Esther Tseng　/　photos Jimmy Lin　/　tr. by Jonathan Barnard

March 2021

A grinding wheel—or “sand wheel” in Chinese—is neither a wheel made from sand nor a big-wheeled steamship that transports sand, but rather a tool that grinds or cuts a variety of materials such as plastic, wood, and steel. And Kinik Company (formerly China Grinding Wheel Corp.) is not a state-owned enterprise of Taiwan or of mainland China, but rather a privately owned company with a traditional manu­facturing background, based in Yingge, New Taipei City.

Kinik, Taiwan’s “grinding king,” has continued to focus on its core strength of grinding. The company manu­factures a range of 100,000 different grinding and cutting wheels, from huge ones 1.55 meters in dia­meter that grind ship crankshafts, to extremely thin ones only 0.03 millimeters thick, used to slice nano-­wafers. In recent years Kinik has leveraged its expertise in high-speed grinding to move into products for the semi­conductor industry, thus expanding into international markets. It ranks second by global market share in both diamond CMP pad conditioners and reclaimed wafers.