Where has October gone? Starting with a regional leadership mission to Pittsburgh and ending with an amazing milestone celebration at BRIDG, this month seemed to pass by faster than usual.
I was honored to join the Orlando Economic Partnership and nearly 90 leaders from the region earlier this month to see firsthand how Pittsburgh’s tech-based economy became the foundation for a major economic transformation. During our stop at the National Robotics Center, I had the privilege of addressing the delegation to explain the similarities between the tremendous economic growth that the Pittsburgh area is experiencing – built on the region’s multi-decade investment in technology platforms such as Artificial Intelligence and robotics – and what we are creating at NeoCity, to provide a better vision of what we can expect to see in Central Florida when we stay the course in our own economic transformation marathon.
Last week, we were joined by nearly 200 of our partners for a milestone celebration to mark the completion of our first lot of wafers processed in the BRIDG fab! Thank you to our main event sponsors, Siemens and imec, along with supporting sponsors from Honeywell, Hylant, Swagelok, and PIP Printing! These sponsorships truly made the celebration possible. I want to personally thank the dedicated team of BRIDG employees and partners who worked tirelessly to complete the lot in a significantly shorter period than many experts thought possible. The resilience, innovative spirit and dedication of this team continues to inspire me. I am proud to be a part of this great team!
This is a really exciting time at BRIDG, and I am glad to have you join us on this journey!
Chester Kennedy
CEO
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Celebrating Our Wafer Processing Milestones
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As mentioned above, BRIDG recently joined elected officials, partners, and supporters to celebrate our wafer processing milestone. Many have asked what was made in our first lot of wafers. To provide some insight, we selected a combination of devices that would exercise a large portion of our installed tools for this lot. The lot consisted of 25 wafers (round silicon discs) that are 200mm (8”) in size, with each wafer containing around 2,000 devices. Several of these devices were designed to stress different aspects of the tools and our process to ensure that our tools and overall fab were performing as expected. Within those thousands of devices were hundreds of key components for a new and unique approach for implementing something that the industry refers to as a Physically Unclonable Function device (PUFs). These unique PUF devices form the core of an encryption component that supports secure communication applications. Specifically, some of these devices will be packaged and delivered to a defense contractor who will test the end product – the combination of the devices produced at BRIDG and other electronic components – with software to demonstrate various approaches to improve secure communications under a federal contract funded by an agency within the Department of Defense.
Thank you to our visionary stakeholders, Osceola County, the University of Central Florida, and the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, for the support and partnership they have provided since day one— we couldn’t have gotten to this point without them! Thank you also to everyone who joined us to celebrate this occasion and to Froz-N7, Puff ‘n Stuff Catering, Dan O’Toole Photography, and the students of the Valencia College School of Culinary and Pastry Arts for making our event extra special.
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We see more progress at NeoCity every day! This month, many glass window panes were installed in the NeoCity Class A office building located across the street from the BRIDG fab. We are excited to see the completed office tower in 2019!
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BRIDG ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
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Dennis Lind is the Vice President of Design & Engineering (D&E), Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, a division within the global Facilities & Operations Services (FOS) group. In this global role Dennis directly leads the domestic U.S. division of D&E for both strategy development and day-to-day operations as well as providing guidance, support, and leadership to engineering teams in the international sites in partnership with the local FOS leadership. Mr. Lind has sponsored the creation of new business segments within D&E including Simulations & Analysis, Global Applied Technology, and Instrumentation and Testing, in addition to maintaining the traditional engineering and architectural disciplines of practice in support of Disney Resorts around the world.
Mr. Lind is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Western New England University and also serves on the Academic Affairs Committee and Industry Advisory Board. He is working with Dr. Tim Kotnour, Director of the Executive Engineering Management Program at the University of Central Florida, advising on curriculum and content for the program. Mr. Lind is a past Chairman and current member of the Board of Trustees for the Orlando Science Center, contributing time and expertise to advancing the institution’s charter to promote lifelong learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Mr. Lind is a Licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Florida, is a Springfield, Massachusetts native and 1980 graduate of Western New England College (now Western New England University). He graduated from the School of Engineering with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He later supplemented his technical education with a Master of Business Administration from Webster University of St. Louis in 1996. Lind and his wife, Karen, reside in Winter Park, Florida.
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RECENT EVENTS / OTHER NEWS
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BRIDG recently participated in the Global Semiconductor Alliance’s
Silicon Summit East
, where technology and business leaders convened for a full day of discussions and thought exchange on topics ranging from advanced materials and devices to new chip/system architectures to innovative business models. Fran Korosec, BRIDG Vice President of Program Management, spread the word about BRIDG and NeoCity during his presentation at the summit. Thank you to GSA for including BRIDG on the program!
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Defense Manufacturing Conference - December 6, 2018
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BRIDG will be exhibiting at the
Defense Manufacturers Conference
in Nashville, Tennessee. This conference brings together defense technology leaders from across the nation to share new technologies and explore industry trends. If you are attending, be sure to stop by and see us at booth #149!
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BRIDG is located at NeoCity in Osceola County, Florida.
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