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When two engineering faculty first came up with a better way to manufacture computer chips and optic devices at The University of Texas at Austin, a handful of laboratory staff shared their enthusiasm. Six years later, the high-tech startup company they founded in Austin has 80 staff and sales in the millions. And other companies are starting to listen to what Professors C. Grant Willson and S.V. Sreenivasan have to say about making smaller chips for less money. |
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Photo at left: Dr. S. V. Sreenivasan (left), a mechanical engineering professor and the Eli H. And Ramona Thornton Centennial Fellow, and Dr. C. Grant Willson (right) a chemical engineering professor, combined their expertise in nano-precision machines and microelectronic materials to invent a mechanically-driven approach to embossing tiny patterns on silicon chips used to run computers and energy-efficient LED devices. This step-and-flash lithography technique prints smaller structures than any of the camera-like machines in use today for the same purpose. |
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Photo at left: Dr. C. Grant Willson, the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair, holds a wafer that was patterned by step-and-flash lithography. It is used as a test structure for designing microprocessors. |
