Brad Mattson

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Brad Mattson
Brad Mattson (far left) on NBC's Press,Here, Sept 2015.jpeg
From left, Brad Mattson with Jon Swartz of USA Today, Sarah Frier of Bloomberg, and NBC anchor Scott McGrew on his show Press:Here.
Born (1954-10-29) October 29, 1954 (age 67)
Norwood, Massachusetts, United States [ citation needed ]
NationalityAmerican
Education Mt. Pleasant High School
Alma mater San Jose State University
Santa Clara University
OccupationEntrepreneur, engineer, inventor
Known for Siva Power, Mattson Technology, Novellus Systems, Husk Power Systems, SEMI, Santa Clara University
Title Board Director of Siva Power,
Chairman of Husk Power Systems

Brad Mattson (born October 29, 1954) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. He started two publicly traded semiconductor companies, Novellus Systems and Mattson Technology, and has also worked in the solar power industry. He currently serves as Chairman of Husk Power and is a board director at Siva Power, a thin film solar cell company based in Silicon Valley, and is involved with several other private companies and non-profits. Mattson holds 12 patents.

Contents

Early life and education

Mattson was born in Norwood, Massachusetts on October 29, 1954, and grew up in California. [1] He graduated from San Jose State University with a BSc in aeronautical engineering. Mattson also holds an MBA in Finance from Santa Clara University. [2]

Semiconductor career

Applied Materials

After graduating San Jose State University, Mattson took a job with Applied Materials as a field service engineer. [3] Mattson repositioned his career into product management and marketing, eventually becoming a product manager and then director of marketing for Applied Materials' etch division. [3]

In the late 1970s there was no commonly accepted method that would forecast the total cost of ownership that spanned the equipment's lifetime once all costs were considered. To help solve this problem Mattson developed a cost of ownership (COO) model for Applied. [4] [5]

Mattson left Applied after about five years to become VP for the plasma systems group of Laboratory for Electronics (LFE) in Massachusetts. [3]

Novellus Systems

Mattson resigned his position at LFE in the early 1980s and started his own company, Novellus Systems to make chemical vapor deposition (CVD) systems. Novellus would eventually achieve a market capitalization over $3B, becoming one of the largest semiconductor equipment companies in the world. [3] [6] [7]

Mattson incorporated Novellus in 1984. In the early 1980s the semiconductor industry was in a downturn and there were many layoffs, so Mattson had difficulty raising outside funding, instead funding it with his own money. [3] [7] At Novellus, Mattson designed and built the company's first two prototype CVD systems. At the time, CVD equipment was achieving about ±5 percent uniformity on 6-inch wafers, but Novellus prototypes were achieving one percent uniformity on 8-inch wafers that were processed ten-times faster. [3] Eventually Mattson secured an investment from Monsanto, who sold wafers to the semiconductor industry.[ citation needed ]

With new financing to expand operations, Mattson grew Novellus into one of the top three CVD equipment companies in the late 1980s. Novellus supplied CVD systems to semiconductor producers like Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices, NEC, and LSI Logic. [7] Four years after its founding, Novellus had its IPO on NASDAQ in August 1988. Novellus Systems was acquired by Lam Research in 2011 for $3.3 billion [6]

Mattson Technology

While taking a break from work in the late 1980s, Mattson began investing in companies on the side. Mattson was working with one company to develop stripping hardware designs for wafers. Mattson become more directly involved with the company, and the firm was incorporated as Mattson Technology with Mattson as CEO in 1988. [3] [8] Mattson Technology became a publicly traded company in 1994. [8] In 2001, Mattson stepped aside as CEO of Mattson Technology but remained as Vice Chairman until 2002. [9] [10]

While at the company, Mattson was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award of Northern California in the "High Technology-Electronics" category. [11]

Renewable energy career

Mattson working with Husk Power Systems installing solar panels in off-grid locations in India. Brad Mattson installing solar panels in an off-grid Indian village, June 2013 .png
Mattson working with Husk Power Systems installing solar panels in off-grid locations in India.

According to Mattson, the September 11 attacks strongly influenced his thinking about whether or not his work was actually helping people and making the world a better place, [12] or if he was only working with already "really successful countries and successful companies" despite his wanting "to see technology benefit humanity in a more direct way." [13] That same year, Mattson served as a judge for The Tech Awards's Environment category and the theme of "technology benefiting humanity". [13] [14]

In 2009 Mattson became a partner at VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that focuses on renewable energy and cleantech. [15]

In 2011 Mattson became CEO of Siva Power, but what was then Solexant, a solar startup developing cadmium telluride solar panels. Mattson halted the company's plans to build a factory in Oregon, and instead ramped-up R&D to develop copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar technology. [16] After two years Mattson unveiled the new company as Siva Power in 2013. [17] In 2017, Bruce Sohn, the former President of First Solar became CEO of Siva Power, with Mattson serving as Executive Chairman of the Board. [18]

In 2014, Mattson self published a book, The Solar Phoenix: How America Can Rise from the Ashes of Solyndra to World Leadership in Solar 2.0, in which he explains why he believes solar is fundamental to the world's energy future and the industry's place in the United States. [19]

Public speaking and mentoring

Mattson speaks and presents at organizations devoted to energy and humanitarianism, such as Intersolar, [20] Greentech Media Solar Summits, [21] the Rotary Club, [22] IEEE, [23] U. S. Department of Energy conferences, [24] and the Commonwealth Club of California, where he spoke alongside Jigar Shah. [25] [26] Mattson has also given guest lectures at Santa Clara University and UC Berkeley on sustainability, business, and engineering. [27] [28]

A graduate of Santa Clara University, Mattson served as a member on the Board of Regents and also served as an Advisory Board Member for the university's Center for Science, Technology, and Society (CSTS). [2] [29] Mattson has also worked with the CSTS Global Social Benefit Incubator. [30] [31] Most of the companies Mattson advised were involved in renewable energy, such as Husk Power Systems, blueEnergy, and ToughStuff. Mattson has served as Chairman of the Board of Husk Power since 2013.

Patents

Related Research Articles

Chemical vapor deposition Method used to make thin films for semiconductors

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films.

Applied Materials, Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment, services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor chips for electronics, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones, televisions, and solar products. Integral to the growth of Silicon Valley, the company also supplies equipment to produce coatings for flexible electronics, packaging and other applications. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

An epitaxial wafer is a wafer of semiconducting material made by epitaxial growth (epitaxy) for use in photonics, microelectronics, spintronics, or photovoltaics. The epi layer may be the same material as the substrate, typically monocrystaline silicon, or it may be a more exotic material with specific desirable qualities.

Solar cell Photodiode used to produce power from light on a large scale

A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device whose electrical characteristics, such as current, voltage, or resistance, vary when exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electrical building blocks of photovoltaic modules, known colloquially as solar panels. The common single junction silicon solar cell can produce a maximum open-circuit voltage of approximately 0.5 to 0.6 volts.

Microfabrication

Microfabrication is the process of fabricating miniature structures of micrometre scales and smaller. Historically, the earliest microfabrication processes were used for integrated circuit fabrication, also known as "semiconductor manufacturing" or "semiconductor device fabrication". In the last two decades microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microsystems, micromachines and their subfields, microfluidics/lab-on-a-chip, optical MEMS, RF MEMS, PowerMEMS, BioMEMS and their extension into nanoscale have re-used, adapted or extended microfabrication methods. Flat-panel displays and solar cells are also using similar techniques.

Soitec is a France-based international industrial company specialized in generating and manufacturing high performance semiconductor materials.

Lam Research American semiconductor equipment company

Lam Research Corporation is a U.S.-based global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and related services to the semiconductor industry. Its products are used primarily in front-end wafer processing, which involves the steps that create the active components of semiconductor devices and their wiring (interconnects). The company also builds equipment for back-end wafer-level packaging (WLP), and for related manufacturing markets such as for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

Novellus Systems

Novellus Systems Inc. was a company founded by Brad Mattson that developed, manufactured, sold, and serviced semiconductor equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. It was a supplier of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), electrochemical deposition (ECD), ultraviolet thermal processing (UVTP), and surface preparation equipment used in the manufacturing of semiconductors.

Solar power in the United States Overview of solar power in the United States of America

Solar power in the United States includes utility-scale solar power plants as well as local distributed generation, mostly from rooftop photovoltaics. As of the end of 2020, the United States had 97,275 megawatts (MW) of installed photovoltaic and concentrated solar power capacity combined. In 2018, utility scale solar power generated 66.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), 1.66% of total U.S. electricity. During the same time period total solar generation, including estimated small scale photovoltaic generation, was 96.1 TWh, 2.30% of total U.S. electricity. In terms of total cumulative installed capacity, by year end 2017 the United States ranked 2nd in the world behind China. In 2016, 39% of all new electricity generation capacity in the country came from solar, more than any other source and ahead of natural gas (29%). By 2015, solar employment had overtaken oil and gas as well as coal employment in the United States. In 2016, more than 260,000 Americans were employed in the solar industry.

ASM International Dutch ininformation technology company

ASM International is a Dutch headquartered multinational corporation that specializes in design, manufacturing, sales and service of semiconductor wafer processing equipment for the fabrication of semiconductor devices. ASM's products are used by semiconductor manufacturers in front-end wafer processing in their semiconductor fabrication plants. ASM’s technologies include atomic layer deposition, epitaxy, chemical vapor deposition and diffusion.

SunEdison, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, Monsanto sold the company in 1989.

Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells based in Fremont, California. Heavily promoted as a leader in the Clean Energy sector for its unusual technology, Solyndra was not able to compete with conventional solar panel manufacturers of crystalline silicon. The company filed for bankruptcy on September 1, 2011, and investigation found Solyndra executives misled federal officials to obtain $535 million in government-backed loans, with the help of former President Barack Obama's White House.

Copper indium gallium selenide solar cells

A copper indium gallium selenide solar cell is a thin-film solar cell used to convert sunlight into electric power. It is manufactured by depositing a thin layer of copper, indium, gallium and selenium on glass or plastic backing, along with electrodes on the front and back to collect current. Because the material has a high absorption coefficient and strongly absorbs sunlight, a much thinner film is required than of other semiconductor materials.

Tokyo Electron Japanese semiconductor equipment manufacturer

Tokyo Electron Limited, or TEL, is a Japanese electronics and semiconductor company headquartered in Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. The company was founded as Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc. in 1963.

Crystalline silicon

Crystalline silicon (c-Si) is the crystalline forms of silicon, either polycrystalline silicon, or monocrystalline silicon. Crystalline silicon is the dominant semiconducting material used in photovoltaic technology for the production of solar cells. These cells are assembled into solar panels as part of a photovoltaic system to generate solar power from sunlight.

Solar cell research

There are currently many research groups active in the field of photovoltaics in universities and research institutions around the world. This research can be categorized into three areas: making current technology solar cells cheaper and/or more efficient to effectively compete with other energy sources; developing new technologies based on new solar cell architectural designs; and developing new materials to serve as more efficient energy converters from light energy into electric current or light absorbers and charge carriers.

Polycrystalline silicon

Polycrystalline silicon, or multicrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, poly-Si, or mc-Si, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry.

SVTC Technologies was a technology services company that provided development and commercialization services for semiconductor process-based technologies and products. SVTC operated from 2004 to October 2012.

Mattson Technology Inc is an American technology company which was founded in 1988 by Brad Mattson and is based in Fremont, California. The company is both a manufacturer and supplier in the market of semiconductor equipment globally. Its main products are dry strip system, rapid thermal processing, and etching. The company provides products for customers and manufacturers such as foundries, memory and logic devices.

Siva Power, Inc. is an American solar power company that develops thin-film technology. The company designs and manufactures copper indium gallium deselenide (CIGS) photovoltaics. Siva Power is based in San Jose, California. Bruce Sohn is CEO and Mark Heising is Chairman.

References

  1. ↑ US Patent Collection.
  2. 1 2 Executive Profile: Brad S. Mattson, Bloomberg, accessed April 7, 2015
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 SEMI Oral History Interview - Brad Mattson, SEMI, February 4, 2004, accessed April 7, 2015
  4. ↑ Mattson, Brad. The Solar Phoenix: How America Can Rise from the Ashes of Solyndra to World Leadership in Solar 2.0. Robertson Publishing. 2014. pp. 117
  5. ↑ "SEMI E35-0312 - Guide to Calculate Cost of Ownership (COO) Metrics for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  6. 1 2 "Lam Research Agrees to Buy Novellus Systems for $3.3 Billion" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Pederson, Jay P. International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 18. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Funding Universe. Web. April 8, 2015. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/novellus-systems-inc-history/
  8. 1 2 "Investor FAQs". Archived from the original on April 7, 2015. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Brad Mattson retires as CEO of Mattson Technology" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Mattson Technology Announces Retirement of Board Member and Vice Chairman Brad Mattson". Archived from the original on May 5, 2015. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Finalists for Northern California's Entrepreneur of The Year(R) Awards Announced" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  12. ↑ Mattson, Brad. The Solar Phoenix: How America Can Rise from the Ashes of Solyndra to World Leadership in Solar 2.0. Robertson Publishing. 2014. pp. iv
  13. 1 2 "Creating Climate Wealth Transcript" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  14. ↑ "The Intel Environment Award". Archived from the original on April 20, 2012. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  15. ↑ "VantagePoint Venture Partners Adds Two Experienced Partners to CleanTech Practice (press release)" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  16. ↑ "A Solar Startup's Bid To Reinvent Itself When Others Have Failed" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  17. ↑ "Solexant Rebrands as Siva and Looks to Scale CIGS Thin-Film Solar" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  18. ↑ "CIGS thin-film developer Siva Power nabs First Solar's former president as new CEO" . Retrieved March 9, 2017.
  19. ↑ Mattson, Brad (June 9, 2014). Amazon.com: The Solar Phoenix by Brad Mattson. ISBN   978-1611701777.
  20. ↑ "Intersolar North America 2013 Conference Program" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 5, 2015. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  21. ↑ "Greentech Media Solar Summit 2015 Speakers" . Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  22. ↑ The Solar Phoenix - How America can Rise from the Ashes of Solyndra to World Leadership in Solar 2.0, The Rotary Club of Santa Clara, accessed April 7, 2015
  23. ↑ "IEEE SCV-PV 2014 Events" . Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  24. ↑ The 2014 SunShot Grand Challenge Summit 2014: Speakers, U.S. Department of Energy, accessed April 7, 2015
  25. ↑ Speaker Biography: Brad Mattson, Climate One at The Commonwealth Club, accessed April 7, 2015
  26. ↑ "Creating Climate Wealth" . Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  27. ↑ "Solar 2.0: Growth driven by technology, market and manufacturing innovation" . Retrieved April 7, 2015.
  28. ↑ "Santa Clara University National Engineers Week 2015" . Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  29. ↑ "Brad Mattson Profile" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  30. ↑ "Global Social Benefit Incubator: Technology in the Service of Social Change" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  31. ↑ "2009 GSBI Brochure" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 27, 2010. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  32. ↑ "US Patent Collection" . Retrieved April 8, 2015.
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