40 Year Flashback 3 From Our CEO, Reno Novak

In May of 1984, I landed a chemist position at Apache Chemicals, a specialty inorganic chemical company located in Seward, Illinois. The company had established themselves as a high purity chemical supplier and had captured a portion of the dopant chemicals business in the very early stages of the semiconductor and fiber optic industry. My job mostly involved the synthesis of a variety of inorganic compounds and the distillation of precursors like POCl3, BBr3, PBr3, BCl3, TEOS, SiCl4, GeCl4 and PCl3. The dopants we were purifying were being sold to big companies like Intel, Motorola, IBM, Applied Materials and AT&T.

It was also during this time I came to understand the true meaning of “High Purity”. In general, all these products had to meet 99.999-99.9999% (5N-6N) trace metal purity specifications meaning that they had to have < 15 parts per million total trace metals or better. I learned the importance of proper glassware cleaning and packaging protocols along with the safe handling and transfer of these highly hazardous and air sensitive materials.

Only a year later in late 1985, Apache Chemicals was sold. The new larger corporate ownership took a position of discontinuing all of the products that did not pertain to the semiconductor industry and in doing so they decided to throw away any glassware or equipment that might be a source of contamination. Since I was tasked with collecting and destroying the equipment, I quickly asked the new site manager if I could have it. As I started collecting all of my new labware, it was then that I started dreaming of starting a lab and making and purifying chemicals on my own.  There were so many customers that they were now turning away that I could capture.

The site manager was already talking about contracting out one of the manufactured products, Lead Fluoride, which was being produced as a flux for growing crystals for laser applications. He did not want to risk contaminating the dopant chemicals by making the Lead Fluoride in the same space. I approached him and asked if he would consider subcontracting me if I set up a small operation and produced the material on my free time. He agreed to this idea and I was on my way to starting a company!