Tag Archives: Clean Rooms

MAY 27, 2009 — ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — The Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST) has announced its new officers for the one-year term beginning July 1, 2009.

Michael Rataj moves from the position of President-elect to IEST President. Rataj has been involved in the contamination control industry for 12 years since taking over as QA Manager for Aramark’s Chicago cleanroom plant. Rataj holds an MS in biology from the University of Illinois and an MBA in operations management from the Illinois Institute of Technology Stuart School of Business. He has served as IEST Membership Vice President and is chair of Contamination Control (CC) Working Groups (WG) CC003 and CC023.

New officers are: Matthew Smyers, Fiscal Vice President and Carl Moran, Education Vice President (Design, Test, and Evaluation/Product Reliability).

R. Vijayakumar moves to the role of President-elect. A Senior Member of IEST, R. Vijyakumar has served as IEST Fiscal Vice President and chair of Contamination Control (CC) WG-001, 002, and 034.R. He has managed and successfully led departments and divisions of companies in various technical and business aspects of the contamination control industry for more than 25 years. Vijay is now president of Aerfil and holds an MS and a PhD, both in mechanical engineering, from the University of Minnesota.

Matthew Smyers is Vice Chair of IEST CC WG-006 and a voting member of CC WG-001, 002, 007, 013, 034, 036, and 200. He is the training and safety manager for Technical Safety Services (TSS). While working as a cleanroom testing technician for the past decade, Smyers has also been a gaffer, lighting scenes in movies and commercials.

Carl Moran is a voting member of Design, Test, and Evaluation (DTE) WG-009 and an observer in DTE WG-033. He started working for W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. to aid in the start-up of their new Microwave Transmission product line. Moran has since developed Gore’s test lab, which has grown to service the company across divisions. Currently Gore’s test lab leader, Moran is heavily involved with aerospace testing and has worked on qualification programs from the Cassini satellite mission to Saturn to the Mars Rovers, including GPS, radio, and television satellites, as well as the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the James Web Space Telescope.

Remaining on the Executive Board are Roger Diener, Education Vice President (Contamination Control); Greg Winn, Membership Vice President; Christine Peterson, Technical Vice President (Design, Test, and Evaluation/Product Reliability); Gary Knoth, re-elected as Technical Vice President (Contamination Control); and Charles W. Berndt, moving to the role of Immediate Past President; R. Vijayakumar moving to the role of President-elect; and Roberta Burrows, Executive Director.

Founded in 1953, IEST is an international not-for-profit technical society of engineers, scientists, and educators that serves its members and the industries they represent (simulating, testing, controlling, and teaching the environments of earth and space) through education and the development of recommended practices and standards.

IEST is an ANSI-accredited standards-developing organization; Secretariat of ISO/TC 209 Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments; Administrator of the ANSI-accredited US TAG to ISO/TC 209; and a founding member of the ANSI-accredited US TAG to ISO/TC 229 Nanotechnologies.
More information about IEST can be found at www.iest.org.

MAY 27, 2009 — FRANKFURT AM MAIN — In a press announcement directed to member countries of the European Union (EU), Thilo Brodtmann, Vice Executive Director of the German Engineering Federation, (VDMA) notes that technological innovations in the machinery industry, and thus the competitiveness of the engineering sector as a whole increasingly depend on the application of intelligent electronics. Especially the access to customer specific microchips could be threatened with a vanishing European semiconductor industry. “Up to now this latent danger has not yet been perceived as such by most of our industry players, but in the long run it could become an Achilles’ heel. This must be avoided”, says Brodtmann.

From intelligent hydraulic components to machine controlling and up to entire production flows in factory logistics

MAY 27, 2009 — MUNICH, GERMANY — Oerlikon Solar, leading supplier of thin film silicon photovoltaic (PV) production equipment has achieved a new record efficiency level for commercial thin film silicon PV modules. Recent test results from Oerlikon Solar’s pilot production line in Switzerland show that full-size Micromorph modules (1.4 m2) have 151 Watts initial power, or 11 percent initial power conversion efficiency. This result sets a new industry record for production thin film silicon modules. Oerlikon Solar was able to consistently reproduce modules with similar record results, demonstrating a stable and scalable process.

“This achievement clearly demonstrates Oerlikon Solar’s technical leadership and is another key milestone on our path to grid parity”, stated Jeannine Sargent, CEO of Oerlikon Solar. Oerlikon Solar has previously announced an ambitious production cost target of USD 0.70 per Watt peak and is on track to achieve this target by end of 2010. Increased module efficiency and power are key contributors to this goal.

The excellent performance of the record modules demonstrates the advantage of Oerlikon Solar’s end to end manufacturing solution. Oerlikon Solar’s advanced PV technologies and process integration know-how result in an optimized manufacturing solution that is able to achieve higher conversion efficiencies and lower cost of ownership. An example of this technology optimization is Oerlikon Solar’s integration of a proprietary process to deposit high-quality transparent conducting oxide (TCO) on the front and back surfaces of the active thin film silicon junction. This TCO is engineered to optimize the performance of the Micromorph technology by improving light transmittance and light scattering, resulting in maximum efficiency and electricity output.

Success through best in class technology Oerlikon Solar is the world leader in silicon-based thin film solar technology and end-to-end manufacturing solutions with 10 established customers in operation or ramp up worldwide representing 600 MWp of yearly production capacity, enough to power 480,000 households. This record panel is the latest result of this ongoing development program and reinforces Oerlikon Solar’s role as a technology and market leader.

Oerlikon Solar’s end-to-end solution as key enabler “We successfully implemented several modifications of key processes of our end-to-end production line, leading to the increase in initial power output and efficiency”, emphasized Dr. Juerg Henz, Head of Thin Film Engineering and Operations at Oerlikon Solar. “We are confident that our ability to repeatedly achieve record results can be transferred into mass production soon.”

Low Cost, High Performance Technology
Oerlikon Solar’s IEC certified Micromorph® technology significantly boosts solar cell efficiency by adding a second microcrystalline absorber to the amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer. This layer converts the energy of the red and near-infrared spectrum, facilitating efficiency increases of up to 50 percent. The Micromorph technology also bolsters overall module power, enabling a growing number of PV module manufacturers around the globe to produce cost-effective highperformance thin film silicon solar modules.

More information can be obtained at:
Oerlikon Solar Ltd.,
Trubbach
Hauptstrasse 1a
9477 Trubbach
SWITZERLAND