EANS-News

Innovation boost for AT&S in Leoben - IMAGE

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AT&S plans to invest up to 120 million euros in a technology upgrade over a
period of four years. The aim is to create 200 additional jobs by 2023.

Research & Development

Leoben - AT&S CEO Andreas Gerstenmayer and COO Heinz Moitzi presented the
investment programme at a joint press conference with Federal Minister for
Digital and Economic Affairs Margarete Schramböck, Provincial Governor Hermann
Schützenhöfer and Barbara Eibinger-Miedl, provincial government member for
economic affairs: Over a period of four years, up to 120 million euros will be
invested in the location in Leoben-Hinterberg, of which about 20 million euros
will be dedicated to R&D and roughly 100 million euros to machines and
processes. Up to 25 percent of the investments will be funded by the EU
programme "IPCEI on Microelectronics". In a first step, approximately 44 million
euros will be invested by February 2021. "IC substrates have been the central
element of our corporate strategy for several years," says AT&S CEO Andreas
Gerstenmayer. "IC substrates are connecting elements between the printed circuit
board and the chip; they 'translate' the nanostructures of the chip to the
micrometre structures of a printed circuit board." The innovative technologies
of the cores produced in Leoben, together with other innovations at our
Chongqing site, enable a leap in performance of the processor systems. "This
allows us, for example, to reduce the energy consumption in the package and to
massively increase data transmission speed," says AT&S COO Heinz Moitzi.
Innovations of this kind make many technical revolutions and digitalisation
possible in the first place. They also provide the basis for achieving high
speed in processors (5G).

With this investment, the production capacity for IC cores can be increased by
50 percent. The facility at Leoben-Hinterberg currently produces 225,000 panels
per year, which is equivalent to an area of 56,000 square metres or nearly eight
football fields. After the technology upgrade, the production capacity will
increase to nearly 340,000 panels. "Neither our plants in China nor in Austria
would exist if our experts did not work together perfectly and pool their know-
how across borders", says CEO Andreas Gerstenmayer. "We use these synergies.
Many European companies in our industry have lost their importance. In contrast,