Tempe, AZ, March 10, 2021– EMD Electronics, a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, today announced the commercial launch of eyrise® i350 invisible privacy glazing. Transparent dynamic liquid crystal glass partitions can be switched on demand to create private spaces in public and commercial venues. The official launch of eyrise® i350 invisible privacy glazing will take place on March 11 with an online event where experts will discuss the role of technology in workplace innovation. Since being established in 2017, the Liquid Crystal Windows business of EMD Electronics has installed eyrise® s350 instant solar shading windows in prestigious architectural projects for customers such as Kirow Ardelt, FC Group, Corning, and BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts).

“Envisioning the workplace of the future is more relevant today than ever before, especially for a company like ours that believes in the power of science and technology to advance human progress,” said Michael Heckmeier, Head of the Display Solutions business unit of the Electronics business sector of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. “The way we live and work today calls for smart solutions that promote flexibility, collaboration and connectivity. Our latest eyrise innovation is an exciting example of how our Electronics business sector is creating the backbone of modern society.”

Liquid crystal technology that enables smart and flexible spaces

eyrise® i350 invisible privacy glazing is powered by licrivision® liquid crystal technology. The liquid crystal solution is placed between two glass sheets coated with a transparent conductive film. When prompted by a low voltage, the liquid crystals' direction shifts and moves from a random position to a well-organized orientation in a second. The glass switches from a transparent to an opaque state by scattering the light to provide complete and instant privacy on demand.

Glass partitioning offers multiple functions for open plan spaces – from private meeting rooms in offices and consultation areas in hospitals, to VIP zones in retail stores. The glass can also be used to divide spaces in conference centers and airports and transform into on-demand screens to share information or presentations.

eyrise® i350 invisible privacy glazing is unique in the smart glazing market thanks to its ultra-transparency from all angles in its clear state.

The influence of architecture and design in human psychology

Key aspects of interior design such as lighting, colors, space configuration, and materials play an important role in people’s behaviors. According to Baldur Steimle, Head of Architectural Design at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, the importance of architecture as a trigger to physiological and psychological well-being is a topic of significant relevance these days. “Design can be leveraged as a tool to reinforce behaviors that we would like to see enacted in specific places,” says Steimle. “For example, design cues could contribute to higher sales in commercial venues or accelerated recovery in healthcare facilities or could lead to better productivity in offices.”

The psychology of space increasingly influences modern office set-ups. The growth of open-plan offices is an example of how design is used to encourage behaviors such as collaboration and openness as part of corporate culture. Flexible spaces that can easily adapt and cater to different needs in the workplace could stimulate the workforce's well-being, engagement, and productivity.

Experts discuss the role of technology in workplace innovation at eyrise® i350 online launch event

For the online launch of event of eyrise® i350 invisible privacy glazing, EMD Electronics will host a panel discussion about how technology and design will influence the workplace of tomorrow. The event will take place on Thursday, March 11 at 8:00 a.m. EST. To join the event, please register via this link: https://eyrise-invites.com.

All Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, press releases are distributed by e-mail at the same time they become available on the EMD Group Website. In case you are a resident of the USA or Canada, please go to www.emdgroup.com/subscribe to register for your online subscription of this service as our geo-targeting requires new links in the email. You may later change your selection or discontinue this service.

About EMD Electronics
EMD Electronics is the North America electronics business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. EMD Electronics’ portfolio covers a broad range of products and solutions, including high-tech materials and solutions for the semiconductor industry as well as liquid crystals and OLED materials for displays and effect pigments for coatings and cosmetics. Today, EMD Electronics has approximately 2,000 employees around the country with regional offices in Tempe (AZ) and Philadelphia (PA). For more information, please visit www.emd-electronics.com.

About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and electronics. Around 58,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene-editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2020, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of € 17.5 billion in 66 countries.

The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark “Merck” internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics. Since its founding 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company’s technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company.

• Read more about EMD Electronics Introduces New Privacy Application for its Dynamic Liquid Crystal Windows Business

Cranston, RI, USA – Technic is pleased to host an online webinar on our electrolytic sulfite gold process, Elevate Gold 7990 NBV. The webinar will provide insights on the unique characteristics of the process as well as demonstrate the enhanced performance, safety, and economic benefits. Following the presentation, registered attendees will be able to participate in a live Q&A session about the process with technical experts. The Elevate® Gold 7990 NBV process produces pure, soft gold deposit while operating at a slightly acidic pH, making it compatible with almost all photoresists. It produces a bright deposit without the use of harmful grain refiners like thallium and arsenic. The process provides excellent coplanarity and step coverage and can be used in several different plating applications (thicknesses ranging from 0.5 - 100 microns) without major modifications to the solution, and on a variety of toolsets. “Elevate Gold 7990 NBV is currently in operation at more than 50 customers around the globe. We look forward to sharing some of our technical data regarding performance as well as case studies that demonstrate the advantages of this unique process” - Anthony Gallegos Technic Global Product Manager for Semiconductor Technology Learn more about Technic Semiconductor products or contact us at (401) 781-6100 About Technic For over 75 years, Technic has been a global supplier of specialty chemicals, custom finishing equipment, engineered powders, and analytical control systems to the semiconductor, electronic component, printed circuit board, industrial finishing, and decorative industries. Technic is also a major supplier of engineered metal powders to the solar industry.

• Read more about Elevate® Gold 7990 NBV - Webinar March 24th, 2021 Key features and benefits of this unique electrolytic sulfite gold process

BUSCH VACUUM SOLUTIONS USA ACQUIRES LONG-TERM SALES CHANNEL PARTNER
Distributor of vacuum equipment sales and service in Eastern Central Region

Virginia Beach, VA, February 4, 2021 - Busch Vacuum Solutions USA, one of the largest manufacturers of vacuum pumps, blowers, compressors and systems, announces the acquisition of Jennings Associates Inc. (dba Jennings Alberts Inc) a distributor for new equipment, maintenance, and repair for vacuum pumps blowers and heat exchangers. The acquisition of Jennings Alberts’ vacuum pump, blower and service portion of the business furthers Busch’s long-term goal of providing even better technical and service support for customers in the Eastern Central Region.

Busch partnered with Jennings Associates to represent them in Eastern PA, Southern NJ, and DE in 1977. Together, they have become prominent industry leaders supplying vacuum solutions for many applications including meat processing, food packaging, chemical, pharmaceutical, metallurgy and plastics.

“The Busch-Jennings family business relationship has continued to grow over the last 44 years. We are all very excited that the Jennings vacuum pump and blower, sales and service, business officially becomes part of the larger Busch company which is also a family-owned business.” said Mr. Bill Altier, part owner of Jennings Alberts. Mr. Altier joins Busch as a Regional Manager and will continue to serve customers in this market.

Also joining Busch as a Regional Sales Manager is Mrs. Lisa (Jennings) Dugery, part owner of Jennings Alberts, who said “We are excited to join the Busch team because of the success and mutual trust our companies have built over the years.” She also added, “And because of their long track record of innovation and great success, I know our family’s legacy is in good hands.”

According to Mr. Turgay Ozan, President of Busch USA, “As a vacuum industry leader, we are acquiring one of the foremost distributors and service organizations in the market. Joining with the Jennings team, after such a long partnership, is a logical step.” Mr. Ozan added, “For this region, we are becoming a direct resource for customers with access to Busch Product Managers, Engineers and Service Specialists, nationally and globally.”

Busch Vacuum Solutions manufactures products and designs systems in the USA and offers a wide national service network. The transition of the Jennings vacuum and blower business takes place immediately.

About Busch Vacuum Solutions
Busch Vacuum Solutions USA sales and manufacturing headquarters is in Virginia Beach, VA where a team of 500 dedicated employees takes care of all their customer’s industrial vacuum needs. Busch USA is part of the global Busch Vacuum Solutions family owned company with over 3500 employees in more than 40 countries.

For more information about Busch: www.buschusa.com

• Read more about BUSCH VACUUM SOLUTIONS USA ACQUIRES LONG-TERM SALES CHANNEL PARTNER Distributor of vacuum equipment sales and service in Eastern Central Region

Intermolecular, Inc. (“Intermolecular”), the trusted partner for materials innovation and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, today announced the relocation of the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub from Menlo Park to Intermolecular’s San Jose facilities, combining Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s innovation efforts in the Bay area with Intermolecular’s services for materials and electronics, creating a unique space that empowers collaboration with startups.

The Silicon Valley Innovation Hub was established in 2017 in Menlo Park, CA. As part of the global Innovation Ecosystem of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, it strives to identify and develop viable new businesses and technologies between the company’s existing business sectors or break new ground beyond them.

“The mission of the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub is to identify and explore untapped innovation- and business opportunities for Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. In this context, the intersection of life science and material science is becoming increasingly important and opens new areas of innovation. Having the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub and Intermolecular under one roof now will allow us and our cooperation partners to develop and test new materials for biological applications. We are very excited about these new opportunities,” states Thomas Herget, head of the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub.

Intermolecular has a unique toolset and expertise to quickly test and prove new advanced technologies and materials for semiconductor devices and electronic applications.

Having the Innovation Hub in the same building will further strengthen collaboration of the company’s businesses with startups and innovative companies in and around the Bay Area to rapidly grow their business from concept to high-volume manufacturing. The building boasts 30,000 square feet of cleanroom, chemical labs, offices, a collaboration area and event spaces.

Intermolecular’s customizable services are tailored to meet a startup’s unique needs, whether it is achieving a proof-of-principle, a first prototype, or a small series production. Intermolecular assigns experts in emerging technologies and offers its manufacturing facilities, which can run experiments 24/7to test and validate materials critical to product development. Intermolecular’s flexible methodologies and quality data help accelerate product design innovation, at any phase of a startup’s product development cycle.

“Intermolecular offers a seamless process flow that is specific and confidential to each startup, which is key to speeding time to innovation,” said Casper van Oosten, business field head and managing director for Intermolecular, Inc. “By providing startups the tools and expertise to validate their ideas, we can help them accelerate their path to new investment and speed their product introductions by giving them concrete data needed to move quickly from a research phase to full production. Having the experts from the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub now under one roof, we are looking forward to branch out into new areas and exploring collaboration opportunities that bring benefits to our customers/startups.”

“Semiconductor companies, particularly companies working on current generation and emerging memories, need to do a lot of experimentation to get the best combination of processes and materials,” said Tom Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates. “Companies such as Intermolecular can provide efficient ways to gather and analyze the required data to make the next generations of memory possible.”

About the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s Silicon Valley Innovation Hub supports scouting for the company’s existing businesses, with the additional objective to look between and beyond their scopes. This means evaluating new technological opportunities, building and maintaining local relationships and partnerships, and driving new business in fields such as cell-based meat.

About Intermolecular

Intermolecular is a trusted partner for materials innovation and the Silicon Valley science hub of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and its Performance Materials business. Intermolecular explores, tests and develops advanced materials that are revolutionizing the next generation of electronics that make lives easier, entertaining and more productive. For more than 15 years, the team, methodologies and quality data have driven impactful outcomes, market opportunities and innovative product designs for customers.

About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and electronics. Around 58,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2020, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of € 17.5 billion in 66 countries.

The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark “Merck” internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics. Since its founding 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company’s technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company.

• Read more about Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany moves the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub to San Jose's Intermolecular site

TEMPE, Ariz., March 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- EMD Performance Materials today announced an expanded focus on the US electronics business and a new name in the US: EMD Electronics. EMD Electronics, a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, includes a broad portfolio of semiconductor materials, semiconductor delivery systems and services, display, and surface solutions. The Electronics business globally employs more than 7,400 – with a third of employees in the US across 29 sites, with plans for continued growth in planarization and thin films organizations following recent investments. More information about the Electronics business can be found here.

Additionally, the company announced the relocation of the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub from Menlo Park to Intermolecular's San Jose facilities, combining Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's innovation efforts in the Bay area with Intermolecular's services for materials and electronics, creating a unique space that empowers collaboration with startups. This announcement follows the $22 million investment at the EMD Electronics site in Tempe, Arizona for its R&D and production for semiconductor materials announced in February.

"Our name change and investment in these centers demonstrate our commitment to continued innovation in electronics and supporting US customers' requirements for capitalizing on growing opportunities driven by digital transformations and data-driven electronics," said Jeff White, President of EMD Electronics. "Our customers are working on cutting-edge technologies and products that range from better immersive displays and surfaces in cars and consumer electronics to how to move neuromorphic and quantum computing to the next level. Our combined expertise and portfolio in display and surface innovations, semiconductor materials and the safe delivery and storage of speciality chemicals and gases will enable new discoveries and novel products not even imagined yet."

As the company behind the companies advancing digital living, the Electronics business sector is involved in all major technology trends – be it 5G, Big Data, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, or the Internet of Things. Thanks to these and other megatrends, the demand for ever smaller, faster and more energy-efficient electronics is continuously growing. Sample innovations enabled by EMD Electronics include:

• Patterning, deposition and spin-on dielectrics materials to make 3D NAND possible
• DSA – revolutionary way of building microchips of the future
OLED for brighter, thinner, free-form displays
• Liquid crystals for electronic steerable antennas to bring connectivity to places currently not reachable
• eyerise ® liquid crystal for greener windows and innovative building architecture.

These technologies and innovations are being implemented across a diverse set of customers including larger companies and start-up companies. To enable new inventions for start-ups, EMD Electronics has launched a program for early-stage and growth companies looking to advance their technologies in the areas of displays, semiconductor materials, neuromorphic computing, AI-enabled materials development and smart manufacturing by applying for the EvoNexus MarketLink Program by March 12.

About EMD Electronics

EMD Electronics is the North American electronics business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. EMD Electronics' portfolio covers a broad range of products and solutions, including high-tech materials and solutions for the semiconductor industry as well as liquid crystals and OLED materials for displays and effect pigments for coatings and cosmetics. Today, EMD Electronics has approximately 2,000 employees around the country with regional offices in Tempe (AZ) and Philadelphia (PA). For more information, please visit www.emd-electronics.com.

About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and electronics. Around 58,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people's lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2020, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of € 17.5 billion in 66 countries.

The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark "Merck" internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics. Since its founding 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company's technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company.

• Read more about EMD Performance Materials announces further investments of electronics business and new name: EMD Electronics