EMD Electronics, a business of Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany) announced an investment of €20 million to expand research and development and manufacturing capabilities at its site in Shizuoka, Japan. As part of this plan, new infrastructure will be built to advance and accelerate innovations in the electronic materials space. The investment is scheduled to be completed by January 2022.
“Shizuoka is one of our key technology hubs in Japan focused on advanced material developments for the semiconductor and display industries. With the booming digital economy and greater focus on devices, servers and equipment, we see an increase in collaboration activities with our customers and research partners to develop new innovations,” said Anand Nambiar, Head of Semiconductor Materials at EMD Electronics. “Our enhanced capabilities in R&D, production, quality control and metrology will enable us to support our customers in accelerating their processes from material discovery, development to manufacturing. We are actively recruiting talent in Asia, Europe and the United States to support this journey.”
With its expanded capabilities, the Shizuoka site will focus on optimizing new material discovery, device integration, application testing, sampling, quality control, and manufacturing for the semiconductor and display industries. To support the growing demand of the electronic materials market, next-generation materials, including semiconductor materials such as patterning materials, dielectrics, metal hard masks, Hybrid-SOD, novel EUV Rinse solutions, and Directed Self-Assembly materials (DSA), as well as display materials such as dielectrics, photoresist materials and quantum dot pixel color converters (QDPCC), will be developed and manufactured. The local Shizuoka team will work closely with the Company’s research and development centers in China, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States to explore new solutions for advancing digital living.
Digital adoption has been accelerated by Covid-19. The need for faster and more reliable data processing, storage and bandwidth is increasing the demand for semiconductor materials. To enable rapid advancements in device innovation and ensure speed to market, EMD Electronics is committed to investing in its capabilities globally and partnering with the industry. The Company also plans to make significant investments in research and supply capabilities in order to meet the growing industry demand for integrated circuits.
As part of these investments, a new facility with a surface area of 6,000 m2 was completed in January. The two-story building is one of the largest scale facilities in the western part of the Shizuoka prefecture in Kakegawa City, Japan. It offers office space for 230 employees.
Since its founding in 1984, the Shizuoka site has been a leading innovator in the development of patterning materials such as photoresists, vapor-deposited materials, core resists, BARC siloxanes, polysilazane thin-films and photoresists for displays, contributing significantly to the global Semiconductor Materials business of EMD Electronics.