16:45 – 17:30
Panel Session: Breakthrough Innovations, Industry Collaborations and Roadmap
Panelist
Ken Diest
Meta
Ken Diest is a Research Manager and Tech Lead at Meta’s Reality Labs, where he leads programs focused on MEMS and micro-actuator technologies. His focus is on developing these technologies from early stage through production to address critical opto-mechanical and display challenges in AR/MR.
A Materials Scientist by training, Ken’s prior work focused on tunable devices and materials with an emphasis on optical systems. He was the editor and co-author of the book Numerical Methods for Metamaterial Design, and has previously held technology development roles at Apple, MIT Lincoln Laboratories, and Northrop Grumman that focused on new displays and nano-photonics.
Meta
Company Profile
Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology.
Panelist
Alastair Attard
UTAC
Alastair Attard is Director of Business Development at UTAC Group. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and an Executive MBA from the University of Malta, and has over 18 years of experience in the assembly & test of semiconductor devices.
Prior to joining UTAC, Alastair worked at STMicroelectronics firstly as part of the process engineering team for flip chip and SiP, and later in process and package development for MEMS packages. He later joined Besi, where he was manager of the process development group, with focus on advanced die attach and pick & place technologies.
Alastair joined UTAC in 2018, focusing on technical program management and assembly business development in the European region. Today he is responsible for worldwide business development of assembly and test solutions for semiconductor devices at UTAC with particular focus on MEMS, Sensing, and Advanced Packaging.
UTAC
Company Profile
UTAC is a leading independent provider of assembly and test services for a broad range of semiconductor chips with diversified end-use applications including communication, consumer, computing, automotive, security, industrial and medical. Our customers include fabless companies, integrated device manufacturers and wafer foundries.
UTAC is headquartered in Singapore with more than 12 production facilities. Our global sales network is widely focused on five regions: the United States, Europe, China and Taiwan, Japan and the rest of Asia with sales offices located in each of these regions.
Panelist
Volker Herbig
X-FAB
Volker Herbig, VP BU Microsystems at X-FAB, oversees all MEMS activities within the X-FAB Group. Before assuming his current role, Volker worked as Director Product Marketing at X-FAB. Previously he held also engineering, marketing and management positions at Siemens, Inkjet Technologies and Carl Zeiss where, among other activities, he developed MEMS inkjet print heads and was responsible for setting up a manufacturing facility for those. Volker Herbig holds a master’s degree in physics from Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
X-FAB
Company Profile
X-FAB is one of the world’s leading specialty foundry groups for analog/mixed-signal semiconductor technologies with a clear focus on automotive, industrial, and medical applications. As a pure-play foundry, X-FAB provides manufacturing and design support services to customers that design analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) and other semiconductor devices for use in their own products or the products of their customers. Its customers worldwide benefit from the highest quality standards, manufacturing excellence and innovative solutions by using X-FAB’s modular CMOS and SOI processes in geometries ranging from 1.0 µm to 110 nm, and its special micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) processes. X-FAB is also the first pure-play foundry to provide comprehensive processing technologies for the wide-bandgap materials silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). The GaN-on-Si wafers are manufactured in its modern 8” fab in Dresden, Germany, and SiC wafers in the 6” fab in Lubbock, Texas, USA. X-FAB runs six production facilities in Germany, France, Malaysia and the U.S. The company employs about 4,200 people worldwide.
Panelist
Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems
Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems
Company Profile
Fraunhofer IPMS is a leading international research and development service provider for electronic and photonic microsystems in the application fields of Smart Industrial Solutions, Bio and Health, Mobility as well as Green and Sustainable Microelectronics. Research focuses on customer-specific miniaturized sensors and actuators, MEMS systems, microdisplays and integrated circuits as well as wireless and wired data communication, neuromorphic and quantum computing. Services range from consulting and design to process development and pilot series production.
The Fraunhofer IPMS is one of 75 institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the leading organization for applied research in Europe. With nearly 32,000 employees Fraunhofer operates with an annual budget of €3.6 billion, €3.1 billion of which is generated by contract research — Fraunhofer’s core business model.
Company Products & Services
The range of services includes wafer processing, characterization & testing, assembly and interconnection technology and the organization of external and supplier services. At the Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT), Fraunhofer IPMS offers applied research, process and material development on 300 mm wafers for microchip producers, suppliers, device manufacturers and R&D partners. 4000 m² of clean room space is available for processing customer orders as well as laboratory space for over 80 processing and analytical tools.
Panelist
STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics
Company Profile
At ST, we are more than 50,000 creators and makers of semiconductor technologies mastering the semiconductor supply chain with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. An integrated device manufacturer, we work with more than 200,000 customers and thousands of partners to design and build products, solutions, and ecosystems that address their challenges and opportunities, and the need to support a more sustainable world. Our technologies enable smarter mobility, more efficient power and energy management, and the wide-scale deployment of cloud-connected autonomous things. We are committed to achieving our goal to become carbon neutral on scope 1 and 2 and partially scope 3 by 2027. Further information can be found at www.st.com.
Panelist
Silex Microsystems
Silex Microsystems
Company Profile
Silex is the world’s largest pure-play MEMS foundry. The world’s most innovative companies reach their markets sooner with Silex. MEMS development requires deep expertise as a new device goes from concept to production. The industry’s most extensive MEMS manufacturing capabilities and our collaborative team of experts will bring your breakthrough product to market in the shortest possible time.
Japanese