Thomas Zarbock

Thomas Zarbock is Division Director at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems. He has 12 years experience in MEMS manufacturing and pilot fabrication. In his position, he is responsible for a team of 100 engineers, technicians and operators to run and maintain a fully integrated and CMOS-compatible 200mm MEMS cleanroom.

Prior to joining Fraunhofer IPMS, Thomas held various contributor level and management positions in industrial engineering and semiconductor manufacturing. He has been working 11 years for Siemens Microelectronics, Infineon Technologies and Qimonda, Dresden. His emphasis was in production and fab planning, cycle time management and lean manufacturing.

Thomas Zarbock received the M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from the Dresden University of Applied Sciences, Dresden, Germany.

Fraunhofer goes Green ICT – Resource-optimized Microsystem fabrication for information and communication technology

Despite all technical efforts, the total energy consumption of information and communications technology has risen continuously in the past. This includes the consideration of the entire value chain of electronic products including the manufacturing processes and the supply chains. The Fraunhofer IPMS has set itself the goal of actively promoting this resource minimization together with the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD) inside a common research project.

One important part of the planned project is focused in particular on resource-optimized microelectronic/microsystem production, especially inside a low volume scenario. Through its expertise, Fraunhofer IPMS wants to offer a broad spectrum with comprehensive services for equipment, IC and material manufacturers to realize resource-optimized and environmentally friendly electronics production. In the field of processing, the institute wants to support its customers by providing resource-optimized consulting and development services. This includes both the investigation of alternative materials and their consumption reduction as well as the optimization of energy consumption to reduce the CO2 impact.