies a potential defect, the secondary inspection capability can analyze the detected condition and help determine whether it represents a genuine defect or a false call.
Together, the technologies create an end-to-end digital and AI-supported workflow spanning virtual AOI preparation, calibration and inspection support once production begins.
Customer Zero in Erlangen
The collaboration is being demonstrated at the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany, which serves as Customer Zero for broader Siemens and Nvidia work on adaptive, autonomous and AI-powered production.
The factory provides the manufacturing use case, production environment and subject-matter expertise in a highly adaptable, high-mix environment with frequently changing production processes.
The project is targeting up to 85 percent less manual engineering effort in AOI program generation, along with 40 percent fewer false calls and an improvement of more than 5 percent in first-pass yield.
For manufacturers, the intended benefits include earlier inspection preparation, reduced manual engineering effort and less dependence on physical samples.
The approach could also provide better-calibrated inspection processes, reduce manual verification, accelerate production readiness and improve manufacturing quality.
More broadly, the collaboration demonstrates how the Digital Twin and industrial AI can connect engineering intent with real-world inspection across the virtual and physical stages of production.
It also shows how the comprehensive Digital Twin can evolve from a virtual representation of a product into an active foundation for AI-powered manufacturing and quality processes.
