Investments for the future: SMT expands its sites

The groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2001, and today the ZEISS south factory in Oberkochen is considered the most modern lithography optics center in the world. Six major new construction projects are currently running in parallel on the site. In addition to new production areas, office space for employees in production-related areas and an office building with an additional company restaurant are being built. Since the ground-breaking ceremony for the south factory more than 20 years ago, the site has steadily expanded.

The central Hessian town has been a ZEISS production site for DUV lithography optics for more than 20 years. A new multifunctional factory is now being built in the Dillfeld industrial park to complement the existing site in the city center of Wetzlar. Covering several thousand square meters, the new facility offers flexible working and production areas for optics, coating, and assembly of the precise optics used to expose microchips.

ZEISS SMT has also been represented in the North Rhine-Westphalian city since February 2024. The Aachen site of Philips Engineering Solutions (PES) was integrated into the semiconductor segment of ZEISS. The takeover was preceded by a very close collaboration with a shared passion for precision: PES has proven itself as a supplier in the field of optical metrology. The measuring machines from Aachen ensure precision in the nanometer range in the production of microchips. Currently there are working around 40 employees at the site. This number of is set to increase in the coming years.

ZEISS SMT's buildings and construction projects have to meet high standards. In addition to the high vibration requirements of the buildings, which require a solid construction and ensure precision in optics production, the factories are comparable to large machines. The technical building equipment of the clean rooms with filter units and large ventilation units is particularly demanding. In addition, the construction work must not interfere with current production, especially as the fine measurement technology is extremely sensitive to disruptions caused by earthworks or demolition work on the construction sites. In order to speed up the construction phase and reduce construction costs on site, we rely heavily on prefabrication, especially for the shell. To achieve this, all prefabricated parts must be perfectly coordinated. We use a sophisticated transport and logistics concept to ensure that everything runs smoothly on site.