The UltraFacility Awards 2026 | Innovation Award shortlist announced
UltraFacility 2026 · Glendale, AZ · 16-18 September

The UltraFacility
Awards 2026

Recognizing the work that moved the industry forward.

Six awards, decided by the 850+ engineers, end users and supply chain experts in the room.

Read the shortlist Register for UltraFacility 2026
Shortlist announced 9 September. Delegates vote, and the winner is announced 18 September.
The awards

The industry's best work, chosen by the industry

UltraFacility exists so the people who design, build and run semiconductor facilities can learn from each other. The awards are part of that: a spotlight on the projects, innovations, presentations and research that gave the industry the most this year. No panel of judges and no organiser's pick, the delegates decide every one of them.

  • Six awards The Innovation Award, three Best Presentation Awards (one per programme strand), Best Poster, and the 12 Tech Winner.
  • Decided by delegates Nominations come from across the industry and the shortlist goes to a vote of the people in the room, not a judging panel.
  • Trophies on the main stage Winners collect at the Awards Ceremony, first thing on Day 2, in front of the full conference.
Happening now · Innovation Award

The 2026 Innovation Award shortlist

The Innovation Award goes to the technology or approach that changes what is possible for facility teams. Nominations closed 19 August, and the Technical Advisory Committee shortlisted these three. Open any entry for the full detail: what was built, the two innovations behind it, and the results. Entries are listed alphabetically by company, not in order of preference.

BlueNexus Technologies

Waterhaus: a factory-built, self-operating reuse plant

Foxconn precision-electronics campus, Lankao

A modular UF+RO plant that converts secondary municipal effluent into demineralised process water and runs without permanent operators on site. It was prefabricated off site and commissioned turnkey in 15 days, and reclaimed water is now the campus's primary supply.

  • 5,000 m³/day rated capacity
  • 15-day turnkey commissioning
  • Unmanned AI operation
BlueNexus Technologies

Foxconn precision-electronics campus, Lankao

BlueNexus delivered a modular UF+RO plant that converts secondary municipal effluent into demineralised process water and runs without permanent on-site operators. It combines two innovations in a single facility: off-site modular manufacturing, and AI-driven autonomous operation.

Innovation

Off-site modular delivery

Prefabricated rather than built on site, the plant was commissioned turnkey in 15 days on a 370 m² footprint, cutting both land use and delivery time by roughly 90% against conventional on-site construction.

Innovation

Autonomous AI operation

Waterhaus runs unmanned under BlueNexus's AquaX Robot AI Agent, which senses, decides and acts without human input. The agent has a track record beyond Lankao: at the Longting plant in Wuxi it has run a fully autonomous reclamation plant supplying PCB manufacturers for over a year, earning a repeat order that doubled capacity to 10,000 m³/day.

Across its deployments BlueNexus reports a cut of around 50% in equipment-failure rate, 30% in power, 15% in chemical use and 35% in operating cost, on a service-centre model where ten people run five plants.

Results
5,000 m³/dayRated capacity
15 daysTurnkey commissioning, on a 370 m² footprint
1.05m m³Supplied in year one
$420,000/yrSaved, and over 1m m³ of freshwater avoided

Reclaimed water met 100% of manufacturing water demand and around 90% of total site consumption in year one, making it the campus's primary supply.

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Elemental Scientific

Inline preconcentration for ultra-trace metal monitoring

Scout PPQ, for IPA and UPW at point of supply and point of process

Conventional online monitoring bottoms out in the sub-parts-per-trillion range, which is no longer enough at 2 nm and beyond. This system sits upstream of the ICP-MS analyzer and pushes detection down to 0.02 parts per quadrillion, paired with models that link impurity trends to downstream defects.

  • 0.02 ppq detection limit
  • 10,000x enrichment factor
  • IPA, UPW, H2O2 and TMAH
Elemental Scientific

Scout PPQ, for IPA and UPW at point of supply and point of process

Conventional online monitoring relies on remote sampling feeding a central ICP-MS analyzer, and its sensitivity bottoms out in the sub-parts-per-trillion range. As fabs move to 2 nm nodes and beyond, that is no longer enough. Elemental Scientific's system pairs inline chemical preconcentration with AI-driven defect correlation.

Innovation

Inline preconcentration

Placed upstream of the ICP-MS analyzer, the system concentrates target metals before analysis, reaching enrichment factors up to 10,000x and pushing detection limits down to 0.02 parts per quadrillion.

That meets or exceeds emerging IRDS specifications, including IPA limits of 0.07 ppt at Point of Supply and 0.007 ppt at Point of Process, and it extends to H2O2 and TMAH.

Innovation

AI-driven monitoring

Delivered as the Scout PPQ system for continuous verification of IPA and UPW purity at multiple critical points in a fab, the measurement is paired with machine-learning models that correlate impurity fluctuations with downstream defect signatures, detecting trends and predicting process excursions before they affect wafer yield.

Results
0.02 ppqMetallic-impurity detection limit
10,000xEnrichment factor ahead of analysis

Detection at 0.02 ppq sits well beyond the sub-ppt limit of conventional direct ICP-MS analysis.

Vote now
Intel, with Seeq

Watchlight: agentic-AI anomaly detection and auto-triage

Ultrapure water facilities, Intel Ireland campus, online 2026

An AI-first analytics solution monitoring UPW facilities without adding headcount. When an anomaly triggers, AI agents complete a first-pass triage from documentation, event history and trend data, and for pre-approved scenarios they generate and trigger the work order themselves.

  • Agentic-AI first-pass triage
  • Closed-loop work orders
  • Thousands of engineering hours saved
Intel, with Seeq

Ultrapure water facilities, Intel Ireland campus, online 2026

Watchlight is an AI-first analytics solution, built on Seeq's analytics, that monitors ultrapure water facilities, detects anomalies and acts on them with minimal human effort. It targets a hard constraint: increasing operational capacity and uptime without adding headcount or resource consumption.

Innovation

Agentic-AI auto-triage

When an anomaly triggers, AI agents automatically search company documentation, past event history and time-series trends to complete a first-pass triage, surfacing the likely causes and recommended next steps for the facilities team. It collapses the time from detection to action and removes hours of redundant investigation and document searching.

Innovation

Closed-loop automation

For scenarios that have been pre-approved, the system goes a step further and automatically generates and triggers the work order that implements the fix, closing the loop from detection through to resolution without manual intervention.

Results

The solution expands what a UPW monitoring team can cover through agentic AI, saving thousands of engineering hours in investigation and work-order generation while improving uptime and reliability and lowering cost and resource use. Impact is still being quantified as the deployment matures.

Vote now

Who selected the shortlist Every nomination was reviewed by our independent Technical Advisory Committee: facility engineers from Intel, TSMC Arizona, GlobalFoundries, Texas Instruments, Samsung Austin Semiconductor and across the supply chain. Meet the committee →

Delegate vote

The delegates decide

One award, three entries, one vote each.

The Innovation Award is not decided by a panel. The Technical Advisory Committee narrows the field, then the engineers, end users and supply chain experts at UltraFacility 2026 choose the winner between them.

Vote now
Voting opens shortly The ballot link will be published here and sent to registered delegates.
Register for UltraFacility 2026
  • Who votes Registered UltraFacility 2026 delegates. One vote each, across the three shortlisted entries.
  • How A single ballot form, linked from this page. It takes a minute, and the three entries above are all the reading you need.
  • Result Announced live at the Awards Ceremony on the main stage, the morning of Friday 18 September.
Key dates

What happens next

  1. Closed
    19 Aug

    Nominations

    Nominations for the Innovation Award closed 19 August. Thank you to everyone who put work forward.

  2. 9 Sep

    Shortlist publishedLive now

    Three entries selected by the Technical Advisory Committee, published in full on this page.

  3. September

    Delegate voteVoting open

    Delegates read the three entries and cast one vote each through the ballot form.

  4. 18 Sep
    morning

    Awards CeremonyToday

    The Innovation Award winner and the Best Poster winner collect their trophies on the main stage, first thing on Day 2.

  5. From
    21 Sep

    Best Presentation voteVoting open

    All delegates rate the 2026 presentations in the post-conference survey. Three winners, one per strand.

Day 2 · Main stage · Before the roundtables

The Awards Ceremony

Friday 18 September, first thing. Main stage.

The ceremony opens Day 2, before the roundtable discussions, in front of the full conference. It is where the Innovation Award vote is settled: if you voted, this is where you find out how the rest of the room voted.

  • Announced on stage The Innovation Award winner, chosen by delegate vote from the three shortlisted entries.
  • Also announced The Best Poster winner, voted live by delegates during the conference, and the 12 Tech Winner from its session.
  • Back on stage The 2025 Best Presentation winners, returning this year to present their winning work.
Register for UltraFacility 2026
Five more awards

The other 2026 awards

Alongside the Innovation Award, five awards are decided by the people in the room: three Best Presentation Awards, one per programme strand, plus Best Poster and the 12 Tech Winner.

Speaker presenting technical results to delegates at UltraFacility 2025
Delegate-voted · One per strand

Best Presentation Awards

Three awards, one for the top-rated presentation in each strand of the 2026 program: Yield & Reliability, Operational & Sustainable Excellence, and Enabling Growth. All 50+ presentations are eligible.

Winning means your peers found your work the most useful thing they heard all conference. It also earns an invitation to present at UltraFacility 2027, where you collect your trophy on the main stage.

How to vote Post-conference feedback survey, live from Monday 21 September. One vote per strand.
View the 2026 technical programme
Delegates reading research posters in the UltraFacility exhibition hall
Delegate-voted · Live at the conference

Best Poster Award

The poster sessions bring academic and applied research onto the exhibition floor. Delegates choose the best poster of the 2026 program live, during the conference: a direct signal of the research the industry most wants to see continue.

How to vote Live and in person. Follow the QR codes around the venue or the announcements in the conference app. Voting runs 16-17 September, with the winner announced at the Day 2 ceremony.
How to enter Posters run through the standard abstract process.
Three-minute technology pitch during the 12 Technologies session at UltraFacility 2025
Audience-voted · Decided in session

12 Tech Winner

Twelve companies pitch in the "12 Technologies for Energy & Water Efficiency" session: three minutes each, then four minutes of moderated Q&A. The format rewards clarity, meaning the technology, the data, and direct answers to the room's questions.

How to vote Be in the room. Voting opens live at the end of the session and the winner is announced on the spot.
Want to pitch? Applications for the 2026 lineup have closed, but if you have a technology the industry should see, tell us. It puts you first in line for 2027.
Register your interest
Shortlist & voting

Frequently asked questions

Who is on the 2026 Innovation Award shortlist?

Three entries. BlueNexus Technologies, for the factory-built, self-operating Waterhaus reuse plant at Foxconn Lankao. Elemental Scientific, for inline preconcentration that takes ultra-trace metal detection to 0.02 parts per quadrillion. Intel, with Seeq, for Watchlight, agentic-AI anomaly detection and auto-triage across a UPW campus.

Read all three entries in full.

Who selected the shortlist?

Our independent Technical Advisory Committee reviewed every nomination received before the 19 August deadline and selected the three shortlisted entries, published 9 September.

Who can vote for the Innovation Award?

Registered UltraFacility 2026 delegates, one vote each. The ballot is linked from this page. The winner is announced at the Awards Ceremony on the morning of Friday 18 September.

Do I need to be at the conference to vote?

For Best Poster and the 12 Tech Winner, yes: voting is live and in person during the conference. Best Presentation voting is through the post-conference survey, sent to all delegates.

What do winners receive?

The UltraFacility trophy, presented on the main stage at the Day 2 Awards Ceremony.

The industry's best work, decided by the industry.

850+ facility professionals. 80+ end users. Engineers from Samsung, Intel, Micron, TSMC, and GlobalFoundries. Three innovations on the shortlist, and one winner announced on the main stage.

Winner announced 18 September, Glendale, Arizona

Register for UltraFacility 2026