In light of the flourishing era of the Internet and IoT, and in response to the government’s 5+2 Industrial Innovation Plan, the Metal Industries Research and Development Centre (MIRDC) and Yokogawa Solution Service Corporation signed an MOU on technological collaboration related to the implementation of “minimal fab” on August 4, 2017. In addition, participants from both parties toured the parts assembly line of the minimal fab, and conducted an exchange session on technological cooperation regarding the semiconductor equipment.
Dr. Chiu-feng Lin, president of MIRDC noted that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry takes up a lion’s share of Taiwan's entire manufacturing sector. It can be considered the most important manufacturing industry in Taiwan. However, Taiwan currently lacks semiconductor manufacturers that can respond to the demands for the customized, low volume development of semiconductors. Therefore, developing compact and low-cost facilities without photomask and clean rooms can not only help in meeting the needs of low volume and customized orders, but also reduce the delivery time to five days. The introduction of minimal fab’s equipment and related knowhow enables MIRDC and Yokogawa to jointly build an advantageous position ahead of the next wave of technological innovation with aim at the demands for low volume and diversified prototype production, thereby offering comprehensive and complete solutions to future IoT application developers and research institutions.
Established in 2013, the Yokogawa Solution Service Corporation is an affiliate of the Yokogawa group, a Japanese corporate group with a history of over 100 years. Hopefully, through the latest collaboration between Taiwan and Japan, MIRDC and Yokogawa can obtain additional observations of the industry and identify future prospects together, so that more semiconductor design firms can manufacture products on a more flexible basis, and the strategic collaboration aimed at the low-volume and diversified semiconductor production demands can be made in the era of IoT, thereby creating new opportunities for semiconductor technology.