HTV invests heavily in the expansion of long-term storage of semiconductor chips

HTV Halbleiter-Test & Vertriebs GmbH and HTV Conservation GmbH, both companies of the TÜV NORD subsidiary ALTER TECHNOLOGY, are investing more than one million euros in expanding the capacity of their innovative technology for the long-term preservation and storage of semiconductor chips, as well as in expanding the capacity of their test and programming laboratories. HTV is thus reacting to the high demand of its customers for this proprietary solution. "With our investment, we are once again committing ourselves to Bensheim as a business location, securing jobs and once again confirming to our customers that we can react flexibly to their needs as strong partners," says Holger Krumme, Managing Director of HTV and HTVC.

The solution offered by HTV addresses the changing needs of customers in the simplest possible way. Many companies are currently adapting their stocking strategy for semiconductor chips from "just-in-time" to "just-in-case" in order to be able to react to unplanned disruptions in their supply chains by means of flexibly retrievable stocks. For this purpose, the customer chips are stored at HTV under highly secure and monitored environmental conditions and can be retrieved at short notice if required. A major advantage of the special HTV-TAB® long-term preservation is that HTV can deliver the goods in a condition that existed at the time of procurement. "With the HTV conservation process, our customers get the best of "just-in-time" and "just-in-case": maximum availability of the goods without having to implement their own costly warehousing. In addition, we deliver the goods without degradation, even after decades of storage," says Ralf Kühne, Head of Analytics and Long-Term Storage at HTV.

In the context of the ongoing chip crisis, HTV offers maximum customer benefit by expanding its storage and laboratory capacities and hiring new specialists. Through a so-called "fast lane service", users have the opportunity to receive all HTV services in the usual quality much faster. "Through our high investments in equipment and personnel, we increase our flexibility, which benefits our customers both as a "one-stop-shop" solution and in terms of processing time for individual orders," says Kühne.

The HTV-TAB® long-term preservation process, which is unique worldwide, makes it possible to store chips, electronic assemblies, displays or entire wafers for up to 50 years while fully preserving their functionality and usability. In particular, the discontinuation of semiconductor chips and components thus loses its explosiveness and product life cycles can be significantly extended by further use of these goods.

With the new alliance of the HTV companies and ALTER TECHNOLOGY, the TÜV NORD GROUP is forming a leading European provider for automatic semiconductor testing, programming, preservation and storage. It enables companies from various industries to outsource their semiconductor back-end processes on an individual and broad basis and thus assumes a pioneering role for OSAT services (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) in Europe.