Macronix International Co., Ltd. (TSE: 2337), an integrated device manufacturer in the non-volatile memory market, announced that its independently developed industrial production optimization platform, the sNOVA system, has been awarded the IEEE Milestone Award. The company said it is the first semiconductor company in Taiwan to receive the honor.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), described in the announcement as the world's largest professional technical organization, held a recognition ceremony on November 2. Jill Gostin, 2026 IEEE president-elect, presented the recognition plaque to Dr. Miin Wu, chairman and CEO of Macronix. Dr. Cheng-Wen Wu, minister of Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), was also invited to attend the ceremony.

Recognition Ceremony and IEEE Remarks

According to the announcement, the recognition honors the technology's far-reaching impact on industrial development and its significant contribution to society.

Gostin said the achievement represented more than a successful technology. In her remarks, she said it reflected a willingness to anticipate future needs and invest in new capabilities before they became commonplace. She said the underlying principle behind sNOVA, transforming engineering data into meaningful insight, remains fundamental to innovation today.

She also said the Milestone recognizes the people behind the achievement, adding that significant advances are made possible by Macronix leaders and its team willing to challenge assumptions, solve difficult problems, and pursue ambitious goals.

What the sNOVA System Does

Macronix developed sNOVA between the company's founding in 1989 and 1997. According to the announcement, the system offers a range of features and advantages, including shortened production debugging time for abnormalities, reduced wafer-layer costs, improved product quality, and automatic precision adjustments of production machine process parameters.

By pioneering the use of artificial intelligence and big data, sNOVA helped drive the digital transformation of semiconductor manufacturing, the company said. Macronix stated that the system has made it the first semiconductor company in Taiwan to receive IEEE Milestone recognition, and that the achievement demonstrates the technology's influence on Taiwan's semiconductor industry as well as its contribution to semiconductor wafer production and manufacturing worldwide.

NSTC Minister on Industry Impact

Dr. Cheng-Wen Wu of the National Science and Technology Council emphasized the significance of Macronix being the first Taiwanese semiconductor recipient of the IEEE Milestone, saying it informs the world of Macronix's contribution to the global semiconductor industry.

He said Macronix was the first company worldwide to use statistical methods to improve manufacturing efficiency, reliability, and yield. Because of the system's successful results, he said, some Macronix employees were subsequently recruited by other companies, and the influence of the system gradually spread throughout the industry and eventually across the world.

He further noted that as AI chips increasingly need to be manufactured in Taiwan, it will be among the first to understand their application areas and strengths. He said this gives Taiwanese industry an opportunity to take the lead in adopting advanced AI technologies and integrating them into manufacturing processes.

Miin Wu on the Honor and sNOVA's Origins

Regarding Macronix becoming the first Taiwanese semiconductor company to receive IEEE Milestone recognition, Miin Wu stated that the honor represents Taiwan's indispensable and pivotal role in the history of global technological development.

Miin Wu said that in 1989 he returned from Silicon Valley and brought back more than 40 senior engineers to establish Macronix in Taiwan. At the time, with the goal of strengthening Taiwan's global semiconductor competitiveness, competing with Japanese companies, and providing customers with products of the highest quality, Macronix pioneered the employment of statisticians at a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility. By combining statistical expertise with semiconductor knowledge, the company developed the industrial production optimization platform known as sNOVA.

According to Miin Wu, the system helped Macronix establish the world's first paperless semiconductor wafer fabrication facility and significantly improve product quality. It also enabled Macronix to become an international pioneer in semiconductor memory manufacturing, advancing its product defect-rate measurement from the parts per million level to the parts per billion metric.

Miin Wu emphasized that sNOVA was not only a pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence and big data, but was later adopted by other leading semiconductor wafer manufacturers in Taiwan. He said the system helped improve chip production yield and product quality, accelerated automation throughout the semiconductor industry supply chain, and contributed to Taiwan's emergence as a critical global center for semiconductor manufacturing.

Current Focus at Macronix

The company said Macronix is pursuing a vision of playing a central role in technology to support human health by leveraging semiconductor technology to support the medical industry and developing products that save and improve lives. In doing so, Macronix said it aims to ensure that technology creates not only economic value, but also meaningful benefits for society.

About the IEEE Milestone Program

The IEEE Milestones in Electrical Engineering and Computing program honors significant technical achievements in all areas associated with IEEE. It is a program of the IEEE History Committee, administered through the IEEE History Center. Milestones recognize technological innovation and excellence found in unique products, services, seminal papers and patents.

IEEE established the Milestones Program in 1983. Each milestone recognizes a significant technical achievement that occurred at least twenty-five years ago in an area of technology represented in IEEE and having at least regional impact. To date, more than three hundred Milestones have been approved and dedicated around the world.