Alum brings Taiwan‑based business to UA Center for Innovation
From left, Casey Carrillo, executive director of the University of Arizona Center for Innovation, U of A alumnus Tony Yang, and Yang's mother and brother pose for a photo in Tucson. Yang's family owns and operates Taiwan-based precision manufacturer Jiann Sheng Machinery & Electric Industrial, which joined the UACI incubator program in March.
With the arrival of a Taiwan-based manufacturer at the University of Arizona Center for Innovation (UACI), Wildcats will soon have opportunities for hands-on education in ultra-precision cutting applications and market analysis critical to semiconductor manufacturing, optical research, astronomy and other space sciences.
Jiann Sheng Machinery & Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (JSEDM) joined the UACI incubator program in March 2026, a connection that began when Tony Yang, the company's research and development manager and a 2014 Wildcat graduate in materials science and engineering, spotted the name of one of his former U of A professors on a delegation list for an Arizona Commerce Authority trade mission to Taiwan in 2025.
Based in Taichung, JSEDM has more than 40 years of experience in precision manufacturing, using electrically conductive wire to cut metal to micron-level accuracy: measurements about a hundred times finer than the diameter of a human hair. The technology has applications spanning aerospace and defense components, medical devices, and consumer products.
In recent years, JSEDM has expanded into diamond wire saw equipment, cutting harder, more brittle materials like the silicon carbide essential in semiconductor manufacturing. That same technology applies to the etching processes used in chip fabrication and high-performance optical glass and ceramics, with applications from smartphones to biomedical imaging systems. JSEDM's Wire-Cut EDM expertise has also found emerging applications in silicon carbide aluminum composites used in thermal management for high-performance computer processors.
With the U of A ranked No. 2 nationally in astronomy and astrophysics research expenditures, and No. 6 for NASA-funded activity among public universities (per National Science Foundation), UACI offered an ideal entry point for JSEDM to launch its diamond wire equipment in the U.S. market. Pima County Economic Development is sponsoring JSEDM's first six months in the program, seeing in the investment an opportunity to strengthen Southern Arizona's role in the global semiconductor supply chain.
Yang's vision for the Tucson operation reflects one dimension of JSEDM's established approach in Taiwan, where university partnerships have sharpened the company's products.
"We already cooperate with numerous local universities for our diamond wire cutting technology," Yang said. "That has been really successful because it's helped us improve product performance and also get a better understanding of what our customers need."