Author Archives: Walt

About Walt

I have been involved in various aspects of nanotechnology since the late 1970s. My interest in promoting nano-safety began in 2006 and produced a white paper in 2007 explaining the four pillars of nano-safety. I am a technology futurist and is currently focused on nanoelectronics, single digit nanomaterials, and 3D printing at the nanoscale. My experience includes three startups, two of which I founded, 13 years at SEMATECH, where I was a Senior Fellow of the technical staff when I left, and 12 years at General Electric with nine of them on corporate staff. I have a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from James Madison University, and a B.S. in Physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

A Time of Turmoil and a Time of Opportunity

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Walt | Permalink 0

As this month’s blog is being written, the US has a “shelter-in-place” directive that has been extended through the end of April.  There are many reports of possible [..]

Misc Ramblings, Nanotechnology Health

Progress and Concerns

Posted on February 29, 2020 by Walt | Permalink 0

Additional information related to last month’s blog.  Single layer technology advances from the DoE’s Argonne National Laboratory have moved the Molecular Layer Etching to the atomic level. [Ref. [..]

Nanotechnology, Technology

Is that all there is?

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Walt | Permalink 0

With apologies for using the title of a Peggy Lee song from the 70s, this reference is to nanotechnology.  There are continually more interesting findings as researchers move [..]

Misc Ramblings, Nanotechnology

Another Year of Progress (?)

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

As always when reflecting over a year that is ending, there is good news and there is bad news.  We’ll start with the good.  A lot of technology [..]

Misc Ramblings

Mitigating Radioactive Waste with Nanomaterials

Posted on November 30, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

As the tools available become more precise and develop new capabilities, discoveries arise that are surprising.  Sometimes, this occurs by accident as happened by scientists in Germany, Russia, [..]

Nanotechnology, Nanotechnology Safety

New nanomaterials and implications

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

With all the publications touting new materials or the creation of new properties of materials, it is often difficult to identify disparate findings into something that could combine [..]

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is getting interesting

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

In our June 30 blog, we covered Part 2 of an upcoming technology disruption.  This blog is covering material from the IEEE Spectrum magazine [Ref. 1] on a [..]

Nanotechnology

Reliability

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

It might seem odd to discuss reliability in a blog that focuses on nanotechnology and its implementation.  However, if one considers that we are using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [..]

Nanotechnology, Nanotechnology Risk Management

Nano-Safety

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

It’s been a while since nanotechnology safety was featured in this blog.  This blog has previously mentioned the lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) regarding the talc in [..]

Nanotechnology Safety

A coming disruption in technology? Part 2

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Walt | Permalink 0

The design of the semiconductor circuit components has been evolving as the feature size shrinks.  The semiconductor industry has been able to develop new designs as older techniques [..]

Nanotechnology, Semiconductor Technology