Success at R&D
"Everlight has about 1500 workers, with sales of only several billion NT dollars a year," notes D.C. Chen. "That we can handle the challenges of high-tech products is in fact a testament to our corporate culture." Everlight's operating goal isn't to make money. What's more important than that is allowing every employee to develop his or her own potential, so that their lives continually improve. Consequently, the company emphasizes R&D and staff training, with the goal of engendering a sense of mission about making products that "contribute to humanity."
"If being colleagues means simply giving or following orders, then employees won't be able to innovate and attain breakthroughs!" exclaims D.C. Chen. Everlight's corporate motto is "Success in R&D is our greatest honor!" From top to bottom, it drives them to throw themselves into achieving their all without regard to cost and sacrifice.
The special character of the Everlight team was a key reason that the Industrial Technology Research Institute transferred the technology for a photoresist agent to Everlight in 1995. It had taken the ITRI eight years to develop.
Taiwan's integrated circuit industry leads the world, but photoresists, which determine the width of circuit elements in ICs and also the relative quality of IC chips, all had to be imported. "The government hoped to make up for this lack. For many years, large amounts of financial resources had been poured into research and development, and back in 1995 suitable manufacturers were being sought to proceed with commercialization and mass production." Chen Wei-wang recalls that in 1995 Everlight earned an award for manufacturing development from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and as a result he met Liu Jong-min, then the chair of the ministry's photoresist planning effort and currently an executive vice president at the ITRI. When inquiring about Everlight's willingness to develop photoresists, Liu specially emphasized the difficulty of the manufacturing process and the need for determination and willpower when confronting the tight grip that major international firms had on photoresist production.
Because the IC production cycle is long and complex, involving many dozen- individual processes, producing one IC can require three weeks to a month. Imperfections in any link in the chain can cause tremendous losses. Moreover, since the money spent on photoresists is only a small part of what is required to produce ICs, most IC factories aren't willing to assume the risks of changing their source of this kind of chemical product. As a result, there is very little scope for new manufacturers to enter the market. Take IBM. Although it created a division to manufacture photoresists, IBM's own IC factories didn't dare use them. Even the chemicals giant BASF failed in its attempt to enter the photoresist field. These examples demonstrate the difficulty involved in entering the photoresist market.
Yet with a "dumb" persistence and sense of mission, Everlight took on the development of photoresists, and with the help of senior members of international industry, it marched toward breakthroughs, first creating photo-resists for ICs in consumer products, and then, over the past few years, developing a 0.17-micron photoresist for a local DRAM manufacturer. Frustratingly, after Everlight had successfully developed that photoresist, the manufacturer announced that it had already advanced to the 0.14 micron process and would be unable to make any purchases from Everlight. Instead, it requested that Everlight work with it once again-this time to create a 0.12 micron photoresist. Unwilling to put out such great effort for naught again, Everlight painfully ended the cooperation.
But expertise should not go to waste. In recent years Taiwan's LED industry has grown by leaps and bounds. In the past the big European and American manufacturers looked down their noses at the small size of the market for LED photoresist. Everlight, on the other hand, took a strategy of "encircling the cities from the countryside," and provided consistently good service to LED manufacturers. In 2009, the market heated up, and Everlight made hay. It now controls more than 70% of the LED photoresist market in Taiwan. What's more, in the realm of photoresists for LCD touch screens, which is a very hot field right now, Everlight's technologies are highly competitive.
Looking back on nearly 40 years of history, what comes to mind is the title of D.C. Chen's biography: Aiming High. Making steady strides in the fiercely competitive high-tech realm, Everlight has continually moved onwards and upwards. Its story bears witness to the notion that one can find ultimate success by moving diligently in the directions of one's dreams.
Just the Facts: Everlight Chemical
Date of founding: |
1972年 |
Capitalization: |
NT$7.39 billion (2009) |
Revenues: |
NT$5.07 billion (2009) |
Five major lines of business: |
Colorants: reactive dyes, direct dyes, acid dyes, disperse dyes, leather dyes, anodizing dyes, dyes for inkjet inks, optical disk dyes, and other functional coloring agents Specialty chemicals: UV absorbers, light stabilizers, and formulated products Electronic chemicals: including photoresists (for ICs, LCDs, PCBs and LEDs), contrast agents, and polishing-grinding liquids Pharmaceuticals: prostaglandin derivatives, cardiovascular APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients), intermediatesNanomaterials: sol-gels and UV-curable hybrids |
Global staff: |
約1,520 |
Recent honors: |
2006: Industrial Innovation Achievement Award from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) 2007-2009: CommonWealth Magazine's corporate citizenship award, three years in a row 2009: National Invention and Creation Award from the MOEA 2009: Designated as a model of industrial safety by the MOEA |
Everlight's photoresist production line. In 1995 the Industrial Technology Research Institute transferred IC photoresist technology to Everlight, which is the only domestic supplier of photoresists for IC wafers.
Father and sons: Everlight founder D.C. Chen (middle), chairman C.H. Chen (right), and general manager Chen Wei-wang (left) are committed to making products that "add to human welfare."