2 weeks Ago By [email protected](KoreaTimes)
A research lab of Unity-SC in Montbonnot-Saint-Martin near Grenoble, France / Courtesy of Merck Korea By Ko Dong-hwan Merck said Monday it completed the acquisition of Unity-SC, a metrology and inspection instrumentation provider, intensifying the strategic focus of Merck Korea's electronics business on solutions for the semiconductor industry. Merck acquired Unity-SC for 155 million euros ($169 million) plus additional milestone-based payments. Based in France, Unity-SC is a company that develops measurement and inspection equipment for heterogeneous integrated semiconductor systems used in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and high-bandwidth memory chips.
Merck announced its bid to acquire Unity-SC in July, and finalized the deal after recent approvals from regulatory authorities and the fulfillment of acquisition conditions. Following the acquisition, the German company will rename its display business unit to Optronics, a signal for the company to expand its portfolio in optical technologies. Kai Beckmann, member of Merck's executive board and CEO of Electronics, said that as the semiconductor industry increasingly becomes more complex and introduces more integrated systems, the need for comprehensive solutions and precise metrology and inspection tools has become more important.
“With our Optronics business and the acquisition of Unity-SC, we have significantly expanded our portfolio to include metrology solutions for semiconductor and optoelectronic manufacturing,” he said. “This convergence signals an extension of Merck’s relevance in the electronics ecosystem, where materials science, distribution, metrology and inspection work hand-in-hand to enable better, faster, more efficient and more reliable production of next-generation chips and devices.” The birth of Optronics marks an evolution from a display-focused business to cutting-edge optical technologies for electronics, according to the company.
Merck has been focusing on optical physics and materials through LCDs and OLEDs. The new unit, the company added, will start converging optics and semiconductors to meet the demands of next-generation technologies. Merck said Optronics will create new business opportunities such as optics on chips to enable next-generation computing technologies — in which high data transfer rates on chips will only be possible by using light-based data lines, according to the company.
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