One year after the groundbreaking ceremony, the globally active company AIXTRON opened its new Innovation Center at its headquarters in Herzogenrath, Germany. On an area of approximately 1,000 square meters, AIXTRON aims to drive forward the development of innovative technologies in the semiconductor industry. The company has invested several million euros to this end.
AIXTRON is the technology leader in the gallium nitride (GaN) material system, which is increasingly used in power electronics due to its superior material properties. GaN increases the performance of, for example, chargers in consumer electronics, and GaN-based semiconductor components can be used to efficiently convert electricity from renewable energy sources. They also enable energy-efficient power supplies for servers and data centers. This helps, among other things, with artificial intelligence applications that require a lot of energy.
The opening ceremony was attended by political and business representatives, as well as Mona Neubaur, NRW Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. She emphasized that the new center is an important step toward climate neutrality and strengthening the region's competitiveness: "Our global competitiveness benefits enormously from robust domestic semiconductor production, because semiconductors make the transition to climate neutrality possible in the first place: without them, no computer would run, no car would drive, and neither wind nor solar power plants could produce energy".