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Thursday 13 November 2025
Brainport Industries Campus Development Organization - The largest high-tech manufacturing expansion in the Netherlands
Brainport Industries Campus (BIC) is a development project for an industrial park in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Phase one (BIC 1) has been completed, encompassing 105,000 square meters of existing buildings, surrounding public space, and parking. The site is home to several high-tech manufacturing companies and educational institutions. Expansion plans are currently underway, with the newly expanded BIC 2 campus expected to double the size of BIC 1, reaching 300,000 square meters. More than 40 pioneering companies are already established on the campus. BIC is the largest campus expansion in the Netherlands for years to come. Notably, ASML, the Dutch EUV lithography equipment giant, is considering expanding to the northern part of the BIC 2 campus. In 2024, ASML announced plans to establish a subsidiary in the BIC Industrial Park by 2030, accommodating thousands of employees. The Brainport Industries Campus development company stated that it aims to provide startup facilities, co-innovation spaces and built to suit manufacturing space for high-tech companies.In partnership with Invest Holland and the Brabant Development Agency (BOM), the park will offer Taiwanese companies the option of establishing regional business units or research centers in the Netherlands through support services provided by the industrial park.The campus aims to attract leading companies in cutting-edge technology fields, including semiconductor related technologies, photonics, quantum and additive manufacturing. BIC and Invest Holland jointly unveiled this plan at Semicon Taiwan 2025, offering the access to advanced facilities, a strong open innovation ecosystems and encouraging Taiwan's high-tech industries participating in this collaboration opportunity.
Thursday 13 November 2025
Axelera AI - integrating the Metis AI Accelerator to boost edge AI applications
Axelera AI is a startup targeting Edge AI applications. Leveraging its Metis AI Processing Unit (AIPU) chip, embedded hardware AI inference acceleration cards, and Voyager SDK software solutions, the company specializes in imaging application solutions for applications in edge nodes. Unlike AI systems developed in high-density cloud data centers, Edge AI computing offers energy efficiency, information security, low latency, and fast speed of response, rapidly powering real-time vision and smart detection applications for embedded AI systems. Axelera AI's technology offerings span 4K/8K image resolution real-time image recognition, security surveillance, campus safety, and drone imaging, pioneering a new model for the development of high-performance AI inference in diverse fields. The company's Metis chip boasts a computing performance of up to 214 TOPS (TeraOPS) of inference performance at INT8 precision. For example, using ResNet-50 Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model doing object segmentation and analysis, a single Metis chip can achieve a high processing speed of 3200 frames per second (FPS), providing stable, real-time analysis capabilities while consuming only approximately 10W. This balance of performance and environmental benefits has attracted significant market attention.Meanwhile, the AI inference acceleration cards integrated with Metis chips are also a major product line. There are two types of accelerator cards that support M.2 and PCIe interfaces, which can quickly meet the needs of system integrators, OEM customers and industrial PC (IPC) makers. With these flexible connection interface, Axelera could engage the business with various embedded AI system makers.In addition to the hardware lineups, Axelera's software support is also a key factor in its success. The Voyager SDK software suite facilitates hardware and software integration for system integrators. There are open source software framework currently available on GitHub for computer vision and enabling customers to solve their AI business requirements. This Voyager SDK comes with a Model Zoo, a catalog of turnkey AI models, allowing customers either to import their own AI models or choose from Model Zoo models. These offerings significantly reduce developing time and excels in functional completeness and efficiency.Axelera AI's business model is based on collaboration with system integrators and OEM clients, encompassing joint development of AI projects and customized data architectures, providing clients with one-stop, high-performance Edge AI solutions. Axelera AI is working closely with major Taiwanese industrial PC vendors and OEM/ODM clients to develop key applications for financial and research institutions, medical solution providers and other public facilities that prioritize data security, privacy, and safety. This initiative aims to create emerging applications for Edge AI and unlock its significant value.
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.
Thursday 13 November 2025
SCIL Nanoimprint Solutions - providing nanometer scale imprint lithography equipment
SCIL Nanoimprint Solutions is a provider of nanoscale imprinting equipment for patterning wafers leveraging its unique technology of Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography (SCIL). The company is targeting the creation of optical structures on wafers for emerging applications in silicon photonics modules and smart glasses. Active in the market since 2015, SCIL Nanoimprint Solutions, originally a business unit of Philips, utilizes patented stamp transfer technology to create process equipment and processes for creating specialized optical structures on wafers. For example, it can create lightguide structures on wafers to enable direct chip-to-fiber connections, driving the fabrication of high-speed optical communication structures.Following the internal installation and testing of the first AutoSCIL tool in 2016, the company officially began mass production and delivered equipment to customers from 2017 onwards. In 2023, with investment from venture capital funds and other investors, the company was officially spun out from Philips to become an independent operating company. The company is targeting applications in optical communication semiconductors, including high-speed optical communication chips for data centers, advanced packaging silicon photonics systems, and ultra-compact optical elements for smart glasses and augmented reality devices. The product portfolio spans advanced imprint equipment, tailored optical materials, and optimized processes. As these are all key areas of focus for the next phase of AI-related applications, the company is attracting significant industry attention.These nanostructures and precision structures utilize processes such as imprinting precise patterns onto wafers using glass materials, serving as light-guiding structures for fiber-optic communication systems. Furthermore, some are manufactured as lens modules, imprinting optical components onto wafers. The existing equipment can achieve optical structures with critical dimensions down to 10 nanometersand sub-nanometer surface roughness.The company's process equipment is differentiated by wafer size, supporting 4-inch, 6-inch, 8-inch, and 12-inch sizes. The process includes resist deposition, overlay alignment, nano-imprinting, , and curing to complete the 2D or 3D patterning process. Targeting two key and highly anticipated applications, smart glasses and CPO (co-packaged optics), Taiwan is a high potential market for SCIL Nanoimprint Solutions, with the Taiwanese semiconductor industry focused on optoelectronic chips, high-speed communications, and advanced heterogeneous packaging technologies.
Thursday 13 November 2025
XIVER, more than a MEMS foundry.
XIVER, 120 employees, located in High Tech Center of the Netherlands, a carve out from Philips Research started its business on January 2025.XIVER is unique in that they combine the strength of a pure-play foundry with more than 20 years of MEMS process development knowledge and experience in high tech micro systems solutions. A state-of-the art cleanroom of 2600m2 (28,000 sqf), independent positioning in the market and European ownership. XIVERs increasing share of wallet of its top-tier customers in medical, semiconductor equipment and defense are driving its initial growth and success. Secured by high barriers of entry and scarce availability of available manufacturing, make XIVER a first option for innovations in high tech market segments like data centers/AI and IR applications.  Further strategic investments in Photonics and Transducers will provide longevity and will be driving accelerated growth in mid to long term.
Thursday 13 November 2025
Xinyx IC Design B.V. - Customized IC design service and solution provider
Xinyx IC Design B.V. is a 100% Filipino owned IC Design house and has been in operations since 2009, with more than a decade of experience in the field of integrated circuit design, giving its clients scalability and access to highly qualified Filipino engineers. Xinyx provides end-to-end semiconductor design solutions, spanning front-end architecture, circuit realization, and physical implementation for analog, digital, and mixed-signal domains.Xinyx offers comprehensive IC design services customized to meet each customer's unique requirements. The company's capabilities span digital, analog, and mixed-signal design and layout, enabling it to support projects across a wide range of applications and technologies. Xinyx provides flexible engagement models, from full turnkey solutions to project-based and specialized design services, allowing clients to leverage its expertise at any stage of the design process to achieve faster turnaround times and optimized results. With over 16 years of experience, Xinyx has grown from a 15-person team into a 400-strong engineering and service organization, operating across five sites in the Philippines and one in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Built on the strength of its large pool of talented young Filipino engineers, the company helps customers bring innovative silicon solutions to market. As Xinyx continues to expand its global footprint, it is optimistic about the booming Taiwanese semiconductor industry and is eager to collaborate with Taiwanese IC design firms to broaden its reach and explore mutually beneficial opportunities.As part of its commitment to developing the IC design ecosystem, Xinyx actively drives its flagship Campus Connect Program, which focuses on nurturing IC design talent at the university level. The program bridges industry and academia by providing a pathway for Filipino students to enter the IC design field through collaborative learning opportunities, internships, and training programs. In line with this vision, Xinyx continues to explore strategic partnerships with universities abroad, including recent engagements with Chung Yuan Christian University in Zhongli District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan.
Thursday 13 November 2025
HQ Pack - global full-service provider of high-tech packaging from design to reuse
HQ Pack is a global leader in high-tech packaging solutions. The company is expert at designing, producing, (precision) cleaning, and making packaging solutions reusable again after use, as well as manage the packaging logistics of high-quality industrial products. They do so for clients in the semiconductor and other high-tech industries.The process procedures and packaging solutions ensure the parts, modules or components of highly sophisticated equipment are fully protected during transportation and logistical arrangements. And at the same time, the system will meet the customer demand for protection of valuable products during transit while adhering to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles. The packaging design incorporates features like sustainable materials, waste reduction strategies, and carbon footprint minimization, alongside ensuring the integrity of high-value goods through robust physical protection.The company provides complete packaging solutions, starting with the development and sourcing of customized packaging materials. HQ Pack's regional Service Centers ensure that reusable packaging materials are ready to use again by cleaning and repairing them to like-new condition. They can also support reuse of parts by harvesting them before scrapping for new build packaging. If there is material destined for waste management, HQ Pack supports this at the same time. Because most of its high-tech clients operate on a global scale, HQ Pack operates not only at its headquarters in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, but also in Johor and Penang in Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, and in the United States (locations in Brookfield (CT), Newark (CA), and San Diego (CA)) providing the same quality and service at each location. With their Service Centers they support both their customers' sustainability goals as well as their own.Their slogan "We Create to Protect" is exactly what they do. The high-quality packaging solutions ensure that valuable and fragile products, modules, components and/or parts can be safely transported worldwide. With over 40 years of experience and global presence, no compromission on quality, flexibility at the heart of our organization, they are a full-service provider with fast, reliable and sustainable packaging solutions.
Thursday 13 November 2025
Prodrive Technologies - delivering high-performance camera, compute, and motion control solutions
Founded in 1993, Prodrive Technologies designs and manufactures mission-critical products that combine advanced engineering, innovative manufacturing, and global expertise. The company empowers semiconductor equipment manufacturers and customers across multiple industries to accelerate innovation and achieve operational excellence. Headquartered in the Netherlands, with regional hubs in the USA, Japan, and China, Prodrive Technologies serves the semiconductor, medical, life sciences, energy, infrastructure, and industrial markets. Its customer-centric approach, deep engineering expertise, and vertically integrated manufacturing enable fast time-to-market, superior quality, and scalable systems.The company's portfolio spans optical and e-beam cameras, embedded computing systems, high-precision motion control and drives, and RF plasma power solutions. These offerings are available as off-the-shelf products, customized systems, or turnkey solutions.With its broad product range, flexible business model, and decades of experience in the semiconductor sector, Prodrive Technologies is now also exploring opportunities in Taiwan. As home to the world's largest semiconductor foundry and a growing ecosystem of equipment manufacturers, Taiwan represents a potentially strategic market where Prodrive's innovation, quality, and speed-enabled by its unique vertical integration-can create significant value.
Wednesday 22 October 2025
The Packaging Pivot Driving AI Chip Performance
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the semiconductor landscape-both as a fast-growing end market and as a catalyst for innovation across mobile, automotive, networking, industrial and beyond. Taiwan's industry leaders are at the forefront of this transformation, proactively developing next-generation packaging technologies critical to AI semiconductor content.AI workloads are driving demand for specialized chip architectures that can process massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently. In data centers, high-performance AI chips-such as GPUs or AI accelerators-support large-scale model training and inference for applications like AI chatbots. At the edge, devices rely on high-efficiency chips like NPUs to enable real-time decision-making in applications such as autonomous vehicles, smart cameras and mobile devices.This shift in computing architecture depends on advanced packaging. By enabling higher performance and power efficiency through a tighter integration of compute and memory, advanced packaging supports the sophistication and scale of modern AI chips. Taiwan's expertise in advanced packaging and its expansive semiconductor supply chain are accelerating this shift.Why Heterogeneous Integration is Key to PerformanceMoore's Law scaling is becoming more expensive due to the complexity needed to keep increasing transistor counts. As a result, innovation is diversifying. Technologies like high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet (high-NA EUV) lithography and new transistor designs such as gate all around (GAA) continue to push traditional scaling. Developments with backside power delivery (BPDN) are improving overall raw performance by providing a more stable power supply. Breakthroughs in semiconductor packaging are now playing an increasingly pivotal role.Semiconductor packaging has evolved beyond protecting and connecting chips to powering device performance. At the heart of this shift is heterogeneous integration-the ability to combine multiple chips or chiplets in a single package. This modular approach offers a flexible, cost-effective way to integrate diverse functions in packaging instead of on a single chip, to meet requirements without relying solely on traditional scaling.Advanced Packaging Technologies Enabling AIAI chips are growing in complexity, with some expected to contain up to a trillion transistors per package by the end of the decade. Advanced packaging supports this growth through system-level integration of compute and memory.High bandwidth memory (HBM) plays a key role. By stacking memory vertically and placing it close to the GPU, HBM reduces latency and boosts data transfer speeds while lowering power consumption. Interposers and substrates facilitate efficient communication between components. In many modern AI designs, hundreds of logic and memory chips are integrated into a single high-value package to meet specifications.Credit: KLATo support the growing architectural demands and evolving semiconductor chip requirements, the industry is advancing 2D, 2.5D and 3D packaging architectures-where 2D places chips side-by-side on a substrate, 2.5D arranges them on an interposer and 3D stacks them vertically. Technologies like hybrid bonding, embedded bridges, wafer- and panel-level interposers, glass core substrates and co-packaged optics help to increase interconnect density and improve system performance. These innovations provide new ways to shorten signal paths to increase bandwidth and reduce power loss-critical for AI workloads.Advanced Packaging Innovation Brings Manufacturing ChallengesAs packaging complexity increases, so do manufacturing challenges. More chip designs per package, larger die sizes, smaller features, denser interconnects and new materials all raise the bar for packaging yield management.Credit: KLAWith more components and interconnects placed into a single package, the number of potential failure points increases. A single chip or interconnect defect can compromise the entire multi-die package-resulting in costly yield loss. In this environment, tighter process control becomes essential to ensure high yield and reliability.Heterogeneous integration brings challenges similar to those found in front end semiconductor manufacturing, demanding greater defect sensitivity and tighter metrology precision. KLA addresses these challenges with a comprehensive portfolio of advanced packaging process control and process-enabling solutions-for wafers, panels and components – designed to scale advanced packaging complexity without compromising quality.Evolving 2.5D and 3D packaging architectures create new yield challenges that need improved process and process control solutions.Credit: KLAAI Needs Intelligent IntegrationThe semiconductor industry is anticipated to reach US$1 trillion globally by 2030, according to PwC in November 2024, driven by a wide range of applications-including the rapid growth of AI from data centers to edge devices. AI demands high compute capacity with optimized power use, pushing the boundaries of semiconductor chip design and integration. Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturers welcome these opportunities.It's widely recognized that 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors are produced in Taiwan, contributing to a combined semiconductor output value that exceeded NT$5 trillion in 2024, up 22.4% from 2023, according to statistics released by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Global demand for AI chips is surging.AI is also driving a diversification of semiconductor content. Wide band gap semiconductors such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) provide higher power density, faster switching, and better thermal efficiency than silicon, making them increasingly important for efficient power delivery in AI systems.In data center and HPC environments, AI growth is also pushing development in photonics and co-packaged optics for network switches to improve data transfer speeds and energy efficiency. Quantum computing, still in early stages, could eventually reshape how complex AI workloads are processed.Across these domains, advanced packaging serves as the foundation for uniting diverse technologies into compact, high-efficiency systems. Taiwan technology leaders are driving this advanced packaging innovation, and KLA is proud to serve as their collaborative partner.2025 marks the 35th anniversary of KLA's operations in Taiwan. Headquartered in the United States, KLA is a global leader in semiconductor inspection and metrology, with over 15,000 employees worldwide. The expertise and insights cultivated at KLA Taiwan over three decades, in partnership with our valued customers, underscore a commitment to technical excellence in the AI era-when chip manufacturing requirements are more complex and challenging than ever before.The future of semiconductors isn't just about smaller transistors – it's about smarter integration. Packaging has become essential to performance. At the boundaries of Moore's Law, advanced packaging has emerged as the key to meeting next-generation semiconductor device requirements.With deep expertise in process, process control and customer collaboration, KLA is helping the semiconductor industry build what comes next. As AI redefines what's possible, the technologies that support it must evolve just as rapidly. KLA's dedicated team of engineers, physicists and data scientists embraces the scale and significance of this transformation, helping shape the future of semiconductor innovation in the AI age-where advanced packaging plays a pivotal role.