ASYS AUTOMATIC SYSTEMS GMBH & CO KG

Their core work

ASYS is a German SME that designs and manufactures automation and handling equipment for electronics and semiconductor manufacturing — conveyor systems, PCB handlers, process line automation, and precision material-handling machinery used in high-volume production environments. In the context of their H2020 work, they contributed as an equipment supplier to two of Europe's most ambitious semiconductor miniaturization initiatives, targeting the 7 nm and 5 nm process nodes under the ECSEL Joint Undertaking framework. Their role in these projects was to provide the physical equipment layer — the handling systems, process machinery interfaces, and materials-transport infrastructure — that makes lab-scale semiconductor research translatable into manufacturable processes. They sit at the boundary between precision mechanical engineering and semiconductor fabrication, making them a rare industrial-equipment voice inside highly academic chip-development consortia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

ASYS's H2020 participation is entirely concentrated in the 2015–2019 window, spanning two consecutive ECSEL semiconductor projects. The first project, SeNaTe, carried no specific keywords — consistent with a broad industrial-equipment contributor role in a large consortium tackling 7 nm technology. By TAKEMI5, the keywords crystallize around 'semiconductor process, equipment and materials', suggesting that ASYS's contribution became more precisely scoped toward the intersection of process equipment design and material compatibility at 5 nm dimensions. There is no post-2019 H2020 activity to analyze, so it is not possible to determine whether this focus continued, deepened, or shifted after the Horizon 2020 period.

Within H2020, ASYS moved from general equipment participation toward a more defined role in semiconductor process and materials handling at sub-7 nm scales — but with no projects after 2019, their current R&D direction is unknown and would need to be confirmed directly.

How they like to work

ASYS participates exclusively as a consortium member and has never taken a coordinator role — typical for an equipment SME that brings a specific industrial capability rather than driving the research agenda. Both of their projects were large ECSEL Joint Undertaking initiatives, which routinely involve 30–80 partners, so their 58 unique partners across just two projects reflects the scale of those consortia rather than an unusually broad personal network. This suggests ASYS is comfortable operating as one specialist node within a large, multi-stakeholder industrial research program.

ASYS has touched 58 unique consortium partners across 11 countries through just two projects, which is entirely a function of the ECSEL programme's large-consortium structure. Their direct collaborative footprint is European, with likely exposure to major semiconductor hubs in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

What sets them apart

ASYS occupies a narrow but valuable niche: they are one of very few SMEs that bring physical production-line automation expertise into EU semiconductor research consortia, where most participants are universities, research institutes, or large chipmakers. For a consortium building around advanced process technology, an equipment SME like ASYS provides the industrial feasibility anchor — demonstrating that the research can connect to real manufacturing machinery. A potential partner should approach them as a domain-specific equipment integrator, not as a research-driven technology developer.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SeNaTe
  ASYS's largest H2020 project by funding (EUR 81,422), this ECSEL initiative targeted 7 nm semiconductor technology and placed ASYS inside one of Europe's highest-profile chip miniaturization programs of the mid-2010s.
• TAKEMI5
  Focused on 5 nm module integration — the frontier of semiconductor scaling at the time — this project is notable for being where ASYS's contribution is most explicitly described as 'semiconductor process, equipment and materials'.