The semiconductor industry would all but grind to a halt without Heraeus. Ultra-fine wires made of gold, copper or aluminum form the essential electrical connection from the chip to the system carrier—and solder pastes make it possible to mount them on circuit boards. Virtually every computer hard-drive contains a magnetic data storage device coated with thin-film materials. Heraeus is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of high-purity sputtering targets, which are used to produce the ultra-thin layers on the hard drives. Heraeus quartz glass is used in the production of microchips: In microlithography, lens systems made of bubble-free synthetic quartz glass reproduce the tiny chip structures and further reduce them by up to four times while maintaining sharp definition. These are just a few of more than 5,000 standard products for the semiconductor industry.
