ZEISS wins Fraunhofer Cleanliness Technology award REINER! 2023

1 June 2023

Oberkochen, Germany | 1 June 2023 | ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions

It is the award of the cleanliness industry: The Fraunhofer Cleanliness Technology Award REINER!. 2023 ZEISS received the 1st prize. The top-class expert jury awarded the company for its new machine learning algorithms for optimizing particle classification in the technical cleanliness process. An innovation that increases operator productivity in particular.

"We are very pleased that the judges see the great practical added value of our solution for users," emphasized Dr. Jati Kastanja, Product Manager, ZEISS Research Microscopy Solutions. Together with her team, she was instrumental in driving the development of the software module TCA. With success. According to Dr. Jati Kastanja, the TCA module with machine learning approach "stands out from the previous state of the art." With serious advantages for the users. The solution, which can be easily implemented under industrial conditions, relieves operators, increases the comparability of results, and improves the utilization of microscopes.

The award winners from left to right: Carl Zeiss IQS Deutschland GmbH: Dr. Robert Zarnetta, Dr. Jati Kastanja; Altmann GmbH Achim Altmann, Robert Altmann; Dastex Reinraum Zubehör GmbH und Co. KG: Carrsten Moschner, Alina Kopp, Friederike Thumel

Automated instead of manual

The significant increase in productivity and resource efficiency is made possible by automated type classification. In the conventional process, particles are automatically segmented and classified by particle type on the basis of a gray scale determination. However, this method often requires manual rechecking and manual reclassification by the operator. By combining this with a pre-trained machine learning based object classification model, the process now becomes much more efficient. In this process, the particle measurement results obtained in the classical method are combined and analyzed by using the pre-trained model to form a large number of uncorrelated decision trees. The result is a reproducible majority decision. If particles are detected that were previously misclassified as non-metallic, the machine learning-based object classification overwrites the results of the classical gray scale determination, resulting in a more selective classification of metallic particles. The ZEISS TCA module with machine learning extension was pre-trained using correctly classified particles and can be further trained individually by the user with little time expenditure.

A solution that drives the purity industry forward

Modern production processes and quality requirements are intensifying the demands on technical cleanliness - across all industries. With the TCA module, productivity does not fall by the wayside. Rather, the ZEISS solution enables industrial users to obtain quickly, easily, and efficiently certainty about the number, nature, and origin of process-critical particles. The ZEISS development thus has the potential, as the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA put it on the occasion of the REINER! 2023 award, "to drive the economy and cleanliness industry forward".

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About ZEISS

ZEISS is an internationally leading technology enterprise operating in the fields of optics and optoelectronics. In the previous fiscal year, the ZEISS Group generated annual revenue totaling 8.8 billion euros in its four segments Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology, Industrial Quality & Research, Medical Technology and Consumer Markets (status: 30 September 2022).

For its customers, ZEISS develops, produces and distributes highly innovative solutions for industrial metrology and quality assurance, microscopy solutions for the life sciences and materials research, and medical technology solutions for diagnostics and treatment in ophthalmology and microsurgery. The name ZEISS is also synonymous with the world's leading lithography optics, which are used by the chip industry to manufacture semiconductor components. There is global demand for trendsetting ZEISS brand products such as eyeglass lenses, camera lenses and binoculars.

With a portfolio aligned with future growth areas like digitalization, healthcare and Smart Production and a strong brand, ZEISS is shaping the future of technology and constantly advancing the world of optics and related fields with its solutions. The company's significant, sustainable investments in research and development lay the foundation for the success and continued expansion of ZEISS' technology and market leadership. ZEISS invests 13 percent of its revenue in research and development – this high level of expenditure has a long tradition at ZEISS and is also an investment in the future.

With over 40,000 employees, ZEISS is active globally in almost 50 countries with around 30 production sites, 60 sales and service companies and 27 research and development facilities (status: 31 March 2023). Founded in 1846 in Jena, the company is headquartered in Oberkochen, Germany. The Carl Zeiss Foundation, one of the largest foundations in Germany committed to the promotion of science, is the sole owner of the holding company, Carl Zeiss AG.

Further information at www.zeiss.com

ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions

ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions is a leading manufacturer of multidimensional metrology solutions. These include coordinate measuring machines, optical and multisensor systems, microscopy systems for industrial quality assurance as well as metrology software for the automotive, aircraft, mechanical engineering, plastics and medical technology industries. Innovative technologies such as 3D X-ray metrology for quality inspection round off the portfolio. In addition, ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions offers a broad global spectrum of customer services with ZEISS Quality Excellence Centers close to its customers. The company is headquartered in Oberkochen. Production and development sites outside Germany are located in Minneapolis in the USA, Shanghai (China) and Bangalore (India). ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions is part of the Industrial Quality & Research segment.