Dr. Franz Richter is a shareholder and an Advisory Group Member at Silveray. Following his professional activities as a scientist at the Carl Zeiss Group and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, he spent 14 years working for SUSS MicroTec, the last six of them as its CEO until 2004. During this time, he led the company through an MBO, an IPO and grew revenue beyond €200m.
After serving as President of Semiconductor Equipment Division at Unaxis (now OC Oerlikon) in Pfäffikon, Switzerland, he set up Thin Materials AG and became its CEO in 2007. That company was engaged in the process development for 3D chip integration and successfully sold to Nissan Chemical Industries, Ltd.,Tokyo, in 2013 following a close collaboration with Samsung.
Today Dr. Richter serves as the Chairman of Board of Directors (Verwaltungsrat) of Meyer Burger Technology AG, Gwatt, Switzerland. In the past, he also served as member of the supervisory board of the stock listed Siltronic AG, Munich, Germany (Wafer-Manufacturer) and the COMET Holding AG, Flamatt, Switzerland, a leader in the development and sale of X-ray components & inspection systems. During his career, Dr. Richter has gained a lot of international expertise in technology management topics, especially in the semiconductor industry, where he is considered a leading expert. In all these years, he remained closely linked to SUSS MicroTec, where he re-joined as President and Chief Executive in 2016 and left upon his retirement in 2021. He now supports and advises other interesting technology businesses and start-ups using his experience of the X-ray and semiconductor industries.