Back in 2005, I sat in on a great keynote speech by Brian Halla, CEO and President of National Semiconductor, who talked about the lack of U.S. competitiveness in science and technology. Halla tells the story of the rallying cry among Americans that followed Russia’s launch of Sputnick satellite in 1957, and  the U.S. response with the subsequent voyage to and landing of a man on the moon in 1969. He said the entire nation was behind that feat and a similar effort is required in modern times to revitalize science and technology in the U.S.

July 20, 1969, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin stands beside a solar wind...Read More

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Welcome to the debut of my very own blog, the Float Zone. Float zone wafers first came about in the 1960’s as a manufacturing method for fabricating very pure silicon. In the process, a polysilicon rod with a seed crystal at the bottom is held in vertical position. A small zone is kept molten by and is moved upward so the floating zone traverses the length of the rod. Impurities coalesce in the molten region rather than the solidified region, allowing very pure silicon crystal fabrication after the molten region has passed. But this growth technique has been surpassed by the cheaper alternative, Czochraski growing, for most applications. However, float zone wafers have a key niche due to their high resistivity, very low defectivity and low oxygen content, making them ideally suited for power devices, some high efficiency solar cells and RF/wireles...Read More

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