Sven Pekelder MSc

Vacuum systems specialist | Trainer at High Tech Institute | CTO, Settels Savenije

Sven Pekelder MSc is a mechanical engineer and system architect with almost three decades of experience developing high-tech equipment for the semiconductor, analytics, display and textile industries. He is CTO and co-owner of Settels Savenije in Eindhoven, an engineering firm serving OEMs in precision technology and semiconductor manufacturing, and a trainer at High Tech Institute as part of the Mechatronics Academy, where he has taught vacuum design principles since 2009.

Pekelder is an inventor on more than eleven granted US patents covering thermal conditioning systems for EUV lithography, OLED vapor-jet deposition nozzles and optical rotation-angle measurement. Through Settels Savenije his work spans cleanroom-grade precision engineering and EUV source thermal and gas infrastructure. In 2016 Settels Savenije and High Tech Institute co-published Vacuum Science and Technology, the English-language edition of the Dutch standard reference work on vacuum technology originally released by the Dutch Vacuum Society.

Pekelder studied mechanical engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), graduating in 1996. He began his career as a mechanical designer at Development agency CATS, where he worked from 1997 to 2003, followed by a period as a process and equipment engineer at Vlisco in Helmond. In 2004 he joined Settels Savenije, where he built his expertise in vacuum systems and thermal flow conditioning, progressing to system architect and ultimately CTO. His work there brought him into the full chain of high-tech equipment development: gas and fluid infrastructure for EUV lithography, thermal conditioning systems for OLED deposition, and vacuum-compatible mechatronic subsystems for electron microscopes and analytical instruments.

The central challenge Pekelder addresses in his teaching is one that catches designers off guard: vacuum has no reference in daily life. Every instinct an engineer develops working in atmospheric conditions — how materials behave, how gases flow, how surfaces interact — needs to be rebuilt from scratch for a vacuum environment. A lubricant that works perfectly at atmospheric pressure outgasses and contaminates the system under high vacuum. A joining technique that seems clean at room conditions introduces microscopic leaks that defeat the entire vacuum budget. A material choice made early in the design phase, before anyone considered ultra-clean requirements, can force an expensive redesign months later when qualification testing reveals contamination. The whole chain from design through machining, cleaning and assembly is, in Pekelder’s framing, only as strong as its weakest link — and in vacuum systems, that weakest link is almost always a decision made by someone who did not yet understand vacuum.

What makes the training distinctive is that it covers the entire vacuum engineering chain rather than isolating any single aspect. Pekelder’s approach to engineering is shaped by the Settels Savenije philosophy that technical success starts with understanding the physics before engineering the solution. That conviction runs through how he teaches: before participants learn which pump to select or which seal to specify, they understand why vacuum behaves as it does and what the physics of that environment actually demands of a design.

At High Tech Institute, Sven Pekelder teaches:

• Basics and Design Principles for Ultra-Clean Vacuum (UCV) – a four-day program covering vacuum fundamentals, gas flow, pump selection, pressure measurement, materials and joining, vacuum seals, mechatronic systems in vacuum, design for qualification and vacuum budgeting, with a full workshop day on real design cases.

What distinguishes his teaching is that every topic in the curriculum — from gas flow regimes to leak testing to vacuum budgeting — is presented by trainers who encounter the same challenges daily in active high-tech equipment projects, making the training a direct transfer of current industrial practice rather than a survey of established theory.

Sven Pekelder MSc is CTO and co-owner of Settels Savenije in Eindhoven and a trainer at High Tech Institute, where he has taught vacuum design principles since 2009. He holds a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology (1996) and is an inventor on more than eleven granted US patents in the fields of EUV lithography, OLED deposition and optical measurement.