Examples of Social Contribution Activities

U.S.A. (AAI): Trail Build at Coyote Ridge Open Space Preserve

Advantest employees partnered with Open Space Authority to build a new hiking trail segment at Coyote Ridge Open Space Preserve in California. The Coyote Ridge Open Space Preserve provides critical habitat for endangered plants and animals such as the Western burrowing owls, golden eagles, and many more. Under the direction of the Open Space Authority field staff and with the support of expert Trail Master volunteers, the employees used hand tools to create nearly 850 feet (approximately 260 meters) of a new hiking trail; ultimately, contributing to the preservation of nature.

China (ATC): Bamboo Forest Conservation Activity

Advantest cooperated with Zhejiang Future Smile Charitable Foundation in carrying out bamboo forest conservation activities at Longwang Village, Anji. While bamboo forests have a huge carbon sequestration capacity, if bamboos over a certain age (usually more than six years) is not maintained and harvested, it is said to affect the growth of other bamboos and plants. The employees learned and identified aged bamboo and worked together to harvest them. They also reinforced and maintained the mountain paths with the harvested bamboos, contributing to reducing the risk of forest fires.

Singapore (ASP): Tree Planting Activity

Advantest held a collaborative tree planting event with local Nanyang Technological University (NTU) at the campus’s vicinity. This event is aligned with Singapore National Park’s One Million Trees movement which is a key component of Singapore’s conservation plans, as an effort to transform Singapore into a City in Nature by 2030. A total of 100 participants, including Advantest colleagues, Singapore National Parks team, NTU leadership, staff, and students, gathered for the event. ASP was the corporate sponsor donating 100 trees (SGD15,000 equivalent) for the event.

U.S.A. (AAI): Housing Project

Advantest employees, their families and friends volunteered with Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley (EBSV) at Habitat for Humanity’s Esperanza Place location. This activity aims to build stronger communities by empowering families through affordable housing solutions. The employees, together with future homeowners and other volunteers helped various tasks including installation of a sub-floor, insulating doors, and others.

Japan: School Meal Support for Developing Countries

In Advantest, we participate in the TABLE FOR TWO (TFT) program (a global meal-sharing initiative where one school meal is donated to a developing country for every healthy menu item or beverage purchased in developed countries) as one of our SDGs activities. For every set meal and beverage purchased by an employee at a cafeteria or kiosk at a business site in Japan, 20 yen will be donated. In FY2022, we were able to donate a total of 200,040 yen to TABLE FOR TWO International, a non-profit organization.

Singapore (ASP): Soup Kitchen

Advantest’s employees participated in a non-affiliated charity Willing Heart’s (an activity where meals are provided for free to the needy) Soup Kitchen and helped in cutting vegetables and distributing food. Willing Heart’s kitchen operates 365 days a year, that prepares, cooks, and distributes approximate 11,000 daily meals to the needy in Singapore. Advantest has been actively participating this event for years.

Japan: Development of Semiconductor Human Resources

In the early 2010s, the Japanese semiconductor industry was in decline due to a long period of stagnant performance. Students were being discouraged from undertaking electronics and engineering studies and finding employment in semiconductor-related companies. Facing this reality, Advantest realized that unless we could build a foundation and acquire human capital for the continued growth of the semiconductor industry, it would be difficult for us to sustain our own growth. That aim drives our support for the Power Device Enabling Association (PDEA), which was established in 2012 in anticipation of growing demand for power devices*, from the conceptual stage, and we have been working with car manufacturers, electronic device manufacturers, semiconductor manufactures, and public organizations under the auspices of the PDEA over the past 10 years.

When the PDEA launched its “Semiconductor Engineer Career Certification” in 2014, we published “Measuring × Understanding Semiconductor,” a series of three textbooks that enables comprehensive study of semiconductor fundamentals, development, manufacturing, testing, and quality assurance, to support people preparing for this examination. Although these materials were mainly aimed at engineers involved in semiconductor design, manufacturing, testing, quality assurance, in recent years, demand from learners in their 20s and 30s is increasing on account of changes in the semiconductor industry environment. The textbooks have also been adopted in special curricula at technical high schools and technical colleges in Kumamoto Prefecture, as well as in the education of new employees at major device manufacturers. Furthermore, these educational materials may enjoy even wider adoption in future, as evidenced by the joint seminars held using “Measuring × Understanding Semiconductor” in cooperation with affiliated organizations such as SEMI Japan, Kitakyushu Foundation for the Advancement of Industry, Science and Technology (FAIS), and Oita LSI Cluster Promotion Council.

Advantest will continue to focus on developing future talent with the aim of continuously developing and building a foundation for the semiconductor industry.

* Power devices: Also called power semiconductors, used in power converters like inverters. In recent years, these semiconductors have been attracting more and more attention amid increasing interest in environmental technologies such as energy conservation and low power consumption.

Japan: Implemented IP Creation Education

The Japanese government has proposed an IP creation education^* to enhance society by having children and students understand and enjoy "creating something new" and "respecting what has been created". Schools and communities need to work together to create educational materials in order to promote IP creation education with consideration for their development stage.
Advantest has held classes and workshops based on the concept of invention and great inventions in the history of Japan for elementary school students from 2021. The children learned that people's lives have been enriched by inventions, garnering positive feedback from their schools. We will continue our activities so that more children can receive IP creation education.

*: For details of IP creation education, please refer to the materials on IP creation education of the Cabinet Office.

• https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/titeki2/tizaikyouiku/pdf/s-1.pdf

Japan: Held Science Craft Classes and Nature Observation Event

We conduct various educational support activities in the areas where our offices are located, with the aim of supporting the education of schoolchildren who are future leaders of our society and contributing to local communities. In FY2022, while taking measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, our employees taught elementary school students in the vicinity of Advantest Gunma R&D Center how to make a mechanical kitchen timer whose parts are mostly made of wood. In addition, we held science craft classes such as speaker making at elementary schools in Gunma and Miyagi prefectures where our business sites are located. We also held a nature observation event for local elementary school students at the Gunma R&D Center biotope, one of the largest company owned biotopes in Japan, as an opportunity to learn about biodiversity.

Japan: 25,000 Sheets of Recycled Paper Donated to Local Elementary Schools

Advantest Gunma R&D Center has installed a dry process office recycle machine, which processes discarded copy paper into recycled paper. We also made notebooks from these recycled paper and distributed them to local elementary school students who visit our biotope and to students and teachers at special needs schools who visited our company as souvenirs. In FY2022, we donated 25,000 sheets of recycled paper to a local elementary school.

Japan: Usage of The Interactive Digital Globe

We have installed an interactive globe at Advantest's Gunma R&D Center, displaying real-time Earth data, for use in environmental education for children who, we believe, are the generations that will bear the responsibility of shaping the world's future, our employees, and our stakeholders. This tool not only allows us to learn about global atmospheric temperature changes, but also about the past, present, and future of the Earth.
In FY2022, this globe was also set up in the ESG corner of our booth at SEMICON Japan, a premier international exhibition offering latest insights into semiconductor manufacturing equipment and materials. It was well received by our visitors and provided an opportunity to discuss various social issues such as climate change. Likewise, we used the globe for environmental learning during the training of new employees in FY2023, following on from FY2022. We will continue to make effective use of this tool for environmental learning for a wide range of our stakeholders.

Japan: Advantest Participates in Edu Town SDGs Alliance

In addition to science classes for elementary school students, Advantest has also participated in the "EduTown SDGs Alliance" (produced by Nikkei Business Publications and TREE / operated by Tokyo Shoseki) project since fiscal 2021, which provides education on the SDGs to elementary and junior high school students.
The "EduTown SDGs Alliance" is a project that supports the development of creators of a sustainable society, and has created and operates the educational website "EduTown SDGs" as well as freely distributes supplementary materials (booklet).

• Advantest’s page on the EduTown SDGs website
• Advantest’s page on the EduTown Ashitane website

China: Developing Human Capital for Semiconductor Test

Under the theme of "Social Contribution", Advantest (China) Co., Ltd. continuously strengthen the collaboration with universities and research institutes to develop talents for IC industry, especially on their IC test knowledge, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic and also in the post pandemic era.

In 2022, our engineers, together with our partners (from universities, research institutes, and private companies), carried out IC test trainings online 3 times, covering more than 90 trainees. Also, we developed a new partnership with a university and opened "CloudTesting™ Service based IC test fundamental" class.

In 2023, we visited several universities and invited the professors to our office to discuss new collaboration opportunities. As of May 2023, we opened IC test classes in 3 universities for more than 60 students. We also have a busy worklist for near future; prepare seminar with professors focusing on IC test class setup in universities, develop more partner universities and look for various collaboration models.

Global: Developing human resources for semiconductors with global industry-academic collaboration

In 2007, Advantest established the Advantest D2T Research Division within the campus of VDEC (the VLSI Design, Education, and Research Center at the University of Tokyo). The Systems Design Lab (d.lab), affiliated with the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, was established in 2019 as a result of reorganization of VDEC, and together with Advantest, it is currently conducting joint research and educational activities aimed at bridging the gap between "design" and "testing".

In June 2023, Advantest established a test engineering course at Arizona State University in collaboration with NXP Semiconductors, a world-class semiconductor manufacturer based in Arizona, USA. Arizona has a significant concentration of semiconductor industry, with many semiconductor manufacturers investing to establish their production bases and wafer-fabs within the state . With Arizona's burgeoning semiconductor industry driving the demand for test engineers, we are aiming to develop semiconductor test personnel with local roots so as to meet these expectations.

Malaysia (AMY & ASM): COVID-19 Humanitarian Give Back Society

Through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, Advantest has donated RM20,000 to the CovidCareMy 3.0 Covid-19 Response Fund, an immediate crisis response initiative launched by the Malaysian non-profit organization Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas (DHRRA). The contribution will go towards supporting families across Malaysia whose livelihoods have been impacted by the pandemic. Also, we contributed emergency aid baskets worth RM150 comprising groceries, food items, face masks and sanitizers to DHRRA Malaysia.

Malaysia (AMY & ASM): Contribution to The National Autism Society of Malaysia

Advantest decided to give contribution-in-kind to help to meet the needs of the people living with autism and donated stationeries, bookshelves and fans to the National Autism Society of Malaysia (NASOM). We also donated goodies bags using cash collections at approximately RM 2,000 (approximately 60,000 yen/470USD) from our employees containing a variety of toys, snacks, beverages, stationeries, and home accessories. Moreover, environmentally friendly bags made from 80% recycled from plastic bottles were used to pack these items.

Korea (ATK): Donation of Fixed-asset Disposal Profits

Advantest donated fixed-asset disposal profits of 2,474,800 KRW, raised by selling steel waste, to Cheonan City Welfare Foundation. Retired 10 devices of 4-year-old laptops were contributed to our local community and were delivered to people in need such as local students.

Germany (AEG): Donated Laptops to Ukraine Refugees

After the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022 many women, children and older people fled to Germany with only few belongings and no money. AEG management and members chose to help and support these very unfortunate refugees, and provided used laptops to Freundeskreis Degerloch, an organization that helps refugees. Upon receival, the refuges were not only able to access schooling material and but also empowered them to prepare diverse applications (job, recognition of qualifications, flat etc.) they need to submit.