Jobs in Vacuum Technology
Vacuum Technology
by Laura French
Star Tribune Sales and Marketing
Published June 2, 2003
While the old saying is that nature abhors a vacuum, today's high-tech manufacturing depends on vacuum technology. The microprocessor "chips" that today's electronics depend on are really thin wafers coated with metal. In order to get the coating thin enough, flat enough, and pure enough, the coating operation is done in a vacuum.
Minnesota has a long and distinguished history in vacuum technology that dates back to the 1970s, when Control Data Corporation and Honeywell were world leaders in technology. Since then, the names have changed - Control Data spun off to VTC, Inc., and Cypress Semi-Conductor. Seagate Technology bought the Control Data disk drive operation. In 1994, VTC's manufacturing business became PolarFab, a Bloomington company that is the only privately held semiconductor foundry in the U.S.
Faster, Smaller, Cheaper
Through four decades of change, vacuum technology has produced microprocessors that are faster, smaller, and cheaper. The processing power in a suitcase-sized computer of the 1980s is now in a palm-sized personal planner. What's more, the planner costs a fraction of what the computer did, in part because manufacturers have learned to improve yield, enabling them to bring prices down. According to Jill Hornbacher of Seagate's Corporate Communications Department, the price of disc drives has gone from $300 per megabyte in 1979 to half a cent in 2003.
The continuing need for innovative design and quality control has also meant steady growth in vacuum technology careers. In 1996, several of Minnesota's technology companies teamed up to design a vacuum technology degree, which is offered through Normandale Community College's Nanotechnology department. In 1999, Normandale began offering a semiconductor manufacturing program as well. The two-year program at Normandale is the only one of its kind in Minnesota.
Jim Dockendorf, director of the program, says he averages a phone call a week from companies looking for technicians who can repair and design vacuum deposition equipment. During the technology boom, it was more like one call a day, Dockendorf says. Still, as far as he knows, all of the program's graduates are employed, and the demand for vacuum technicians is still somewhat ahead of the supply. The students in the Normandale program include both recent high school graduates and technology workers who have a mechanical or electrical engineering background and want to retrain in vacuum technology.
Xbox to Energy Savings
Seagate Technology has been one of the leading supporters of the Normandale programs. Seagate has donated more than $500,000 in equipment and has provided a state-of-the-art laboratory in its Bloomington facility. Seagate supplies all of the disk drives for the Xbox, and manufactures a storage drive that can "read" the complete works of William Shakespeare in about one and a half seconds.
But Dockendorf explains that semiconductor manufacturers aren't the only ones who use vacuum technology. Glass manufacturers coat glass with energy-efficient film for windows, or with coating that helps artwork resist fading in sunlight. For Minnesota-based Apogee Enterprises, those high-tech applications are now a more important part of the business than the automotive glass that was the company's original product.
That's one more reason why vacuum technology is clearly a good career choice. |
