Aerotech sees South East Asia driving the next wave of semiconductor innovation

By: Kathryn Gerardino-Elagio

Interview with Richard Teo, Director, APAC, Aerotech Inc., at SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026

As South East Asia continues to strengthen its position in the global semiconductor supply chain, manufacturers are preparing for a new generation of technologies driven by artificial intelligence (AI), advanced packaging, silicon photonics and co-packaged optics (CPO). These applications are placing unprecedented demands on manufacturing precision, process stability and automation.

During SEMICON Southeast Asia 2026, International Metalworking News for Asia spoke with Richard Teo, Director, APAC, Aerotech Inc., about how these market shifts are reshaping customer requirements, where the region's strongest growth opportunities lie, and why precision motion control is becoming increasingly important in semiconductor manufacturing.

IMNA: South East Asia has become one of the world's fastest-growing semiconductor regions. How are these market developments influencing Aerotech's strategy?

Richard Teo: South East Asia continues to benefit from supply chain diversification, especially in backend assembly, packaging and test operations. At the same time, we're seeing rapid growth in AI, high-performance computing and 5G infrastructure, all of which are accelerating demand for advanced packaging and silicon photonics technologies, including co-packaged optics.

These technologies require much tighter tolerances and significantly more precise manufacturing processes than before.

As a result, we're placing greater emphasis on applications involving advanced packaging and photonics, where highly accurate motion control and alignment are essential. We're also seeing growing demand for integrated automation solutions that can handle increasingly complex device architectures while supporting high-mix manufacturing.

From a regional perspective, we're continuing to strengthen our engineering and support capabilities through our Singapore hub so we can stay close to semiconductor manufacturers across South East Asia.

IMNA: Which countries in South East Asia do you see offering the greatest growth opportunities over the next few years?

Richard Teo: Several markets are growing strongly, although each has its own role within the semiconductor ecosystem.

Malaysia remains a key centre for OSAT operations and advanced packaging. As manufacturers move into more sophisticated AI and photonics applications, they're looking for higher levels of precision and scalable manufacturing solutions.

Singapore continues to be strategically important because of its concentration of semiconductor equipment companies, wafer fabrication, research and development, and advanced manufacturing. It's also becoming increasingly important for emerging technologies like silicon photonics and co-packaged optics, where precision motion and alignment are critical.

Vietnam is another market we're watching closely. The continued shift towards "China Plus One" manufacturing strategies has attracted significant foreign direct investment, driving growth in electronics manufacturing and testing.

Although each market is different, they all share one common trend—manufacturing processes are becoming more complex, creating greater demand for high-precision motion and alignment technologies.

IMNA: As semiconductor manufacturing becomes more sophisticated, what challenges are your customers facing today?

Richard Teo: Precision and yield remain some of the biggest challenges, especially in photonics and advanced packaging.

Many of these processes are extremely sensitive to sub-micron misalignment. Even the smallest positioning errors can affect insertion loss and overall device performance. That means manufacturers need positioning systems that deliver exceptional repeatability—not just in the laboratory, but consistently across high-volume production.

Scalability is another major issue.

Traditional alignment methods simply struggle to keep up as optical devices become more complex and channel counts increase. Within the industry, active alignment is increasingly recognised as one of the key bottlenecks for scaling co-packaged optics into high-volume manufacturing.

At the same time, integrating motion control, optical instrumentation and software into a single production platform requires specialised expertise, something many manufacturers are finding increasingly difficult given the shortage of experienced motion control engineers.

IMNA: How is Aerotech helping customers overcome those challenges?

Richard Teo: Our approach is to simplify complexity.

Rather than treating motion control, automation and software as separate elements, we integrate them into a single platform designed to improve both productivity and process efficiency.

Collaboration also plays an important role. We work closely with partners such as Santec and SENKO Advanced Components to develop complete alignment solutions for advanced photonics applications. By combining expertise across optical instrumentation, alignment processes and precision motion, we can help customers reduce development time while improving manufacturing performance.

IMNA: Semiconductor equipment suppliers face intense competition. What differentiates Aerotech in this region?

Richard Teo: As manufacturing processes become more sophisticated, customers are no longer looking for individual components—they're looking for complete production solutions.

High-performance hardware alone isn't enough. Success increasingly depends on how well motion control, automation and software work together to deliver positioning accuracy, throughput and process consistency.

That's where we focus our efforts.

Our platforms combine high-precision motion with integrated automation, giving customers greater usability, better process visibility and improved alignment performance. We also support demanding applications such as multichannel optical alignment and advanced packaging, while maintaining the flexibility to tailor systems to individual manufacturing requirements.

Another important advantage is our regional presence.

Through our Singapore operation, we're able to provide local application engineering and technical support across South East Asia. In high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, fast response times and deep process knowledge are often just as valuable as the technology itself.

IMNA: Looking ahead, what are Aerotech's priorities for South East Asia over the next one to two years?

Richard Teo: The direction is very clear.

As South East Asia continues investing in advanced packaging, silicon photonics and AI-related semiconductor applications, manufacturers will require even greater levels of precision, integration and scalability.

Our priority is to continue strengthening our local technical support and application engineering capabilities so we can better support customers throughout the region.

We'll also continue expanding collaborations with semiconductor manufacturers, research organisations and ecosystem partners because innovation increasingly happens through partnerships rather than individual companies working alone.

Finally, we're seeing growing interest in more compact and integrated motion platforms that help manufacturers maximise cleanroom space while increasing throughput. As production becomes more demanding and factory footprints become more valuable, improving operational efficiency will remain a key focus for many semiconductor manufacturers—and that's an area where we believe we can add significant value.

As AI, photonics and advanced packaging continue to reshape semiconductor manufacturing, precision is becoming a competitive advantage rather than simply a technical requirement. For Aerotech, South East Asia 's growing semiconductor ecosystem represents more than just market expansion—it reflects the region's emergence as a hub for some of the industry's most advanced manufacturing technologies.