31 Jul How Taiwan’s ITRI became the tech industry’s go-to innovation unit

Smartkem has struck a collaboration agreement with the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan. What makes this leading global research centre tick?

Widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost innovation powerhouses, Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, or the Institute) has pioneered many of the biggest breakthroughs in electronics of the past 50 years.

From furthering innovations in semiconductors and spinning off TSMC and UMC, two of the world’s biggest chipmakers, to driving advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and green technologies, ITRI has played a central role in shaping today’s technology.

In displays, ITRI has been instrumental in developing the screens we use every day. The Institute helped develop Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens and Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays.  ITRI has aided the development of microLED displays, touted as the next major development in screens, as well the revolutionary in-car transparent display on show at this year’s CES.

Smartkem is prototyping its designs on ITRI’s production lines. In March this year, Smartkem announced a collaboration agreement with ITRI for product prototyping using its OTFT technology on ITRI’s Gen 2.5 hybrid pilot line. The partnership provides customers access to foundry services which will lead to product commercialization using Smartkem’s technology.   

The development of a commercial process will allow display manufacturers in Taiwan and around the world to adopt the production process developed at ITRI.

Given its central role in pioneering new technology globally, it is worth delving into ITRI’s unique approach to innovation and exploring the way it helps commercialise cutting-edge technologies.

Established in 1973 by Taiwan’s government, ITRI has adopted a transformative model for promoting innovation. The Institute, which today employs some 6,000 staff, plays a significant role in incubating start-ups and nurturing talent. Alongside this, ITRI draws on global industrial research to develop product prototypes and processes, offering foundry services to promising technology start-ups.  

From ITRI’s headquarters in the Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, also home to hundreds of technology businesses, new companies are invited to test their manufacturing processes on the Institute’s production lines. The aim is to eventually transfer those processes to commercial manufacturers.

Sri Peruvemba, a board director at Smartkem and a display industry veteran, says: “ITRI’s strength comes from its close collaboration with the industry. Rather than just doing research for academic pursuits, they actually develop processes for products that can be mass- produced. 

“The combination of research and pilot production has helped ITRI grow and be a great partner to the industry.”

While the display industry produces screens for high-volume products – TVs, mobile phones, laptops, tablets and smartwatches – industry players also make thousands of smaller-scale applications spanning consumer, industrial, medical and military uses that don’t have the volumes to justify building dedicated fabrication lines.

Manufacturers participate in these lower-volume applications to hedge against falls in high-volume production.  However, they lack the dedicated manufacturing capacity for those products. “Here is where ITRI comes in,” says Peruvemba. “They can develop products and processes, evaluate new materials and augment the work that large display companies are doing.”

 ITRI participates in hundreds of projects and touches on a wide range of aspects of display design, material selection and production processes.

 “For instance, a large company making TVs, for example, has limited time to focus on other activities, yet their survival depends on innovation. ITRI becomes their innovation arm, not just for next-generation products but for improvements in current fabrication processes,” says Peruvemba.

In addition to enabling innovation at large companies, ITRI supports start-ups that struggle to find factory capacity to develop prototypes of their innovations. The Institute offers labs, resources and consultancy services, it publishes research papers and stimulates discussions about the latest developments. “Since they are not wedded to one technology or company, they are able to innovate where they see potential,” says Peruvemba.

There is no other organisation quite like ITRI. Universities across the world, such as Penn State, Cambridge University and IMEC, have academic research labs. Manufacturers such as Samsung, Sharp, AUO, LG and others have research facilities. ITRI, by contrast, bridges the gap between academia and manufacturers and thereby enables industry rather than acting purely a research organization.

Similarly, the collaboration with ITRI is expected to allow Smartkem to use ITRI’s smaller pilot fabrication facilities to develop and optimize commercial processes so they are readily usable by the larger fabricators.

ITRI has laid out its vision in its “2035 Technology Strategy & Roadmap” to enhance “intelligentization” – the use of AI – across the areas of Smart Living, Quality Health, Sustainable Environment and Resilient Society. This publication reflects the broad sweep of ITRI’s involvement in technological innovation, whether in electronics, health or sustainable energy. Of most relevance to the display industry, ITRI is promoting innovation in Extended Reality – it has helped produce a Micro LED display for AR glasses – interactive in-vehicle systems, mobile robots, smart consumer services and many other developments.

Whatever the future holds, you can be pretty sure that ITRI will play a significant role in delivering it.