TAINAN, Taiwan - (Business Wire) NCKU President, Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, signed this morning a Technology Transfer Agreement on “Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM)” with Mr. Chi-An Kao, the General Manager of Foresight Technology Company (FS-Technology), witnessed by AVM’s inventor, Prof. Fan-Tien Cheng, the Director of E-Manufacturing Research Center (EMRC) and Chair Professor of the NCKU Institute of Manufacturing Information and Systems. This agreement certainly marks a successful transfer of the “Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM)” from a research laboratory work to practical applications. NCKU is estimated to have a return in next few years around several hundred million of NT dollars generated from this technology transfer. President Lai commented that the one fundamental mission of a university is, in addition to education and research, to serve the society where the university is located. Hence, in return of research outcomes and education results to the society is also a very important mission to a university. In this category of academia-industry cooperation, NCKU has excelled for many years and ranked the No 1 in the country, which has also been recognized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. That is, NCKU has played an irreplaceable role in the industrial development and economics of Taiwan. The technology transfers from NCKU to industry have certainly affirmed the irreplaceable role of NCKU. This collaboration is also a good example of industry-academia cooperation, but also a great honor of NCKU.
Mr. Kao highly praised Prof. Cheng with the invention of AVM technology. AVM technology has recorded every action of manufacturing machines at any seconds and correlated them to the quality end products. That is, the sampling techniques adopted since the 19th century will be revolutionized with the AVM techniques that could inspect every piece of final product and offer a good quality guarantee. AVM technology can shorten the producing time with high quality products. Moreover, it can be used in any industry with mass production.
Prof. Cheng has developed many different AVM technologies, which have been issued with patent protection or right under patent examinations in Taiwan, U.S.A., Japan, Korea, China, and so on. Until now, 4 patents are granted, 3 approved but still waiting for final issue, and 10 still under examination. In addition, there are only 37 research papers about virtual metrology, as searched with a key word - “virtual metrology” in IEEE Xplore (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp). Out of these 37 papers, 23 were authored by Prof. Cheng and the NCKU E-Manufacturing Research Center. It is no doubt that NCKU is leading globally in AVM achievement.
AVM technology has been transferred successfully to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO). Indeed, Chi Mei Optoelectronics adopted AVM technology and significantly improved the yield and production, and, hence, the revenues. Furthermore, Prof. Cheng received “University Industry Economy Contribution Award - Industry Contribution Award (Individual Award)” by the recommendation of CMO.
About the application of Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM)
At the beginning, AVM technology used in panel and semiconductor industries; then used more in solar, green energy, and steel industries such as Motech Industrial Inc. All machines in the production process need to have stable and qualified operation by periodic monitoring. Take semiconductor industry for an example, where all machines are operated through the test wafer to carry out periodic monitoring of the quality measurement. It will cause a large number of cost-loss if the company produced too many defective products with the production process drifts. Therefore, the key point of all high-technology industries to increase more benefits and decrease more cost is to enhance yield products. It is essential to use AVM in all industries provide the whole service for customers.
After importing AVM technology, companies can estimate product quality and monitor the effectiveness by a machine’s parameter before the real metrology. It is the way to reach the whole testing of product. In addition, AVM technology can also be used to replace part of the actual measurements, Wafer-to-Wafer Advanced Process Control, and reduce the monitoring chip consumption. AVM technology is expected to substantially increase the company's competitiveness. AVM has been defined as the essential function in wafer production of next-generation (450mm) in fab by International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI). There are many oversea companies starting to use AVM without any good products better than the one researched and developed by Prof. Cheng. Therefore, Foresight Technology Company making AVM system will create lots of business benefits.
About Prof. Fan-Tien Cheng
Prof. Fan-Tien Cheng is the Director of E-Manufacturing Research Center (EMRC), Chair Professor of Institute of Manufacturing Information and Systems in NCKU and the Convener & Director of Automation Engineering Program in National Science Council (NSC). He also had different working experiences before, such as the Secretary General in Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers, the Chairman of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Taipei Chapter, the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, and the Director of Project Office Electronics Systems Division, Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST). Prof. Cheng is diverse but versatile in research with specialties in e-manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing automation, virtual metrology, intelligent manufacturing systems, and robotics.
Prof. Cheng has received many awards, including the Chair Professor Award, Distinguished Industry-University Professor Award and Distinguished Professor Award, NCKU; University Industry Economy Contribution Award - Industry Contribution Award (Individual Award) from Ministry of Economic Affairs; Outstanding Industry-University Cooperation Award, Outstanding Research Award, Technology Transfer Award (for Contract), First-Grade Project-Director Award, National Science Council (NSC); Convener & Director, Automation Engineering Program; Board Member, Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers; IEEE Fellow Technology Transfer Award, Secretary General, Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers (CIAE); IEEE IECON'01 Best Presentation Award; Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation; Winner of Kayamori Best Paper Award in 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'99); Five Hundred Leaders of Influence of ABI; International Who's who of Intellectuals of IBC; IEEE Senior Member; and Granted for Certificate of Researcher by Ministry of National Defense.
About Foresight Technology Company (FS-Technology)
FS-Technology, a NCKU’s corporate spin-off of NCKU, was established in Oct. 8th, 2009 with AVM technology as their main product. Mr. Chi-An Kao , the General Manager of FS-Technology, commented that Prof. Cheng’s AVM technology had earlier been transferred and leased to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) successfully when he was still working there and witnessing its great impacts on yields and quality of produced chips in the fab. After that, he realized about its potentials in market on practical applications of AVM technology, which could also provide high quality of life for humans in the future. Hence, he decided to set up FS-Technology, under the assistance of Technology Licensing & Business Incubation Center, to popularize AVM technology in all kinds of manufacturing. The research group in FS-Technology has received many awards, for example, from IEEE, Ministry of Economic Affairs, and National Science Council (NSC). Their vision is to provide technology service in industry.
About NCKU Technology Licensing & Business Incubation Center (NCKU TLBIC)
National Cheng Kung University Technology Licensing & Business Incubation Center (NCKU TLBIC) was founded on August 1, 2007. It was merged from original Technology Licensing Center and original Business Incubation Center. It has been recruiting several experienced experts to strength functions and services such as Technology transfer/ licensing, start-up business/incubation, and Industry-academia collaboration or school-to-work program.
The original Technology Licensing Center was established in October 2000, delegating grant research outcomes to universities in line with Science & Technology Basic Law. It has been the single contact window of managing and applying intellectual properties in NCKU. The Original Business Incubation Center was established in December 1997, subsidized by Small & Median Enterprise Administration. It is based on joint R&D with tenant companies and then extended to business development-related services.
Realizing the importance of collaboration between industry and school, Ministry of Education (MOE) vigorously promotes “Three-year effectiveness plan on urging collaboration between industry and school.” The plan is intended to build up an organic cooperation between industry and academia by assisting schools setting up comprehensive mechanisms. Having plentiful R&D capacity and strong foundation of industry-academia collaboration, NCKU is honored to receive the encouraging reward from MOE for the year 2008. In order to utilize government resources effectively, the center hired a senior manager with profound experiences in top 100 enterprises as CEO and formed a professional team to manage NCKU R&D outcomes and intellectual property. The center will also establish a network by setting up strategic alliances with important entities inside and outside NCKU. By doing this way, we can expect to increase interaction and create synergy between industry and academia.
About National Cheng Kung University (NCKU):
NCKU is located in the ancient city of Tainan, the historical and ancient cultural capital city of Taiwan, which boasts more than 50 national relics sanctioned by the government and is approximately 250 kilometers south of Taipei. It is connected to all major cities in Taiwan by the recently initiated state-of-the-art Taiwan High Speed Rail. Further, this historical heritage is the pride of Tainan City and represents a rich cultural resource to NCKU. The technological sectors in the Southern Taiwan Science Park offer students at NCKU with a stage to apply what they have learned into practice.
With three quarters of a century of distinguished history, with well over 130,000 powerful alumni now dotting the globe, many have achieved supreme successes in arts, business, education, science, technology and healthcare and are ready and willing to assist the 22,000 academic selective students and 1200 academic faculty members. Currently, both have an international flavor, with enormous regional support, and there is a permeating culture of proactive intellectual growth on the world’s stage NCKU in Tainan, Taiwan, has evolved from its engineering genesis into a powerful and comprehensive research international university in the Asia Pacific.
Since NCKU’s establishment in 1931, it has developed into a research intensive and comprehensive university with integrated academic fields in nine colleges: Liberal Arts, Sciences, Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Planning & Design, Management, Social Sciences, Medicine, and Bioscience & Biotechnology. NCKU currently offers 40 undergraduate programs (excluding the Program of Bachelor’s Degree), 78 master’s degree programs, 54 doctoral programs and 20 master’s degree programs for working professionals.
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