Microsystems for the New Millennium
A Proud History
Sandia has a history of developing innovative enabling microsystems technologies
spanning the last forty years.
- The invention of the laminar airflow clean room in 1960 by Sandia scientist Willis Whitfield is credited with making the modern microelectronics industry possible.
- Through the 70’s and 80’s, Sandia developed the technologies that made possible the low-power radiation-hard CMOS integrated circuits needed for national security.
- Sandia supplied the 12,000 hardened circuits, microprocessors, and memories
needed for the Project Galileo space probe to the planet Jupiter.
- Sandia’s legacy of microsystems innovations extends well beyond the silicon domain.
- Sandia researcher Gordon Osbourn conceived the theory of the strained-layer superlattice in 1981.
- Continued experimentation with SLS materials resulted in the development of a high-efficiency VCSEL in the mid 90’s.
Today, Sandia continues to build on its heritage of national service with continued groundbreaking advances in areas such as radiation-hardened
technologies, micoelectromechanical systems, sensors, and optoelectronics.
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