More companies join Lab technology center
Three additional companies, for a total of six, have moved into the Tri-Valley
Technology Enterprise Center at the Laboratory.
As of earlier this month, Reactive NanoTechnologies (RNT), WaferFlow and
DIODETEC Inc. opened offices at TTEC’s facility, near the Lab pool.
RNT, headquartered in Baltimore, recently licensed technology from the
Lab. Company CEO, Timothy Weihs — a former LLNL scientist —
said his company will be working with LLNL for quite a while.
The Baltimore company has developed a new method of joining materials
that it claims will revolutionize the current processes of soldering and
brazing as well as open up new applications in the areas of metal-to-ceramic
joining and the fabrication of laminated magnetic materials.
Weihs said its reactive foil joining methods can help manufacturers overcome
current technical hurdles such as thermal mismatch in metal-to-ceramic
joints; thermal damage to microelectronics; long cycle times in furnaces;
and poor electrical conduction across joints.
DIODETEC is a manufacturer of solid state diode arrays used to power advanced
laser systems. The company recently licensed the Lab’s Silicon Monolithic
Microchannel-Cooled (SiMM) process to fabricate and package the diode
arrays.
DIODETEC, headquartered in New Kensington, Penn., recently opened an office
at TTEC.
"It’s a great service for a start-up," said Keng Leong,
chief technical officer for the company. "It’s very useful because
we spend so much time on site. We’ve been very pleased that we got
the office space."
Manufacturing Engineer Ryan Shaffer said it’s less expensive than
opening up a satellite office off-site because you don’t have the
initial start-up costs of buying office furniture and equipment all the
materials necessary to open an office.
"We don’t have to go out and buy copiers and computers,"
he said.
The third company, WaferFlow — started by four Tri Valley chip-manufacturing
veterans — is still in semi-stealth-mode, focusing its development
in the advanced semiconductor packaging market.
I’ve been glad that we’ve been able to attract this many companies
in such a short time,’’ says Michael LaLumiere, TTEC’s
executive director. "I’ve been at this just over six months
and so far, considering we’re in a technology recession, we’ve
done pretty well. I must admit, though, we’re primarily riding the
coattails of the licensing group at the Lab. They’ve been doing a
lot of deals so companies have just been naturally coming to us.’’
The first three private companies — ETARAN Instruments, SOX Systems
and NanoLogic — moved into TTEC in January.
TTEC was created to help promote the success of local start-ups, small
business and to act as a bridge between the local national laboratories
and the region’s technology community. The center provides business
services, facilities, training, and access to advisers and mentors in
areas such as business operations and management, technical specialties,
sales and marketing, financial, legal and banking.
In other TTEC news, Deepak Gupta — founder, senior vice president
and general manager of PeopleSoft’s eCenter — has joined the
TTEC Entrepreneurial Advisory Board. The board already includes: Brian
Peters, CEO of Blaze Network Products; Trung Dung, founder of OnDisplay
and CEO/founder of Fog-break Software; and Clyde Armstrong, CEO of Inovys.
The center also assists the Technology Commer-cialization and Transfer
Programs of Livermore and Sandia labs by promoting and supporting lab
commercialization efforts.
TTEC will continue its Entrepreneurial Seminar Series in June, July and
August with subjects ranging from creating business plans to term sheets
to accounting basics.
TTEC is a joint effort between the Tri-Valley Business Council, Livermore
and Sandia labs, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the City of Livermore,
the office of Rep. Ellen Tauscher and the Department of Energy.