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 | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 3 5 CHIPS CHARGE FORWARD The most recent editorial column (“Mapping Out Solutions,” AM&P Nov/ Dec 2022) brought back memories of working at IBM in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., in the summer of 1967 before grad school. I believe the IBM 360 computer was the first to use a chip as a transistor or diode. At the time, vacuum tubes cost a few dollars, a solid state transistor was about a buck, and the chip was a penny. The process included soldering 0.005-in. diameter balls onto each chip. The metallurgy was complicated and they were having quality problems. I figured out how to fix the process. When I handed in my report, they said thanks. I asked if they were going to change the process and they said no. I asked why. They said I did a great piece of work, but it takes a month to implement a change and the next month they were going to a whole new technology. It was obvious they had given me a “make work” job to see if they wanted FEEDBACK / RESEARCH TRACKS We welcome all comments and suggestions. Send letters to joanne.miller@asminternational.org. Electronics have progressed from the vacuum tube, to the transistor, to the tiny dot of a solid logic technology “chip” transistor. Courtesy of IBM. engineering, technology, science, and business colleges. Hanchen Huang, FASM My team and I recently won an entrepreneurship grant at the University of Virginia to develop a machine learning platform targeted to materials research. We are working hard to complete the development phase and hopefully share it with fellow ASM members to collect feedback. Ho Lun Chan STIMULI-CONTROLLED METAMATERIALS A multidisciplinary research team from the University at Buffalo, the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, and the University of Maryland at College Park reports the controlled chemical energy release from spatially programmed molecular energetic ferroelectric crystals. “By using self-assembly directed additive manufacturing, we are able to control the mesoscale structure of a molecular energetic compound, together with the polarization-controlled heat transfer due to its ferroelectric nature, leading to the control of chemical energy release during the bond breaking,” explains Prof. Shenqiang Ren at the University at Buffalo. According to the team of scientists, such stimuli-controlled to hire me later. I was happy to learn about chips and have been amazed at the advances since then, both in chips and the analysis tools such as 3D atom probe tomography. Bill Hamm, FASM A+ ENTREPRENEURSHIP I was delighted to contribute to the recent discussion of entrepreneurship in AM&P (Nov/Dec 2022). This topic is critically important and deserves more attention at research universities, particularly within their metamaterials could provide a path toward the controlled release of chemical energy and its conversion to electric or thermal energy. Potential applications include use in energy conversion systems, energetic materials, and thermal conductors, among others. buffalo.edu. FEEDBACK
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