TNO Semicon Event 2026: Building bridges to reach Moore

Dr. Hamed Sadeghian is a Dutch deep-tech entrepreneur and innovator in semiconductor industry. He has invented and commercialized several precision measurement systems that are now used as in-line process control solutions by leading semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.

In 2016 he founded Nearfield Instruments, where he now serves as CEO and CTO. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a small startup into a global scale-up, raising over €250 million from internationally recognized top-tier investors
Earlier in his career he founded Jahesh Poulad Co. (2001), a mechanical equipment manufacturer that he successfully exited in 2006. He earned his PhD (cum laude) from TU Delft and an MBA from Vlerick Business School, and has served as Principal Scientist and Director of NOMI at TNO.

Dr. Sadeghian is a Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering, was named Leading Tech Entrepreneur of the Year 2025, and is the inventor of more than 80 patents and author of over 100 scientific publications in precision engineering, nanotechnology, and semiconductor process metrology.

Johan joined SMART Photonics as CEO in 2019, after having served on their Advisory Board for about 3 years. At SMART, he has raised € 150M with his team to grow SMART Photonics to become a globally leading foundry in the integrated photonics industry.

Johan is currently part of the Semicon Board NL, chairing a European focus group of 8 CEO’s and part the 10 Tech Champions, representing the Dutch National Technology Strategy.

Before SMART, Johan co-founded Liquavista in 2006 and is co-inventor of electrowetting displays. At Liquavista, he had a broad set of roles, ranging from CEO, to CTO and Director Program Management. Together with his team, he raised four rounds of venture capital for Liquavista and sold the company twice, in both cases to Fortune 500 companies (Samsung Electronics and Amazon.com). Johan is also serving as an advisor and/or supervisory board member for a number of start-ups and scale-ups.

Johan received his PhD in Solid State Physics from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands in 1997.

Junichi Tanaka is the Senior Chief Strategist at Hitachi High Tech Europe and holds a Doctoral degree in Engineering. His career has centered on advancing the monitoring and control of semiconductor fabrication processes, from developing plasma simulators and etcher monitoring tools to pioneering plasma spectral CT for analyzing in chamber plasma distributions and introducing FTIR based diagnostics for stabilizing plasma processes. These efforts deepened the understanding of plasma etching and led him to implement fab wide APC systems driven by CD SEM based feedback control, earning the Semicon Japan Technology Symposium Award in 2008.

Today, his work focuses on next generation metrology and inspection technologies, including time domain laser and electron beam techniques. He emphasizes the need for higher resolution CD SEM as semiconductor processes continue to scale, while driving innovations to enhance in line metrology performance and introduce new inspection modalities.