AJA Principals

Dr. Jonath founded Arthur Jonath Associates (AJA) in 1991. AJA was originally formed to assist in solving quality, productivity improvement, supplier development and technology transfer problems. He earned BS and MS degrees in Engineering at MIT, and obtained a PhD in Materials Sciences at Stanford University. He spent the first half of his career in research at the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratories. In 1983 he was a founder of Visic, a semiconductor start-up, and later VP, Reliability & Quality Assurance for VLSI Technology, Inc. Subsequently Dr. Jonath and AJA have provided technical and management services to a broad range of companies, from start-up to Government Laboratory to Global 500 pharma, electronics and instrument companies.

Dr. Jonath’s background also includes implementation of total quality and customer satisfaction systems. He has served on the board of directors, as CEO or as Technical Advisory board member of several other start-ups. He has taught at the graduate level and was a founding member of the Manufacturing Advisory Board, School of Business, San Jose State University. He currently serves as interim COO and Board Member respectively on two technical start-up companies in Silicon Valley and is on the School of Engineering Advisory Board, Stanford University.

Dr. Khorasani is a management consultant and industrial statistician. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from Kansas State University. His academic experience includes associate professor of statistics, Head of the Statistics Department and Associate Dean of the School of Mathematics and Computer Science. He followed that with a distinguished nine years in the semiconductor industry for Fairchild Semiconductor, Signetics Corporation and Intel Corporation. Since 1988 he has been consulting with and teaching in companies such as VLSI Technology (now Philips), Altera Corporation, Cypress, Elontec, Sierra Semiconductor, Samsung, Applied Materials, Sandia National Laboratories, EKC Technology, Unigen, Emcore MODE, Hewlett-Packard, Schlumberger, JDS Uniphase, Virtual Silicon Technology and ALZA.

Dr. Khorasani provides training workshops and consults on wide range of process and product development, process and product characterization and optimization, and other process/quality/reliability related topics. His paper entitled "The Changing Philosophy of Quality and Productivity from Basic Inspection to Taguchi's Idea's of Robustness" was selected the best technical supplement paper of 1990 by The Electronics Division of The American Society of Quality. Dr. Khorasani’s expertise and emphasis is on practical approaches to problems rather than academic. His work has resulted in six- and seven-figure annual savings to several companies.

For Mr. Lowry's Bibliography Click Here

Recent Publications & Presentations -- Author or co-author of the following:

“Hermetic Package Leak Testing Re-Visited,” Richard C. Kullberg & Robert K. Lowry, IMAPS International Conference and Exhibition on Device Packaging, March 2008 "Plastic Encapsulant Chemical Analysis for Product Authenticity", Counterfeit Components Detection and Prevention Symposium and Workshop, 2006.
“Hydrophobicity”, Minnowbrook Microelectronics Conference, 2006.
“Tin -- Back to the Future”, Minnowbrook Microelectronics Conference, 2005.
“Critical Surface Properties by Microdroplet Contact Angle”, Minnowbrook Microelectronics Conference, 2004.
“Analysis of Volatile Gases in Hermetic MEMS Enclosures”, ISTFA Desk Reference Supplement, 2002.
“Reducing Top-of-Die Plastic Delamination by Assuring Pre-Mold Cleanliness of Die Surfaces”, Proc. ISTFA, 2000.
“Sources and Control of Gases Hazardous to Hermetic Electronic Enclosures”, IEEE Trans. Elect. Pack. Mfg., 1999.
“Evaluation of the Resistance of Individual Silicon Die to Cracking”, Proc. ISTFA, 1998.
“Identifying Plastic Encapsulant Materials by Pyrolysis IR Spectrophotometry”, Proc. ISTFA, 1998.

Patents -- Inventor or co-inventor of the following:

Laser decapsulation method, 7,316,936
Measuring moisture content of hermetic semiconductor devices, 4,272,986
Enhancing silicon etching of alkali hydroxide by addition of positive valence impurity ions, 4,781,853; 4,859,280
Bonded wafer processing, 5,362,667; 5,517,047; 5,728,624
Bonded wafer processing with metal silicidation, 5,387,555; 5,569,620; 6,909,146
Radiation hardened dielectric for EEPROM, 5,808,353; 6,130,172
Bonded wafer processing with oxidative bonding, 5,849,627
Decapsulating method and apparatus for integrated circuit packages, 6,054,012; 6,457,506
Laser decapsulation method, 6,335,208; 7,166,186
Method for minimizing moisture adsorption on printed circuit boards -- Pending

Bob Lowry received the BS degree in Chemistry from Stetson University and the MS degree in Inorganic Chemistry from Florida Atlantic University. He worked in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for 32 years, at Radiation, Inc., Harris Semiconductor, and Intersil Corporation. For the last nine years at Harris and then Intersil he was Senior Scientist in charge of the company’s Analytical Service Labs. Mr. Lowry’s current focus is in the areas of medical devices, analytics, hermetics, and counterfeits.

Mr. Lowry has extensive experience in applying advanced materials analysis tools to characterizing microelectronic materials and processes. This experience ranges from selecting raw materials for manufacturing processes, to characterizing the full extent of wafer fabrication and plastic/hermetic assembly processes, to finished goods characterization including product reliability and failure analysis studies. Among the analytical tools useful for these studies are SEM/EDX, TEM, FIB, Auger/ XPS, SIMS, AFM, FT-IR, IC, ICP-MS and related spectroscopic methods, thermal analysis of materials, and RGA/mass spectrometry. Mr. Lowry holds 13 US patents in microelectronic materials and has published over 60 technical papers in these areas.