The technology made possible by the machines of Evatec may not be obvious to the naked eye, but without it, everyday life would cease to exist as we know it. The Swiss-based company is a global leader in thin film process and production solutions for semiconductors, optoelectronics and photonics.
In other words, it ensures the functionality of the technology we rely on – be it our phones, cars, data storage centers or hospitals.
Kevin Chen has served as Head of Asia for Evatec since 2016, when he was tasked with revitalizing a department he had previously managed under a different guise.
“I worked for Oerlikon from 1999, until the unit I headed up was acquired by Evatec in 2015,” he tells The CEO Magazine.
“I was asked by the CEO to help reestablish the organization and pivot our approach to provide a better, more direct service and communication with our end customers, through our own people rather than agents.”
Evatec’s headquarters in Trübbach, Switzerland
During Chen’s tenure the company has seen sustained growth, having successfully established a pan-Asian presence.
“Right now we are in six countries in Asia, with 13 offices,” he says. “Globally we have roughly 550 people and in Asia we have more than 150 people.”
Path to growth
As the head of the Asian market, Chen is now overseeing Evatec’s most lucrative region covering Greater China and South-East Asia.
“Asia is our biggest single revenue block and continues to offer huge potential over what we have already achieved. With such an important market, if you don’t choose the right strategy, you are lost,” he points out.
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As Chen explains, the success Evatec is enjoying today has not come out of the blue, but rather as a result of a long-term, ongoing growth strategy.
“We have had three phases in our growth plan. Phase one was the setup,” Chen says. “From 2016–2018 we established our own companies in Singapore and then Malaysia focused on important sales and service tasks like installations, breakdown and spare party supply. Then we went to Taiwan and then China, and in 2018, we set up our first company in Japan.
“During phase two, we thought about how we could take our support for customers in Asia to the next level. For example, we invested in a local competence center in Singapore, which we called a technical hub, providing much higher local levels of technical support for customers for hardware and process capabilities, bringing us even closer to customers.”
Following on from the optimization stage, Chen and Evatec are once again broadening their horizons.
“We are now in phase three, which is expansion. Back in 2023, we realized that the supply chain connections we had established in Asia could help the whole company expand and improve,” he says.
“Together with our headquarters in Europe, we have been exploiting new sourcing concepts like ‘Ship and Merge’ that can make our global supply chain more flexible and reduce product delivery times in case of peaks typical in our industry.”
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Also on the cards is expansion into emerging economies.
“We have also started to focus more effort on the emerging opportunities in the Indian and Vietnam markets,” Chen says. “Previously these two have not been the major markets for wafer processing, but that is changing.”
Building on its strengths, Chen says Evatec focuses on its core markets – advanced packaging, semiconductor, optoelectronics and photonics.
“We succeed by understanding the needs of each individual customer and tailoring our solutions accordingly with custom capabilities, but using the advantages of modular design to manage manufacturing costs,” he confirms.
“In addition, in a world where there is an increasing overlap across the needs of previously quite separate markets of semiconductors and optics, our know-how and history across both helps us bring even greater customer advantage.”
In addition to core semiconductor processes, Evatec is also a leader in the new wafer-level advanced packaging technologies, including where multiple chips are stacked together in 2.5 and 3D structures. This drives device miniaturization and better power management.
“Just think how our mobile phones have changed in size and weight, capability and battery life over the past 20 years! Now we are also leading the field in the production solutions for new panel-level packaging technologies,” Chen says.
“This approach is essential for cost-effective processing of the larger package sizes, enabling high-performance computing and the data centers necessary for growth applications like AI.
“In our business, technology is one of the most important elements. This is why Evatec spends up to 15 percent of our revenue on R&D.”
Key collaborations
Looking to the future, Chen recognizes Evatec’s strategic partnerships will remain a crucial asset for overcoming challenges and also to maintain its reputation for technological excellence.
“We must continue to work hard on our technology to stay ahead of competition from both local and other global suppliers, and we must also have strategies in place to mitigate risks in a world of geopolitical tensions,” he says.
“That includes continuing to build on those relationships with local supply chain partners for the benefit of us both.”
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Upholding the customer-centric philosophy Chen was brought into the company to implement nine years ago remains at the heart of his leadership approach, but he realizes this would also be impossible without strong local partners including those in the supply chain.
“We need to keep thinking about how we can satisfy the needs of our customers,” Chen stresses. “We collaborate closely with key R&D players, which is why we are able to provide solutions that are better and earlier than our competition.”
Evatec will continue to provide the thin film technology enabling devices that uphold life as we know it.
“We will continue to be open, finding solutions together with customers and partners alike,” Chen reflects.
“Everybody has challenges, but where there is challenge there is also opportunity and it is one which very much excites me for the future.”
