TECHNOLOGICAL EXPERTISE
DUTCH HIGH-TECH CUSTOMERS PUSH ERIKS TO UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL
‘NOWHERE ELSE ARE WE CHALLENGED THE WAY WE ARE HERE’ The demands which ASML and its ecosystem make of ERIKS are pushing the Alkmaar-based company to an unprecedented level. The firm wants to streamline its approach to these kinds of highly challenging assignments. Theo Kok has been appointed for this task, as head of semicon. His team will bring together the various specialisms present within the company’s seven business units. In addition, a roadshow will be held to establish in which areas ERIKS differentiates itself for customers in semicon and adjacent, equally demanding markets. ‘We are going to showcase those activities more.’
BY MARTIN VAN ZAALEN
T
he place where the wafer sits ‘We are a company with a global presence, but nowhere else are we challenged the way we are here in the Netherlands by ASML and its system in an ASML suppliers’, reveals Theo Kok. Photo: Com-magz chip machine is – naturally – subject to very exacting requirements. The silicon wafer Elastomer Research Testing laboratory, the NOWHERE ELSE IS AS CHALLENGING must be positioned extremely stably and the firm boasts a range of unique devices. Each AS HERE material on which it rests, like all the other one had to be specially developed in order The benefit being that it pushed ERIKS to components in the vacuum, must emit no gas to achieve a solution for ASML. For instance, an unprecedented level of performance. ‘We whatsoever. That, in brief, was the challenge because the existing instruments were are a company with a global presence, but which the Veldhoven-based company set not capable of measuring the required nowhere else are we challenged the way we ERIKS, whose specialisms include rubber dimensional tolerances, ERIKS partnered with are here in the Netherlands by ASML and compounds. Those compounds are used for measurement instrument specialist Mitutotyo its system suppliers’, reveals Theo Kok. At seals (such as O-rings, moulded part and to develop an optical instrument that can the time of writing, he has been working gaskets), but they are also extremely well deliver that measuring accuracy. Especially for ERIKS for just two months as head of suited to damping the vibrations generated in for this purpose, equipment has also been semicon. But with previous roles at first-line a machine. And ERIKS has OER compounds developed that can very accurately predict ASML suppliers like Bronkhorst and which scarcely emit hydrocarbons or water the lifespan of the material. Using its most Frencken, he is already fully immersed in vapour. Moreover, it can produce those accurate analysis device, the Netherlands the semicon world. ‘The Netherlands is materials in specific forms with very narrow Organisation for Applied Scientific Research an excellent place to keep on refining your tolerances. But in ASML’s world, expressions (TNO) was unable to measure any emissions. technological expertise. The unique thing like ‘extremely well suited’, ‘scarcely emit’ and This meant ERIKS comfortably met the low about ASML as a customer is that it also ‘very narrow tolerances’ have a completely values for gases demanded by ASML and that makes unprecedented demands in terms of different connotation than in other parts of this type of rubber could be used in the heart quality, logistics, cost and sustainability. industry, even high-tech industry. of the ASML machine. The end result was But we had to do the process development the E-pin: nowadays, the wafers in the wafer and production of the E-pin ourselves. handler rest on three of these pins. A successWe now have a very good idea of which DEMANDING THE ULTIMATE ful solution that demanded the utmost from questions we need to ask in order to be able In Deventer, where ERIKS has concentrated the experts at ERIKS and its partners. to take the subsequent performance steps.’ its expertise in rubber materials in the
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Special High-tech The Netherlands - April 2022
