In a lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Katy Jinkins typically starts her day at a filing cabinet full of thin, purple silicon disks that reflect green in the light.
She breaks the disks, about the size of a CD, into smaller pieces for her research team’s efforts to ensure computer chips can keep up with technological innovations happening faster than ever before and the increasing need for energy sustainability.
Jinkins is specifically focused on improving semiconductors, the base of chips, which are essential to wireless communication like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 5G. Semiconductors are used in a wide variety of other ways, such as artificial intelligence and medicine, too. They are the foundation of electronics in an era where everything is an e-something: e-watch, e-washing machine, EV.
Note: SixLine Semiconductor is the 2024 grand prize winner of the Governor’s Business Plan Contest (Wisconsin Technology Council). Katy Jinkins and SixLine Semiconductor team members have participated in Discovery to Product (D2P) and other e-ship programs such as WARF Accelerator, SBIR Advance (Center for Techology Commercialization), Morgridge Entrepreneurial Bootcamp (MEB), NSF I-Corps and Qualified New Business Venture (QNBV). Katy Jinkins was a 2023 Activate Fellow.