April AMP_Digital
A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | A P R I L 2 0 1 9 2 6 *Member of ASM International I n 1963, the governor of Oregon and the co-founder of Oregon’s largest employ- er at the time combined their vision and created a unique, graduate-only sci- ence and engineering research university on the west side of greater Portland. The Oregon Graduate Center (OGC) for Re- search and Study in suburban Washing- ton County was the result, with Stanford physicist Donald Benedict as its first president. OGC would have a significant effect on metallurgy in the Northwest for the next four decades. Tektronix Corp. and Electro Scien- tific Industries (ESI) Inc., the two original microelectronic inhabitants of Oregon’s Silicon Forest, needed a local university to provide engineering talent and con- tinuing education to their employees. Further, they wanted something more than what was available from the ju- nior colleges and several four-year col- leges in greater Portland [1] . Howard Vollum, co-founder and chairman of Tektronix, and Governor Mark Hatfield used a $2 million grant from the Tek- tronix Foundation to hire Benedict and get the school underway. Several oth- er companies and federal agencies followed Tektronix’s lead and provid- ed funding throughout the 1960s. The Oregon legislature balked at Hatfield’s request for $1.5 million in funding from the state, and financial struggles dogged OGC throughout its 38-year existence. R.H. Thielemann, aPortland-based metallurgist for Martin Marietta Corp. and one of the original trustees of OGC, wanted to start OGC as a materials science and engineering (MS&E) cen- ter. However, Martin Marietta moved the equipment Thielemann intended to use for education and research to one of its eastern locations in March 1965. One month later, the trust- ees grabbed the vacated Martin Mar- ietta building with the help of $100K from the Tektronix Foundation and OGC had its first home. Erwin Rudy from the Vienna Institute of Technolo- gy and Aerojet-General Corp. was the first metallurgist hired in 1967 [2] . Benedict’s prima- ry achievement before heleftin1969wastoac- quire a wheat farm be- tween suburban Bea- verton and neighbor- ing Hillsboro that would become OGC’s permanent campus [3] . The first building on the new campus was the Materials Science Laboratory, beginning in 1968 [4] . Lynwood W. Swanson, a professor of applied physics and electrical engi- neering at OGC, co-founded the Field Electron and Ion Company in 1971 as an extension of his research in focused ion beams (FIB) and liquid metal ion sources (LMIS). The firm, with the name shortened to FEI Company in 1973, pi- oneered the use of dual ion-electron beams in microscopy. The ion beam, by sputtering action, can micro-machine a surface while it is viewed by the elec- tron beam for 3D microstructure deter- mination [5] . Additional FIB applications include sample preparation for trans- mission electron microscopy, integrat- ed circuit modification, thin film head manufacturing, ~5-nm resolution scan- ning ion microscopy, secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS), ion implan- tation without a mask, and lithography. Jon H. Orloff, a 1977 doctoral ad- visee of Swanson and later an OGC fac- ulty member, became a partner in FEI in 1978. FEI commercialized LMIS tech- nology, based in part on the research of Swanson, Orloff, and their colleagues, Mark Hatfield, governor of Oregon from 1959-1967. Howard Vollum, co-founder of Tektronix, inspects one of his company’s oscilloscopes. Circa 1950. Courtesy of Reed College. REMEMBERING THE OREGON GRADUATE INSTITUTE The Oregon Graduate Center−later named the Oregon Graduate Institute−played a significant role in metallurgy in the Northwest for nearly four decades. Richard E. Chinn,* National Energy Technology Laboratory, Albany, Oregon
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