Zeiss employees in Oberkochen working on making machine Photo:. Zeiss
delays and sluggish sales in the chip and semiconductor market have the technology company Zeiss verhagelt business. Profits are nevertheless retracts.
Stuttgart / Oberkochen – A years announced major innovation in the microchip business can continue in coming. As the chief executive of the technology company Zeiss, Michael Kaschke, announced in Stuttgart on Tuesday, the series production of a new generation of machines for the semiconductor industry was expected until the financial year 2017/18 (balance sheet date 30 September) delay. <(Aside Pos. 1) Article (Dynamics orted) - - - STN-R - BG> Originally it was assumed to be three years earlier launch
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With the new technology is a manufacturing process, with the miniaturization of microchips can be significantly accelerated. Electronic devices such as laptops or smart phones are so small and more powerful. After the extreme ultraviolet light it for use the next method is called EUV lithography. Zeiss is driving the technology for about a decade ahead – now together with the engineering company Trumpf Ditzinger and the Dutch ASML automation specialists. The Oberkochen deliver the sophisticated optics and lenses. Trumpf is responsible for coming to use laser, ASML for the integration of systems in the production plants
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Some 500 million euro has invested in EUV technologies, but meanwhile only delivered prototypes to customers alone Zeiss. Optimistic you are nevertheless, because competitors like Canon or Nikon do not master the new procedures. At the same time it is necessary, according to Kaschke, so that the semiconductor industry can produce new generations of chips. “The semiconductor industry is waiting desperately for it,” Kaschke, whose company had retracted 2014/15 a turnover of almost 4.6 billion euros said
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New lenses are more visibility when driving lend
While new technologies therefore not yet available, falls at the same time the demand for older equipment for microchip fabrication. Both mixed for Zeiss currently an uneasy mixture: In the fiscal year, revenues have declined in the prestigious semiconductor division of Oberkochen by 15 percent to EUR 893 million. “Without our broad positioning in the markets we could not have done that to compensate,”
Except as supplier for chipmaker is Zeiss also active in three different business fields. The Industrial Metrology division and microscopy was with revenues of 1.36 billion euros “very well positioned” in the fiscal year. Here Zeiss provides example test equipment and sensors for the automotive industry. A new microscope that allows professional users to create 3-D images, have become a ‘true best seller, “it said. Nevertheless, going into this area continue the existing cost-cutting program, Kaschke said. Zeiss suppressed for months across the Group applied the brakes and wants to save so a year amounts in “significant triple-digit millions”, for example by bundling the purchase of goods, better processes Location and merges. In the third division – Medical – posted Zeiss with 16 percent a thick turnover to 1.2 billion euros. A real innovation are in the optics segment for end customers. Here the company Eyeglass has developed, for example, reduce glare from light while driving and ensure at dusk for a more detailed view. In addition, Zeiss its occupational pension provision for employees of a fixed interest rate to a more flexible, changed the company’s success dependent system, which is significantly cheaper for the foundation-owned company. The agreements were made by consensus with the workers, Kaschke said. The non-managerial employees received a performance bonus in 2014/15 from an average of 800 euros gross. For the current fiscal year Zeiss expects a “slight increase in sales and a slight increase in return on sales” (EBIT). This currently amounts to eight percent. The number of employees is to remain constant, the cost reduction program will be maintained. Kaschke: “2015/16 will not be easy.”
costs for occupational pensions fall
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