Peerless in Asia

Nanofilm Technologies International, a spin-off from Nangyang Technological University(NTU) designs and makes vacuum coating equipment used in the production of sliders for hard disk drives found in PCs, laptops and Digital Video Recorders.

Most of its clients are Japanese companies such as Hitachi, Toshiba and Panasonic, which together account for a 70% global market share for sliders, says the company's founder and chief executive, Dr Shi Xu.

The firm's patented Filtered Cathodic Vacuum Arc (FCVA) Technology also prolongs the lifespan of cutting equipment used in machining tools and injection moudls used in the production of camera lenses.

Nanofilm is now embarking on a new phase of expansion by diversifying into the coating services business for consumers products such as cell phones.

It is seeking to expand its current 150-strong workforce by another 20 to 30 staff, ranging from floor operators, supervisors, technicians, quality inspection managers as well as both production and design engineers.

"Unlike the typical assembly line worker in the electronics sector who carries out repetitive tasks on mass production lines, our operators will have to be more versatile and be able handle multiple tasks. We will train them, of course and their pay package will be about 15% above the industry average," says Dr Shi.

Higher-level technicians and managers will have the opportunity to be cross-trained overseas as Nanofilm has three subsidiary plants and joint-venture companies in China.

Design engineers will be mentored and trained by Dr Shi himself.

"With vacuum-based technology, you need to have a combination of knowledge in phisics, solid-state technology, engineering processes and material science in order to be able to develop the conceptual designs for our products. There are no such courses available anywhere in the region as far as I know," says Dr Shi, who was an NTU associate professor until he founded Nanofilm in 1999.

The company has over the years won awards such as the Singapore Innovation Award (2001) and National Technology Award (2000).