CONNECT WITH US
Thursday 13 November 2025
Fastmicro - provides surface particle measurement solutions & Cleanliness Control
Fastmicro B.V. is a manufacturer of surface particle defect detection systems and equipment established over 15 years ago. The main product lines include sample surface particle defect scanning, particle deposition measurement instruments, and particle defect detection systems for applications such as compound semiconductor wafers, glass wafers, masks, and EUV/DUV mask pellicles.The ranging product offerings of Fastmicro include analytics software to cover a wide variety of applications and processes, in-line defect inspection systems, transportable scanners and scanning module for system integration. The company's technology can detect particles down to 100 nanometers in size. It offers various operation modes, with inspection speeds up to 400 wafers per hour, and can provide inspection reports in ISO standards or PDF format.Fastmicro was initially established through a collaboration with the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) to develop and research surface particle detection technology. Because the cleanliness level within semiconductor front-end processing plants and cleanrooms is crucial to the stability and yield of advanced semiconductor manufacturing, detecting tiny particles significantly impacts their operational needs. Today, tiny particles have a wide variety of composition, Fastmicro equipment plays a proactive role.Because the company's equipment has the advantage of fast detection speed, it usually only takes about ten seconds to complete surface particle defect detection, which has been well recognized by customers. The standard equipment is roughly the size of a household microwave oven. The operative procedures start to use swab or sampling tool to collect a sample from the surface of an object, which is then placed into the detector to read the particle count. Fastmicro adheres to NIST standards and uses PSL (Polystyrene latex) material for calibration and particle measurement. They also provide an OEM design model, providing flexible integration scanning modules to precision semiconductor equipment customers, covering wide-area scanning and diverse testing needs.The company began expanding its international business in 2022. At Semicon Taiwan 2025, in addition to engaging with Taiwan major foundry clients, the company is also entering the semiconductor equipment manufacturing supply chains. During equipment assembly, it is necessary to first confirm that the parts and components meet the product cleanliness level requirements before entering assembly. Each manufacturing link of supply chain requires confirmation that particle defect detection meets standard requirements, so Fastmicro equipment present strong business opportunities. This is currently the company's main market opportunity for expansion in Taiwan.
Thursday 13 November 2025
Mecal High-Tech Systems - provide anti-vibration solutions to EUV and high - tech equipment and foundries
Mecal High-Tech Systems is an independent global high end contracting engineering company that specializes in anti-vibration and shielding technologies for high-precision semiconductor equipment and optical measurement systems. Mecal is in control of critical conditions, in and around high end equipment, co-developing with customers and with its own IP and OEM product base. Take the well-known Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology as an example. Since EUV equipment uses highly precise optical lithography technology with accuracy reaching the nanometer level. These high sophisticated machines are generally extremely sensitive to vibration, need to have corresponding solutions.A complete anti-vibration system must be designed to meet the standard operation of EUV machines and achieve high production yields. Therefore, any semiconductor foundry service vendors who purchases EUV equipment becomes an important target customer for Mecal. The company provides solutions including problem analysis, consulting, engineering design, technology R&D, installation deployment and operation services. It integrates cutting-edge technologies to develop engineering solutions and create optimal economic value for customers, such as improving production yields to generate significant revenue incomes. It also enables even more sophisticated production of next generation technologiesMecal currently provides a vibration-proof platform and technology designed for EUV process needs. Every aspect of design and installation requires detailed planning by the engineering teams of the company. Mecal has more than 170 five-star ranking senior professional engineers certified by customers and works in Taiwan from established service bases in countries including the Netherlands, the United States, South Korea, and Japan.Mecal implements successful approach involving to foster strong communication, a deep technical understanding of semiconductor manufacturing, and a collaborative strategy to diagnose and solve these root problems by being located near where customers stay. For example, with major Taiwanese foundry customers, Mecal not only provides the solutions to solve key challenges of EUV operation, but also team-up with customers to transfer technology to different regions within their global footprint where EUV technology is deployed, thereby creating mutually beneficial business opportunities.The main purpose of Mecal in participating in Netherlands Pavilion is to expand its visibility in the Taiwanese market. The company believes that Taiwanese semiconductor ecosystems can increase the development speed and improve production yields and solve problems caused by vibration in process equipment through Mecal solutions.As semiconductor chips become smaller and more sophisticated, the technical challenges of anti-vibration are also increasing. With 35 years of accumulated industry experience and technical capabilities, Mecal plays the role of co-developer and problem solver in high-precision production, optoelectronic systems, advanced packaging systems and new projects that aims to be of relevance and to contribute to innovation that tackles major challenges in industries. Mecal is looking forward to finding appropriate partners and customers to create high economic value for high-tech industries.
Wednesday 12 November 2025
StatsInsight develops a home-grown baseball Hawk-Eye system with AWS hybrid cloud architecture
In modern competitive sports, the margin between victory and defeat often depends on who can capture and analyze data more effectively. Taiwan's triumph at the 2024 WBSC Premier 12 was not only the result of exceptional player performance and precise coaching but also the scouting team's ability to provide rapid, on-site opponent analysis. As a key member of the scouting team, StatsInsight played a pivotal role. Leveraging its stadium optical tracking system and StatsInsight analytics platform - both built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) - the company provided real-time data insights to players and coaches, making it one of the unsung heroes behind Taiwan's championship win.StatsInsight co-founder Leh Shyu noted, "As sports technology evolves rapidly, baseball has long moved beyond the era of paper scorecards. Professional leagues in both the U.S. and Taiwan have adopted electronic and camera-based systems to record every detail of practices and games. StatsInsight is the only company in Taiwan focused exclusively on baseball analytics and sports technology integration. Our goal is to build a solid foundation for the next generation of baseball data development in Taiwan by delivering comprehensive solutions and customized services that bring technology into every ballpark."Products validated through real-world performance: adopted by pro and national teamsBaseball is a sport defined by subtle details and strategy that are difficult to capture with the naked eye. Founded in 2020, StatsInsight has long specialized in baseball data collection and analysis. Its "Electronic Strike Zone" system has become a familiar presence to Taiwanese baseball fans, offering advanced statistics derived from ball flight trajectories and player motion reconstruction.StatsInsight's scouting data systems and analytics services have been widely adopted and highly recognized by both professional baseball teams and the national team.A former baseball player himself, Shyu entered the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) draft in 2019. Although not selected, his deep knowledge and experience earned him a place on the national team's scouting staff. That opportunity inspired him to co-found StatsInsight with like-minded partners to develop Taiwan's own baseball scouting system.Shyu explained that while the U.S. has a more mature sports technology ecosystem, its systems are often expensive and come with language and support barriers for Taiwanese teams. StatsInsight, though a later entrant, built its system in-house and proved its reliability through multiple competitions. With its ability to deliver customized solutions and localized support, the company successfully partnered with the national team to build an international scouting platform and has since collaborated with professional clubs.Leveraging AWS services to realize a hybrid cloud architectureStatsInsight has deployed its full system and website on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and uses Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for managed database operations. Video data is securely stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), while Amazon CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN) ensures smooth and fast content delivery for optimal user experience. The company is also developing an optical computer vision system and, through resources provided by the Startup Terrace Kaohsiung AWS Joint Innovation Center (JIC), received direct technical guidance from AWS experts to implement and validate its hybrid cloud architecture.Shyu shared, "U.S.-made Hawk-Eye systems are highly advanced and purpose-built for baseball stadiums, but renting one costs around NT$7 million per year, with a minimum four-year lease. Including technical support, total expenses can exceed NT$30 million. Our vision system is designed to match the performance of those systems, combining similar-grade cameras with small on-premises servers and AWS cloud services to deliver a more cost-effective hybrid solution. Taiwan's next baseball era will require comprehensive data and biomechanical analysis. By developing our own system, we aim to provide an affordable and effective option to drive Taiwan's baseball technology transformation."Currently, StatsInsight is collaborating with the National Sports Science Institute in Kaohsiung to deploy its system in baseball stadiums and create a next-generation smart baseball field. This collaboration will also serve as a testbed for validating the company's self-developed optical vision system and as a model for future smart stadiums in Taiwan.