At the 13th Innovationsforum for Automation in Dresden, Germany (21-22 January), deposition equipment maker Aixtron SE of Herzogenrath, near Aachen, Germany received the 'Innovations Award for Automation, which is awarded annually by organizer Automation Network Dresden (AND) to honor the development of innovative system automation software concepts.
The AND is an initiative of the five Dresden-based automation specialists HAP GmbH, Roth & Rau - Ortner GmbH, AIS Automation Dresden GmbH, SYSTEMA GmbH, and XENON Automatisierungstechnik GmbH.
The jury awarded Aixtron for its user-oriented operation system for deposition systems that the firm has been supplying for over 30 years to the global semiconductor industry for the production of light-emitting diodes (LED), lasers, power electronics, organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), memory and logic chips, and carbon nanomaterials.
The jury highlighted that – with its new ATO (Aixtron Tool Orchestrator) operation solution – Aixtron had overcome the apparent contradiction between high automatization levels and manual operation. In enhancing the user interface, the firm's engineers had also made system users the key focus of their considerations, the jury added.
The award "recognizes Aixtron's power of innovation in an important aspect of system construction," says Dr Christian Geng, Aixtron's director of technology. "We aim to make it as easy as possible for our customers to operate our systems and thus enhance their production efficiency," he adds. "Given increasing automation of all production processes, operation software and the user interface are playing an ever greater and more decisive role."
