SUSS MicroTec Going Global from ‘Silicon Saxony’

SUSS MicroTec makes precision instruments that test computer chips.

The return of Saxony to world leadership in technical innovation is a story that is filled with irony.

Before World War II, a broad area of Germany, especially Saxony in Eastern Germany, was the technical and manufacturing center of the world. Saxony’s capital city of Dresden suffered heavy bombardment and was left in ruins.

Following the war of course was nearly 50 years under communism. But a new generation of Germans has begun to bring Saxony back into technical prominence as a cluster of new high tech companies, termed “Silicon Saxony”, forms around the city.

A case in point: Dr. Stefan Schneidewind, General Manager of SUSS MicroTec Test Systems GmbH (formerly known as Karl Suss Dresden), a world leader in test equipment for the microelectronics industry.

Dr. Schneidewind was a young engineering student from Dresden in the former East Germany in the late 1980’s. He was judged by the then communist government to be a political troublemaker and so he was expelled to West Germany in early 1989, fortunately just months before the Wall came down.

He went to work for Karl Suss Company’s research and development program in Munich until, in 1992, he moved to Vermont where he became Business Manager for Probe Systems at Karl Suss America (now SUSS MicroTec Inc.).

Karl Suss Company began as a sales representative for a German optics company when it was founded in 1949. It soon started manufacturing its own lithographic equipment when the semiconductor industry starting blossoming.

During the Cold War, a business relationship developed between the SUSS company in Munich and Elektromat, the largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in East Germany located in Dresden.

SUSS wanted to import Elektromat’s renowned test systems into the West. Shortly before reunification, Eckehard Suss, Managing Director of the company started by his father and Dr. Reinhard Welsch the R&D Mgr. of Elektromat, began talking about how they could work together after the Wall came down. SUSS decided to start a new company in Dresden and hire Elektromat’s best engineers with Dr. Welsch to manage the new operation.

Since then, SUSS’ Test Division has grown to become a world leader in designing measurement equipment for microchip manufactures such as Intel, IBM, AMD, Siemens, Hyundai Electronics and Toshiba among others.

Today, 11 years after being founded, the company controls nearly 20% of the $160 million global market in semiconductor probing equipment. It has grown from a handful of employees working out of an old farm building to an internationally recognized company employing over 140 people, mainly from the region as well as supporting countless smaller local suppliers.

Using the network of SUSS company’s and representatives worldwide, the company is now the market leader for its products in Europe and has come in at the top in the acclaimed VLSI Customer Satisfaction Survey for the past 4 years.

Dr. Schneidewind, the former engineering student and “troublemaker” (as he calls himself) of the communist regime, succeeded Dr. Welsch as General Manager when Welsch retired in 2000. Dr. Schneidewind brought back a vision to further improve the global product management structure from his experience working for SUSS in Vermont.

He has helped lead the drive to make the company a market leader for Probe Systems throughout the world. Sales increased by 50% in the semiconductor boom year 2000 and are expected to increase by about 25% in 2001 despite this year’s industry downturn.

At its facility located a short drive outside Dresden, SUSS MicroTec Test Systems produces highly sophisticated machines that are capable of diagnosing the tiniest flaws in a modern microchip. A SUSS Probe System, as the precision testing machine is called, measures wafers, substrates, flat panel displays, multi-chip modules and packaged devices from the lowest signals to extremely high frequencies – sometimes testing structures that are thinner than a thousandth of a human hair in diameter.

The latest in a long line of innovations are systems designed to probe devices in a vacuum or at temperatures colder than –200°C. This type of testing can be used, for instance, to check the proper functionality of devices that will be used in space, such as parts for infrared cameras that scan the Earth’s surface.

Testing microchips in this way also provides valuable information to major chip manufacturers about possible operating inefficiencies or tiny flaws in chip design. Such tests can help increase chip efficiency while avoiding costly mass production of chips for computers that may have hidden problems.

SUSS MicroTec Test Systems GmbH is an independent subsidiary of the publicly held SUSS MicroTec AG.

The SUSS group is a global supplier of manufacturing equipment and process technology for the advanced packaging, microelectronics and MEMS markets. With over 7,000 systems installed, SUSS products include coating and developing systems, proximity lithography systems, substrate bonders, flip chip bonders and probe systems.

SUSS operates nine manufacturing, sales and service centers in North America, Europe, Asia and Japan. For more information, see www.suss.com.—