VTT invests to develop its semiconductor research and manufacturing at Micronova Espoo

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland sees positive opportunities for the growth of the electronics industry in Finland and is developing its research, development and manufacturing capabilities in the Micronova semiconductor fabrication facility in Espoo. The investments will enhance core research facilities and enable VTT to offer improved low to medium volume manufacturing services for wafer production, effectively exploiting the spare capacity available in the facility.

Petri Kalliokoski, Executive Vice President of Knowledge intensive products and services business area says that, “It seems that the electronics industry operating in Finland and in global markets is on a positive growth path in many areas like industrial internet and digital health technology. Especially microsystem technologies, silicon photonics and printed electronics that offer new technological and commercial possibilities, we see that VTT´s role as a research and innovation partner to industrial companies continues to grow.”

Vice President – Micronova manufacturing services, and CEO of Memsfab, Howard Rupprecht  sees possibilities as well, “For many years, VTT has partnered with Finnish and global companies to design new components and develop semiconductor manufacturing processes. This has resulted in us developing unique expertise to produce MEMS components, silicon photonics and radiation detectors in the Micronova fab. The new investments in people and equipment will enable us to renew our research activities and commercially produce these items for our customers who operate in demanding markets such as medical, automotive and communications.”

The new Micronova manufacturing services organization will incorporate the existing VTT Memsfab Ltd subsidiary that will fulfil production orders in parallel with VTT’s core R&D project activities. Investments include additional capital equipment, new process engineering and operations teams and various upgrades to quality control and operational procedures. These enhanced capabilities will benefit Finnish research activities and the product-based companies that actively use the Micronova facility alongside VTT for their own production. VTT´s collaboration with companies in R&D projects will continue to be a strong focus also in the future.