KLA-Tencor Strengthens Infrastructure in Asia With Opening of State-of-the-Art Online Customer Support Center in Taiwan
Tuesday March 11, 3:03 pm ET
New Center Is Staffed With Mandarin-Speaking Engineers to Provide Faster Access to Technical Expertise and to Streamline the Efficiency Of KLA-Tencor Support Operations
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- To support the growing and emerging semiconductor manufacturing markets in Taiwan and the surrounding regions, KLA-Tencor Corp. (Nasdaq: KLAC - News) today announced the opening of the Asia-Pacific region's first online support center in Taiwan. Staffed by Mandarin-speaking technical experts, the Taiwan Online Support Center (OSC) utilizes KLA-Tencor's iSupport(TM) e-diagnostics technology to help customers throughout Taiwan, China and the Southeast Asia region to better protect their investment in KLA-Tencor tools while reducing their service costs. iSupport enables KLA-Tencor's technical support and applications engineers to remotely access data from KLA-Tencor tools and operate them in real time to diagnose and rapidly resolve problems when they occur -- all via a secure online connection that is controlled by the customer at all times.
"In the foundry business, turning leading-edge integrated circuit (IC) designs into production wafers quickly for our customers is critical to enabling them to remain competitive in the semiconductor market," stated Mr. Fu-Shun Lo, Fab-12 lithography section manager at TSMC. "With iSupport, we were able to maximize the performance of our KLA-Tencor inspection and metrology systems. This enabled us to rapidly implement new process technologies, maximize yields and accelerate the time to market for our customers' most advanced products. By offering this much-needed service from its customer support center in Taiwan, KLA-Tencor can provide us with continual access to technical experts that are both knowledgeable about the product and fully versed in Mandarin. Not only does this help us to better meet our customers' high-volume production requirements, it contributes to TSMC's leadership in advanced technology wafer production."
The first support center of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region, KLA-Tencor's Taiwan OSC leverages iSupport to quickly resolve common tool issues online, reducing the need for on-site dispatch. OSC engineers can examine system errors, perform remote diagnostics and retrieve files directly from a tool on the customer fab floor. Even when an on-site visit is needed for complex issues, OSC engineers can diagnose the problem and then identify and order the necessary parts so that the local customer support engineer can arrive on-site with the parts in hand to quickly correct the problem. As a result, mean time to repair (MTTR) can be reduced -- improving both tool uptime and tool cost of ownership.
Commenting on KLA-Tencor's Taiwan OSC, Norman Chang, president of KLA-Tencor Taiwan, noted, "The opening of our online support center in Taiwan is the latest example of our commitment to working closely with our customers in Southeast Asia -- the fastest growing semiconductor manufacturing market. We are expanding our infrastructure in Asia to meet our customers' needs and help them ramp up their production quickly at high yields so they can meet the demands of their own customers. Moreover, the opening of this new center will help us to streamline the efficiency of our support program and reduce our customers' support costs while, at the same time, boosting the overall effectiveness of their KLA-Tencor tools."
KLA-Tencor's Taiwan OSC is located at:
1F, Building C, Tai Yuen Hi-Tech Industrial Park
No. 22, Tai Yuen Street
ChuPei City, HsinChu, Taiwan, 302.
About KLA-Tencor: KLA-Tencor is the world leader in yield management and process control solutions for semiconductor manufacturing and related industries. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., the company has sales and service offices around the world. An S&P 500 company, KLA-Tencor is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol KLAC. Additional information about the company is available on the Internet at kla-tencor.com.
NOTE: iSupport is a trademark of KLA-Tencor.
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Source: KLA-Tencor Corp. |
