News › ZEISS • Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis 2020

Two Zeiss Teams Make Shortlist

• The team from Carl Zeiss Medi­tec has been nomi­na­ted for its robo­tic visua­liza­tion sys­tem, the ZEISS KINEVO 900 – and thus short­lis­ted for the award.
• The team from the ZEISS Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy (SMT) seg­ment was also short­lis­ted for deve­lo­ping EUV lithography.

The Office of the Fede­ral Pre­si­dent announ­ced today in the Hall of Fame at Munich’s Ger­man Museum the nomi­na­ti­ons for the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis. ZEISS is the first-ever com­pany to have two teams nomi­na­ted for the award.

Future-ready solu­ti­ons in medi­cal and semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­ring technology

Both nomi­na­ted deve­lo­p­ments are clo­sely lin­ked to people’s ever­y­day lives and repre­sent a kind of digi­ta­liza­tion that pro­mo­tes eco­no­mic and social pro­gress in equal measure.

Repre­sen­ting Carl Zeiss Medi­tec on the team are ZEISS experts Dr.-Ing. Michel­an­gelo Masini and Frank Seit­zin­ger, who are joi­ned by Prof. Dr. med. Andreas Raabe from the Swiss Insel­spi­tal (Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal of Bern). Their deve­lo­p­ment, the ZEISS KINEVO® 900 robo­tic visua­liza­tion sys­tem, helps enhance the effi­ci­ency and effi­cacy of spi­nal and neu­ro­sur­gery. The mar­ket-sha­ping inno­va­tion helps doc­tors to improve pati­ents‹ qua­lity of life while dri­ving medi­cal pro­gress. Com­pri­sing more than 100 inno­va­tions and 180 patents, the sys­tem mar­ries robo­tics, digi­tal visua­liza­tion and modern assis­tance solu­ti­ons. The deve­lo­p­ment team worked with glo­bal cli­ni­cal part­ners to define and deve­lop a 3‑in‑1 sys­tem that uni­fies micro­scope, exo­scope and endo­scope components.

With their pro­ject, titled »EUV Litho­gra­phy – A New Light in the Digi­tal Age,« Dr. Peter Kürz from the ZEISS SMT seg­ment, Dr. Michael Kös­ters from TRUMPF Laser­sys­tems for Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Dr. Ser­giy Yulin from the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Applied Optics and Pre­cis­ion Engi­nee­ring (IOF) in Jena, have all been nomi­na­ted and thus short­lis­ted for the award. EUV stands for »extreme ultra­vio­let« light, i.e. light with an extre­mely short wave­length. The tech­no­logy can be used to pro­duce much more high-per­for­mance, energy-effi­ci­ent and cost-effec­tive micro­chips than ever before. After all, effec­tive digi­ta­liza­tion requi­res com­pu­ting power to con­ti­nue rapidly incre­asing: today’s smart­phones are a mil­lion times more powerful than the com­pu­ter that was taken along on the first Moon landing back in 1969. This is made pos­si­ble by a micro­chip that is smal­ler than a fin­ger­tip but has the capa­city to accom­mo­date more than ten bil­lion transistors.

The three nomi­na­ted teams have made a sizeable con­tri­bu­tion to deve­lo­ping and pre­pa­ring EUV tech­no­logy for indus­trial series pro­duc­tion. The result? A future-ready tech­no­logy with more than 2,000 patents to back it up, that forms the basis for future tech­no­lo­gi­cal pro­gress and the digi­ta­liza­tion of our daily lives (fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the nomi­na­ti­ons: www.zeiss.com/dzp-nomination).

»We are deligh­ted to have recei­ved two nomi­na­ti­ons for the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis. It is a nod to the high inno­va­tive power that ZEISS stands for, and it reflects the enthu­si­asm for deve­lo­p­ment and the cou­rage for inno­va­tive thin­king that per­me­a­tes and uni­fies the seg­ments of the ZEISS Group,« says Dr. Ulrich Simon, Head of Cor­po­rate Rese­arch and Tech­no­logy at ZEISS, adding: »Sci­en­ti­fic breakth­roughs are par­ti­cu­larly suc­cessful when com­pa­nies and top rese­ar­chers col­la­bo­rate in a net­worked way. Here at ZEISS, the link bet­ween sci­ence and indus­try has grown throug­hout its history and it is firmly ancho­red in the company’s structure.“

An honor for inno­va­tive achie­ve­ments in engi­nee­ring and the life sciences

The Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis – the Ger­man President’s Award for Inno­va­tion in Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy – has been pre­sen­ted annu­ally since 1997 and is one of the hig­hest acco­lades for sci­en­ti­fic achie­ve­ment in Ger­many. It honors excep­tio­nal achie­ve­ments in tech­no­logy, engi­nee­ring and the life sci­en­ces that have resul­ted in via­ble pro­ducts. Every year, the pres­ti­gious jury for the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis hand­picks the win­ners from a vast array of pro­jects in a multi-stage sel­ec­tion pro­ce­dure that sees three teams of rese­ar­chers and their inno­va­tions battle it out in the final round of the com­pe­ti­tion. Along­side their inno­va­tive achie­ve­ments, the jury also eva­lua­tes the development’s eco­no­mic and social poten­tial. The acco­lade will be pre­sen­ted in Ber­lin on 25 Novem­ber 2020 by Ger­man Pre­si­dent Frank-Wal­ter Stein­meier (fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the nomi­na­ti­ons and the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis at: www.deutscher-zukunftspreis.de).

Inno­va­tion as part of the cor­po­rate identity

Inno­va­tion is a way of life at ZEISS. You might say it is in the company’s genes. As a part of the cor­po­rate stra­tegy, it is always pla­ced within the con­text of society as a whole, and it forms the basis for fur­ther growth at the ZEISS Group. That’s why ZEISS is inves­t­ing 11 per­cent of its reve­nue in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment work.

Opti­cal tech­no­lo­gies are vital when it comes to making pro­gress in fields inclu­ding the life sci­en­ces, medi­cine, IT, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, auto­mo­tive, con­su­mer and many others. All ZEISS inno­va­tions aim to ensure that future cus­to­mer needs rela­ted to pro­ducts, ser­vices, solu­ti­ons and busi­ness models are met, and that they offer added value and benefits.

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an inter­na­tio­nally lea­ding tech­no­logy enter­prise ope­ra­ting in the fields of optics and opto­elec­tro­nics. In the pre­vious fis­cal year, the ZEISS Group gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue tota­ling more than 6.4 bil­lion euros in its four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets (sta­tus: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2019).

For its cus­to­mers, ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for the life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch, and medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and tre­at­ment in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery. The name ZEISS is also syn­ony­mous with the world’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. There is glo­bal demand for trend­set­ting ZEISS brand pro­ducts such as eye­glass len­ses, camera len­ses and binoculars.

With a port­fo­lio ali­gned with future growth areas like digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Smart Pro­duc­tion and a strong brand, ZEISS is sha­ping the future of tech­no­logy and con­stantly advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted fields with its solu­ti­ons. The company’s signi­fi­cant, sus­tainable invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment lay the foun­da­tion for the suc­cess and con­tin­ued expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket leadership.

With over 31,000 employees, ZEISS is active glo­bally in almost 50 count­ries with around 60 sales and ser­vice com­pa­nies, 30 pro­duc­tion sites and 25 deve­lo­p­ment sites. Foun­ded in 1846 in Jena, the com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest foun­da­ti­ons in Ger­many com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence, is the sole owner of the hol­ding com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.com

Press Cont­act

Jörg Nit­schke
Group Spokesman
ZEISS Group
+49 7364 20–3242
moc.ssiez@ekhcstin.greoj