While machines have long been feared by those who perform repetitive tasks at work, the tedious nature of many of those tasks sometimes brings about an effort to work smarter that includes new technology.
That’s exactly what lies in the future at Novocell Semiconductor. The company in Hermitage, a stone’s throw from Pennsylvania’s border with Ohio, is in the midst of getting new equipment to automate some of the most repetitive work assigned to engineers at the high-tech company.
Novocell’s specialty is semiconductors, which make electronics work by routing power between components that conduct electricity and components that don’t. The company’s semiconductors end up in a variety of electronics devices.
The new equipment is coming courtesy of a Northwest Keystone Innovation Zone grant. It will go into its testing lab, where engineers run tests on prototypes of semiconductor chips. “Just one chip may have 1 million bits of data on it,” says Steve Warner, Novocell’s president and CEO. “We have to test each one of those bits.”
Automating that process means an engineer can work in research and development instead of putting chips into a machine, one by one. “It’ll save weeks and weeks of a year,” he says.
When Novocell’s six employees can complete their work faster, they’ll be able to serve customers more quickly. That will bring in more clients and prompt hiring at a company that needs as many engineers as it can hire, Warner says.
Source: Steve Warner, Novocell Semiconductor
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen