Saxony’s profitable business in Silicon Valley

At the same time the fairgrounds will be hosting the Intersolar North America, a globally leading trade fair for photovoltaics. For a majority of the Saxon firms this is an extra opportunity. This representation was organized by the Saxony Economic Development Corporation in partnership with Silicon Saxony e.V. The joined booth at the trade fair is always offering medium-sized companies the opportunity to enter or even get a break through on the essential American market. Still, this joined appearance is giving the firms the chance to get noticed considerably, which they would not be able to achieve by a single performance. Heinz Martin Esser, one of the board members of the business association Silicon Saxony e.V. and Managing Director of Roth & Rau - Ortner GmbH (Dresden), explains: “Many of the companies having joined us at the SEMICON West before were able to establish contacts successfully and initiate business relations”. Esser and his company will be present at the joined booth as well. As he elaborates: "Attending the trade fair is crucial to us. We are a globally acting enterprise with an American corporation in Salt Lake City, UT. A considerable part of our turnover is generated on the profitable American market. At the trade fair we are aiming at maintaining well-established contacts for our US business. On the other hand we are striving for gaining new customers by introducing our product portfolio as well as our most recent developments to them. We take advantage of the joined booth at the SEMICON West as an attractive communication platform. In the past this has already proven to be a promising strategy”. Burkhard Stegemann from the HSEB Dresden GmbH is also among the 14 business partners. His enterprise is specialized in the optical inspection of wafers. This internationally operating firm with 60 employees designs and manufactures tools, modules and components for inspecting wafer sizes up to 450 mm. The Managing Director of the Dresden company says: "The USA are a very large production site and some of the old-established firms in particular are looking for state-of-the-art and more efficient inspection methods. Furthermore, many of our international customers, distributors and suppliers will visit the SEMICON West". The Fraunhofer-Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT) is the only research institution present at the trade fair’s Saxon joined booth. Prof. Dr. Peter Kücher, head of the Fraunhofer CNT, explains: "For us, it is the first booth representation at the SEMICON West. For our institution SEMICON West means a significant fair, since there are important plant manufacturers from the micro- and nanoelectronics and chip producing enterprises present. It is not any longer that our customers are only local ones, as is true with e.g. Globalfoundries in Dresden. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen our existing business contacts as well as to pave the way to establish new ties.” At the SEMICON West researchers will present one of their most recent designs and demonstrate a self-energizing sensor system for semiconductors. In order to meet the requirements, the limited space on the tiny sensors poses, Fraunhofer CNT develops energy storing systems with a high volumetric capacity, which then can be brought onto one single chip together with other components. This newly integrated energy storing system can be applied wherever tiny sensors are demanded, e.g. in medical engineering, technical building services or industrial automation. HTT GmbH, a Munich based company with a Dresden branch office will also be present at the fair. Since 1999 this firm has been supplying chip producers with wafer-ID readers for decoding various codes. This year, the experts would like to present their new reading device "IOSS WID110". "More than 2.000 of our readers are being used in the semiconductor industry world-wide. The WID110 is a global market leader for molded eWLB discs“, Eberhard Siml, CEO of HHT GmbH, explains. Novel about the device is that damaged codes can be read without any difficulty by the new red, green and blue lightning. The new Zeiss lens as well as the internal and external LED displays prevent possible influences by ambient light. Furthermore, this latest device can easily be integrated in OEM plants and offers a superior reading on the market of the so called wafer- ID readers. Eberhard Siml elaborates: “So far, 50 manufacturers have integrated this reader. Since we offer a world-wide customer service, the SEMICON West poses a perfect opportunity to get in touch with our customers and to satisfy the great demand for our solutions.“ Saxony’s companies at the SAXONY! joined booth: - AIS Automation Dresden GmbH - ATT Systems GmbH - CamLine GmbH - DAS Environmental Expert GmbH - DMS Dynamic Micro Systems GmbH - Fraunhofer CNT - HSEB Dresden GmbH - HTT GmbH - InnoLas Semiconductor GmbH - profi-con GmbH - Roth & Rau - Ortner GmbH - Silicon Saxony e.V. - SYSTEMA Systementwicklung - Vistec Electron Beam Lithography Group