On April 27, HORIBA, Ltd. and Horiba STEC held a ceremony to celebrate completion of the “HORIBA Advanced Technology Center” as a dedicated base for group’s technological R&D of semiconductor.

The construction of the new center started in 2013 to provide an expanded space to install a new clean room and an experimental laboratory at the east side of Horiba STEC. Horiba’s function to develop and produce semiconductors so far separated to four locations has now been integrated into this center. The new center is aimed to enhance efficiency with an integrated system to produce the semiconductor sensor which forms the heart of analyzing equipment from the preliminary process to the film forming/MEMS process and implementation. Furthermore, Horiba intends to fuse it with the fluid control technology owned by Horiba STEC in order to accelerate technical developments. It totally costs JPY 3 billion.

The building has a four-storied structure, in which HORIBA semiconductor sensors are produced and developed on the 1st and 2nd floors, while Horiba STEC develops and produces MFC in the clean room on the 3rd floor and STEC’s experiments are carried out on the 4th floor.

Newly equipped is the production facility of film formation/MEMS process, while shifted are preliminary process, film forming/MEMS process and the production /evaluation facilities of implementation process. The clean rooms are graded Class 1000.

Horiba, chairman and president said in his greeting speech, “The completion of the Advanced Technology Center has attained a thorough realization of the R&D, design and self-production of semiconductor sensors of our core technology. HORIBA is also going to tackle the development of applications collecting cutting-edge technological brains. Together with the technology center which was completed in Fukuchiyama in the year before last and the gas measuring technology/production base under construction now on the shore or Lake Biwa, we will reinforce the HORIBA group making these three bases being in one.”