News: Suppliers
17 December 2025
RENA joins UK-funded consortium to strengthen national semiconductor metrology capabilities
RENA Technologies GmbH of Gütenbach, Germany (which supplies production machines for wet chemical surface preparation) is a key industrial partner in a new €1.3m (£1.2m) Government-funded project led by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) – the UK’s National Metrology Institute (NMI) – and supported by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The initiative aims to establish critical new metrology capabilities to strengthen the UK’s semiconductor innovation infrastructure and accelerate the development and adoption of next-generation semiconductor materials and processes.
The strategic investment underlines the UK’s commitment to maintaining global competitiveness in semiconductors, helping to attract private investment, strengthen supply chains, and support long-term economic growth. As advanced semiconductor materials become central to technologies such as electric vehicles, renewable energy, 5G communications and advanced electronics, robust measurement, verification and standards are increasingly essential.
The project brings together a broad consortium spanning industry and academia, including Vishay Newport Ltd; GEN3; Custom Interconnect Ltd; Element Six; RENA; Viper RF; Keysight Technologies; the Henry Royce Institute; Power Roll; Poro Technologies; Oxford Instruments; Swansea University; the University of Cambridge; and the University of Warwick. Together, the partners cover the full innovation landscape, from materials research and process development to device fabrication and performance verification.
“We develop advanced wet processing and surface treatment solutions that are critical in manufacturing of compound semiconductors and emerging materials,” notes RENA’s CEO Peter Schneidewind. “Through this collaboration, RENA will contribute industrial insight and process expertise to ensure that new measurement and testing capabilities are closely aligned with real manufacturing challenges.”
Picture: RENA’s wet processing solutions are contributing production know-how for compound semiconductor materials.
Many high-growth applications increasingly depend on compound semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN), silicon carbide (SiC), and indium phosphide (InP). Although they offer superior performance in high-power, high-frequency and optoelectronic applications, they also introduce new complexities in processing, characterization and quality assurance. Reliable standards and independent measurement methods are therefore essential to derisk innovation and support scale-up.
Through the project, consortium partners will work with NPL to:
- develop new UK measurement and test capabilities for advanced semiconductor materials by combining academic research excellence with world-leading metrology expertise;
- apply these capabilities to critical industry challenges, including assessing material integrity, verifying RF performance, and testing device reliability under demanding operating conditions;
- share the resulting capabilities openly with industry, helping to build national consensus and strengthen the UK’s influence in international standards development for novel semiconductor technologies.
Following extensive consultation the consortium has identified three priority application areas where the UK can have the greatest global impact: power electronics, RF communications, and optoelectronics. These areas align closely with RENA’s customer base and technology roadmap, particularly in power and compound semiconductor manufacturing.
RENA says that, by participating in this program, it is reinforces its commitment to supporting the UK semiconductor ecosystem with industrially relevant innovation, enabling customers to adopt advanced materials with confidence, and helping to position the UK as a global leader in next-generation semiconductor technologies.
