EVG to transition to 450mm MEMS market
EV Group (EVG) has highlighted a succession of milestones in the MEMS arena, where the company continues to strengthen its market share.
In 2012, MEMS represented 48 percent of the company's North American sales, up 13 percent from 2011, thanks to strong growth in the mobile device and automotive sensor markets.
"We have broadened our offerings to address the high-volume manufacturing requirements for MEMS production," says Paul Lindner, EVG's executive technology director. "Our full complement of MEMS-optimised systems includes wafer bonders; lithography products, such as mask aligners and resist processing systems like our new modular EVG150 platform; and process services. The latter is an area where we have consciously heightened our focus, as we have increasingly recognised the benefits that our full-service wafer processing capabilities can deliver to our global customer base for MEMS and other devices."
EVG says its process capability has become an integral part of delivering customer solutions. Customers can utilise EVG's lab facilities "“ leveraged in partnership with the Flexible Display Centre and Arizona State University "“ not only to test equipment, but also to bring in new technologies and applications to perform research and development in EVG's cleanroom. This includes the ability to research specific process steps, and even outsource them to EVG, so that new technologies can be brought to production as efficiently as possible.
According to Garrett Oakes, EVG North America's director of technology, this new process service offering currently accounts for the fastest growing portion of the company's revenue in North America. "We worked with our customers to ensure our facility in Tempe would deliver the state-of-the-art capabilities they required," Oakes says.
"Customers can leverage our process expertise to develop advanced products, packages and technologies with no capital outlay required."
EVG is continuing efforts to expand to meet customer needs for MEMS, semiconductors, compound semiconductors and advanced packaging.
The firm recently completed a significant expansion of its manufacturing and R&D facilities at its corporate headquarters in Austria.
In addition to doubling its cleanroom space, the company added an R&D area for internal tool development and testing, as well as a new training centre.
EVG can accommodate additional fully automated 300mm high-volume manufacturing (HVM) systems in the new cleanroom to strengthen its customer demonstration and process development capabilities.
At the same time, the company is at the forefront of efforts to enable the industry transition to 450mm wafers.
EVG's presence in the MEMS market is evident in its involvement in the MEMS Industry Group (MIG), which recently announced the election of new members of its Governing Council, a volunteer leadership organisation with MIG that helps chart the association's future direction. Among the new council members is David Kirsch, who was recently promoted to vice president and general manager for EVG North America.
To provide further insight into its MEMS achievements and roadmap, EVG will cohosted an open house on November 6th, in Tempe, Arizona, with Freescale Semiconductor to kick off the 2012 MIG MEMS Executive Congress.
The conference runs from November 7th to 9th at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in nearby Scottsdale.
The invitation-only open house, titled "Innovation in MEMS and Beyond," will feature talks by executives from both EVG and Freescale, followed by a cleanroom tour and networking reception.
