Villach, Austria–The SEZ Group today announced the opening of its newest regional office in Asia, SEZ Taiwan. The office will support SEZ’s current installed base of tools, and is preparing to support the expected increase in demand from Taiwanese foundries as they move toward 300mm production.

In addition to its new offices, SEZ has opened a training lab with a Spin-Processor 203 available for customer tests and training. SEZ had previously been operating in Taiwan through ICS, its local representative. The contract was terminated by mutual agreement and SEZ took over the existing infrastructure and personnel. The office, with 25 employees, will be responsible for local sales and field support and expects to grow by the end of the year. The local team is strongly supported by senior engineers based in Austria. Including Taiwan, SEZ now has 125 field service and application support staff employed worldwide.

“The volume of business that SEZ has had especially with the Taiwanese foundries created the demand for our own local sales and support office here,” explains Michael Kucher, senior vice president and member of the corporate executive board of the SEZ Group “Taiwan’s 300mm foundries are at the leading edge of technology, which depends on SEZ’s single wafer wet process applications. SEZ has always operated with the commitment to offer the best post-sale service and support, as evidenced by last year’s VLSI Research ranking. By pursing a strategy of regional subsidiaries we are able to maintain our consistently superior level of technical support worldwide.”

SEZ Taiwan will support a number of SEZ tools, including the Spin-Processor models 101, 201, 203, 4200, and 304 for both backside and frontside applications. All tools are manufactured in SEZ’s ISO 14001 and 9001-compliant facility. The majority of SEZ systems in Taiwan are installed in the country’s foundries.