Sustainable innovation for AT&S and its customers
The electronics industry is characterised by ongoing rapid development and regular technological breakthroughs. AT&S customers are among the market leaders in their respective sectors. They expect our products and processes to meet the very highest standards and be flexible enough to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation in the industry.
Our own focus on R&D means that we are constantly developing our technology to ensure that customers can always see their ideas take shape as effectively as possible. Since the very founding of AT&S, we have proven that bold investment in R&D pays off. We value sustainable concepts highly and use the latest technologies to reduce the environmental footprint of our own group and our partner companies.
Whether in technology, business processes or implementing environmental improvements, innovation is the driving force behind AT&S, from the initial idea right through to execution. We’re playing a key role in shaping an interconnected future.
Hannes Voraberger, Director of R&D
Faster, greener, better connected
We strive to actively shape the technology of tomorrow and offer our customers creative solutions to their technical problems. After all, that’s the only way of staying one step ahead of the competition and continuing to play a crucial role in the microelectronic revolution, and play a significant role in solving the major challenges facing our society. At the same time, powerful electronic systems are driving the digitisation and decarbonisation of the economy by opening the way for cost-effective, flexible control of a wide variety of systems: wind power plants, for example, can only be used efficiently if they are controlled intelligently. The same goes for the microchips in powerful computers, servers and mobile devices.
AT&S technology powers processors and enables communication between microchips and the other components that a computer needs.
Our printed circuit boards and substrates not only ensure rapid data processing, but also make a real contribution to keeping energy consumption as low as possible through further miniaturisation. By making the utmost demands of ourselves and our suppliers in terms of environmental responsibility, AT&S always ensures that our technological advances do not come at the expense of the environment. We take a holistic approach to the world of tomorrow. See our comprehensive concept for sustainable production, which is constantly being expanded to include more environmentally friendly materials and energy-saving infrastructure. We are proactive in ensuring that the future not only brings progress, but also remains worth living in.
Sustainable.
As a high-tech company, we harness our expertise to keep our demand for raw materials and energy as low as possible while protecting the environment. We recycle materials, manage our water and energy consumption efficiently and will have decarbonised all of our sites by 2030. For more information about our efforts for a world worth living in, see here:
Research as a driving force
In order to maintain our status as leaders in technology and environmental responsibility, we invest 10% of our revenue in research and development of new products and processes. At present, this amounts to around €155,4 million per year. Our locations in Austria benefit hugely from this investment and have already seen a whole host of state-of-the-art technologies made ready for series production.
AT&S holds more than 800 patents for the manufacture of high-tech printed circuit boards and IC substrates. These innovations are responsible for a significant part of our revenue, with 25,9% currently derived from products and technologies that have been brought onto the market in the past three years, following a development phase of several years.
We support research inside and outside the company
Besides having a world-class in-house research department, AT&S also uses its products to drive progress in a number of different fields. For instance, our substrates are used in supercomputers and have become indispensable in many branches of science. To find out more, see here:
New R&D Centre: high tech in Austria and the rest of Europe
Over the next few years, AT&S is set to invest €500 million in a new research centre in Leoben that will employ 700 new people.
A new research and development centre with an attached production facility will be built at the AT&S headquarters in Leoben by 2025. Some €500 million will be invested in the construction of a new building that offers over 10,000m2 for research and production. A total of 700 new jobs will be created at the site.
The new building marks the group’s commitment to ongoing technological development and to the Leoben site itself. It will see the creation of many new products and ideas, which will continue to ensure a bright future for AT&S. The new research department will also attract expertise in the production of IC substrates to Leoben, so that Austria will once again be able to draw upon major talent in high-tech electronics and the semiconductor industry.
This is a lighthouse project for Europe, as it will be the only substrate production facility on the continent. Substrates will become even more prominent when Leoben undergoes expansion.
Data, data, data
At the epicentre of the boom in the electronics industry lies the data revolution, which has utterly transformed industry and everyday life over recent years. Increasing amounts of data are being recorded, stored and analysed in order to handle processes as efficiently as possible and enable people to access a wide variety of online services. These developments require data processing systems that consume as little energy as possible and transmit signals efficiently, while still allowing for a high degree of complexity. Whether in the automotive industry, medical technology or semiconductor production, designers and manufacturers of microelectronic systems can meet these requirements with printed circuit boards and substrates from AT&S.
Through ongoing technological development, we ensure that our circuit boards are in the top division for efficiency in terms of energy consumption and signal transmission.
We develop and optimise our products in collaboration with our customers, and now in a fully digital environment.
This not only simplifies improvements, but also the implementation of measures that reduce our environmental footprint. We share this approach with our suppliers and business partners, so together we can help shape priorities for the entire production ecosystem. We strive for the lowest consumption of resources with the highest possible miniaturisation of microelectronic systems to ensure efficient data processing and a high-speed, energy-saving signal line.
We always have the right answer
Creative technical approaches and innovation have always been the foundation for the growth and business success of AT&S. Thanks to our concentrated focus on research and development, we always come up with the right solution for technical challenges, in collaboration with our customers.
Institutes & industry partners
We stay at the forefront of technology in our industry by working together with some of the world’s most renowned research institutes, including the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, Graz University of Technology, the Montanuniversität Leoben, Silicon Austria Labs, the Indian Institute of Technology and Virginia Tech University in the USA. Through a combination of high investment and excellent research partners, we are consolidating our technological leadership and helping to initiate future breakthroughs in the electronics industry.
Promoting research: AT&S projects and collaborations
As an innovative high-tech company, AT&S is an important part of the research landscape in Austria and Europe as a whole. The high quality of our development work means that we can benefit from prestigious funding programmes and cooperate with an array of internationally renowned partners. For more information, see here:
IPCEI on Microelectronics & Communication Technologies (IPCEI ME/CT)
The IPCEI ME/CT concerns research and development projects covering microelectronics and communication technologies along the entire value chain, from materials and tools to chip designs and manufacturing processes.
These projects aim to enable the digital and green transformation by
- creating innovative microelectronics and communication solutions and
- developing energy-saving and resource-efficient electronic systems and manufacturing methods.
They will contribute to the technological advancement of important industry sectors, including communications (5G and 6G), autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. They will also actively support companies in their green transitions by facilitating the sustainable generation, distribution and use of energy.
IPCEI ME/CT succeeds and complements the first IPCEI, which has already been completed successfully, by supporting research and innovation in the field of microelectronics.
The project was jointly prepared and announced by fourteen Member States: Austria, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.
AT&S – Part of IPCEI ME/CT
AT&S aims to strengthen its position in the value creation chain and to enter new and demanding fields of expertise by establishing a R&D line and a prototyping and small volume line for advanced IC Substrates and packaging technologies. The new facilities will create a world-class competence center for organic IC Substrates and highly integrated modules.
With this project, AT&S is addressing the following overall objectives pertaining to the work stream THINK – work package 2 Semiconducter Technologies, smart manufacturing.
- Modeling the future
Virtual development & system understanding for European technology leadership - Miniaturization
Features on Substrate level capable of routing 2nm node processors - Flexible Manufacturing
Speed up development cycles and realize small volumes - Die Integration
Increase power efficiency on system level
AT&S focuses on establishing and ramping up a smart and sustainable
- R&D line for of advanced fan-out, IC-substrate and packaging technologies, targeting new generations of IC Substrates with up to 6x higher wiring density.
- Prototyping and small volume line for IC-Substrates and packaging technology.
- Competence centre for the industrial development of advanced fan-out, IC-Substrates and packaging technologies to utilize the competences for interaction and collaboration with different partners.
AT&S IPCEI ME/CT spill over activities include the following:
Industry collaboration & Research co-operations
Induced by IPCEI ME/CT, AT&S will support and strengthen development activities across Europe along the value chain and with universities and RTOs. With these activities, we create positive spill- over effects for Europe.
Strengthen education and talents & sharing know-how
AT&S will foster the involvement of universities in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and make the knowledge available to partners (SMEs, universities and RTOs).
Horizon Europe – MIcroelectronics RELiability driven by Artificial Intelligence (MIRELAI)
MIRELAI is an EU-funded Industrial Doctoral Network with the ambition to address the challenges reliability, sustainability, and verification efforts related to the production of microelectronics components, and boost Europe’s innovation capacity and competitiveness in the market.
To achieve this goal, the project recruited 13 doctoral candidates (DCs) to investigate the physics of degradation and reduce testing and verification efforts across the value chain of electronic components and systems, while providing invaluable skills to the next generation of engineers.
SHIFT is an European funded Project with the Goal to develop an innovative transceiver prototype enabling future generation mobile devices to utilize the wide spectrum beyond 100GHz efficiently and effectively.
SHIFT will develop a technology design platform for the new SiGe BiCMOS technology and integration concepts. The platform can be used to design commercial MMIC´s for very high frequencies (telecommunication, health, instrumentation, smart mobility, robotics, industry) up to 200GHz.
Concept:
- Application (Specification on system, TX/RX, circuits)
- Design: B55X circuit design, PA design, RF interposer design
- TX/RX Integration (RF interposer/PCB)
- TRX system development and validation
CHIPS JU – Heterogeneous Integration for Connectivity and Sustainability (HiConnects)
HiConnects is an European funded Project with the Goal to develop innovative panel level packaging technologies with high level integration of advanced heterogeneous photonic and RF components, based on Embedding.
Development of structuring and integration processes for future IC substrates and non-destructive testing of suitable process and metrology equipment development.
Develop the optical integration of next generation smart-NIC and switch platforms with higher bandwidth and lower energy consumption.
Develop the integration of RF Components for 77 GhZ & 144 GhZ Automotive Radar.
MICROELEctronic 2 market – InnoPower
This project is a development in the field of embedding, which means the integration of semiconductor components into a printed circuit board (“Process Flow Center Core Embedding”).
In this specific case, it involves the production of a DC/DC converter that converts a DC input voltage (DC) into a DC output voltage (DC = Direct Current). In order to produce such a DC/DC converter, both driver and SFET (Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor) components are integrated into a small area on a printed circuit board in order to achieve a package that can be used in the field of “artificial intelligence”. By integrating the semiconductor components, a significant reduction in the size of the DC/DC converters can be achieved. Compared to “state of the art” products, a size reduction of > 50% can be achieved.
Innovationscamps M – DeCarb
Empowering enterprises towards zero carbon from science to action
The DeCarb Project funded by the FFG (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft) has the goal to strengthen the competitiveness and securing the location of companies through a know-how lead in decarbonization. Furthermore, a best practice community of climate pioneers who act as multipliers is established.
Horizon Europe – Packaging of Ultra-Dynamic Photonic Switches and Transceivers (PUNCH)
Packaging of novel Ultra-dyNamiC pHotonic switches and transceivers for integration into 5G radio access network and datacenter sub-systems.
New optical switches can speed up the backbone of our data networks. The EU-funded PUNCH project will develop a new solution for optical switching that addresses several industrial requirements, including reliable and low latency communication with guaranteed service quality, less network congestion (and data loss or delay), lower power consumption and reduced cost of transmission interfaces.
To do so, PUNCH will develop novel photonic components and corresponding interface electronics, establish scalable integration and photonics packaging processes and ICS, and manufacture different prototypes which will be demonstrated and validated in industrial 5G and data centre test-beds.
CHIPS JU – EUROPEAN ECOSYSTEM FOR GREEN ELECTRONIC (EECONE)
The EECONE – EUROPEAN ECOSYSTEM FOR GREEN ELECTRONIC is EU Chips Project involving more than 40 Partners from different European countries. The goal of the project is finding ways to reduce e-waste and increase sustainability in electronics industry in general.
Within the project AT&S is developing a Life Cycle Assessment Toolset as well as concepts to reduce the environmental footprint of PCB Manufacturing.
SFG – Multiwet Tool Infinity C+
The SFG funded project ‘Multiwet Tool Infinity C+‘ is about a flexible machine which enables the implementation of multiple wet-chemical processes on one single machine.
That flexibility is optimal for the usage of that machine for R&D applications due to several reasons.
The configuration of the equipment enables up to six different processes. That processes are typically realized on very large horizontal or vertical lines, but have been implemented on that machine in a compressed way to save space in the cleanroom facility.
The single chamber processing is optimized for sustainability and protects the environment as the consumption of chemicals and water at the rinsing is minimized.
Processes like etching of thin metal layers as well as developing and stripping of photosensitive layer are essential for the development of AT&S‘ IC Substrate technology out of Europe.
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As part of the "IPCEI on Microelectronics and Communication Technologies" funding project, the European Union is supporting research institutions and industrial partners in the development of technology that will enable a sustainable yet powerful data infrastructure for the continent. AT&S is involved in the project as a manufacturer of highly efficient substrates for the next generation of microchips. New research and production capacities in Leoben will play a decisive role in the modernization of the European microelectronics industry.
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