A new project in this industry has typically started the same way. A customer calls with a material and a target, and asks: “can you deposit this film?” It is a reasonable question with a clear answer. We think this is only a start.

That is the case made in person at Nordic Chip Summit on September 8, on a panel shared with two people already doing exactly this: Philippe Flatresse of Minalogic, and Frank Bösenberg of Silicon Saxony. 

Having sat on both sides of that conversation — as a customer at Intel, and later as a supplier at Applied Materials, Lam Research, Veeco, and Picosun, taking more than twenty-five products from concept to high-volume manufacturing — the pattern is the same: by the time a specification exists, most of the interesting decisions have already been made, usually without the people who understand the deposition process in the room. We optimize within a target we did not help set, and only find out at the end whether it was ever the right target. 

An earlier question changes this: what device problem are we actually trying to solve? That single shift moves the work from optimizing against a fixed target to exploring materials and processes together before anything is locked in, with device testing, not a checklist, deciding what happens next. 

We believe this is the right way to build technology, and the most durable one. This creates a loop: capability builds distinctive technology, which builds market value, which funds the next round of capability. That loop is what sovereignty rests on. Once a market fully forms, whoever waited to invest finds little room left to compete. 

None of this requires starting from nothing. The infrastructure already exists across this region: Kvanttinova, Finland’s national quantum-technology infrastructure; SUPREME and PIXEurope, European pilot lines advancing semiconductor and photonic integration; and competence networks like the FiCCC and Nordic-Baltic CCC that connect this work across borders. What is missing is not capability. It is more organizations choosing to use it before a specification forces the issue. 

Beneq, that is the position we want to hold: an interface engineering partner our customers can build around, at the boundary between deposited material and device material, which means understanding what a partner’s device needs before we define the process meant to serve it. 

So here is the most important part: what we ask of each partner in this chain. If you make devices or systems, bring one real bottleneck, with a device objective attached, not a spec. If you supply equipment or materials, commit real expertise before the specification locks. If you run research or pilot lines, make that expertise easy for others to reach. If you fund or set policy, back the work that happens before a specification exists to justify it. And if you connect people across borders for a living, do it early, and do it often. 

To the ecosystem partners in manufacturing, design, research, and education — we ask the same question: what device problem are you trying to solve? Let us collaborate and work on it before the specification locks. That is where the real work starts. 

About the Author

Jason Harrison is CEO of Beneq, a global provider of atomic layer deposition technology for semiconductor, optical, and R&D applications.