Japanese interest in Dutch mechatronics design and manufacturing expertise stems primarily from a great need for wafer bonding knowledge.
The Japanese are currently making the leap from 40- to 2-nanometer chip production with their Rapidus initiative, allocating nearly 12 billion euros for the catch-up effort. They’re also focusing on advanced packaging, because that should give them flexibility to make small series possible for their traditional strengths: automotive and robotics. Knowledge from the Netherlands turns out to be very welcome here.
This was demonstrated this week during company visits to Tokyo and Osaka as part of the Dutch deep-tech equipment trade mission. The mission consists of four parts with topics such as photonics and quantum, digitization and AI. In the program for the mechanical engineering delegation, the focus on hybrid bonding is particularly striking. In all meetings, this topic invariably gets a lot of attention. Some delegation members are already supplying knowledge to Japanese machine builders for this purpose.
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