Dear HARMST Friends, Thank you very much for your strong supports and participations in the 9th International Workshop on High Aspect Ratio Micro Structure Technology (HARMST 2011). This year we had ninety-three papers from 9 countries including Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and USA. Among them, 43 were presented in oral and 50 through posters.

The HARMST follows his traditional success to provide an international platform to collect and share the knowledge of up-to-date advancement of high aspect ratio micro and nano fabrication technologies and their applications. The topics include HARMST design, modeling, manufacturing, testing, and applications in this research field.

This year, the conference venue was selected in Hsinchu city, located in northern Taiwan. It is exact the city which plays the dominant role to enable the Taiwan economical miracle through the renowned Hsinchu Science Park, the so-called ‘Silicon Valley’ of Taiwan. In addition, we initiated the first trial of the industrial session in HARMST. We invited local industrial partners to have free talks with the academic people worldwide to bridge more communications and to see whether there are problems which can be solved through the cooperation between two sides.

Besides, we continued the good tradition of best student paper award competition with the best prize of the latest apple IPAD 2. This encouraged more than thirty student papers decided to participate in the competition. Furthermore, we initiated the first time the cross-countries activities in HARMST. We had one academic session day and a technical tour in Japan. We heartily appreciated the tremendous efforts and contributions from Prof. Yamasaki and University of Hyogo.

Furthermore, we arranged the visit to the Hsinchu Science Park (HSPA), the National Device Laboratories (NDL), Chip Implementation Center (CIC) and Taiwan Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) in Taiwan. At the banquet, you enjoyed the famous aboriginal Dancing and Chorus, and met a lot of our old and new friends. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed the HARMST 2011.

At the end, I needed to express my highest appreciation to all attendees, paper presenters, exhibitors, TPC members, organization committees, and sponsors as well as the conference staff. Without you, this HARMST 2011 special issue would not have been possible. Thank you very much and see you at the next HARMST in Berlin, 2013.

figure a

Dr. Chien-Chung Fu

HARMST’11 Chair and

Guest Editor of the HARMST’11 Special Issue

in Microsystem Technologies

figure b

Prof. Dr. Bernd Michel

Editor-in-Chief of the journal of Microsystem Technologies