Search results

The paper aims to evaluate mechanisms for silicon overfilling including volume expansion of silicon on solidification for composite silicon/silicon carbide (SiC) objects generated using post‐process infiltration of selective laser sintered (SLS) SiC preforms.

Overfilling was characterized through geometrical means and microscopy, and results were used for further study and discussion of overfilling mechanisms.

Silicon overfilling in silicon infiltrated SLS SiC parts is attributed primarily to its infiltrant silicon volume expansion on solidification. Si/SiC composites were found to be thermally stable with good material bonding.

Silicon as an infiltrant is unusual as it expands on solidification, whereas most infiltrants contract. Overfilling during infiltration of SLS porous performs is therefore not considered to be prevalent.

This paper provides an examination of the value of silicon as an infiltrant material for SLS SiC preforms. Various mechanisms are presented for volume change during post‐process infiltration of indirect SLS non‐metallic performs.

Silicon sensors are semiconductor devices which transform a physical effect (such as pressure, acceleration, flux) into electrical effects (resistance, capacitance variation). Fabrication of these silicon sensors requires very precise control of the silicon micromachining. Some silicon foundries have adapted their experience in integrated circuit manufacturing to silicon sensor production and thus have reduced the costs and dimensions of the silicon sensors. Standard thick film technology has brought versatility to silicon sensor technology. Silicon sensors mounted on a ceramic substrate give fast development, high performance and low cost to OEMs. An alternative solution is the integrated silicon sensor including sensor and circuitry on the same silicon chip. This has been developed for specific applications.

Computer systems firms in Silicon Valley are responding to rising costs of product development, shorter product cycles and rapid technological change by focusing and building partnerships with suppliers, both within and outside of the region. Well-known firms like Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computers and lesser known ones like Silicon Graphics and Pyramid Technology are organized to combine the components and sub-systems made by specialist suppliers into new computer systems. As these firms collaborate to both define and manufacture new systems, they are institutionalizing their capacity to learn from one another. Three cases - a contract manufacturer, a silicon foundry, and the joint development of a microprocessor - illustrate how inter-firm networks help account for the sustained technological dynamism of the regional economy.

Social scientists have recently turned their attention to the important consequences of industrial districts or so-called agglomeration economies on economic growth and firm performance. This paper explores an important but unanswered question involving agglomeration economies: does geographic location within an agglomeration affect firm performance? I assess this question by examining the effects of different geographic office locations (by zip code) on the failure rates of all corporate law firms located in Silicon Valley from 1969 to 1998. Empirical estimates reveal that Silicon Valley corporate law firms benefit from the increased volume of client referrals that comes from being near mutualistic firms that offer a different range of legal services, the lower labor costs and more specialized division of labor that come from being near a large joint supply of lawyers, and the increased business that comes from being near important clients (i.e. venture capital firms).

In addition, corporate law firms that locate in certain municipalities of Silicon Valley, including Palo Alto, San Jose, and Santa Clara, have significantly increased failure rates, even controlling for many firm-specific differences. Younger corporate law firms (under the age of 11 years) are helped disproportionately by being near important environmental resources and harmed disproportionately by being in certain perilous areas of Silicon Valley. All told, a law firm’s office location within Silicon Valley has significant consequences for its survival.

Small firms, which represent much of the Silicon Valley region, tend to experience losses due to their small scale, small customer base and lack of diversification. The authors study the impact of accounting conservatism and losses on firm value and as such this study is an appropriate addition to this growing field of financial management.

The authors use methodology developed in prior literature to examine Silicon Valley and non-Silicon Valley firms' and their behavior when facing losses and the factors, which might play a role in their valuation. The authors focus particularly on earnings and accounting conservatism. Accounting conservatism captures how fast firms record losses relative to gains. The faster losses are recognized than gains the more accounting conservatism is exhibited. The authors examine the seemingly unrelated estimation of differences in means for our independent variables of interest across the two samples of Silicon Valley and non-Silicon Valley firms, both earnings and accounting conservatism. The authors use matched sample analysis of these firms based on four digit SIC code, size and date. In robustness, the authors run a more in-depth propensity score matched sample analysis.

The authors document that market values of Silicon Valley firms with accounting losses are affected less by negative earnings than other firms with accounting losses in the United States outside of the Silicon Valley region, noting the “lose big, win bigger” sentiment of Silicon Valley. Additionally, the authors document that accounting conservatism does play a role in influencing valuations of companies with accounting losses both in Silicon Valley and the rest of the United States, marginally more for Silicon Valley firms.

This study would be of interest to fund managers who need to consider smaller firms for inclusion in their portfolios. A lot of small firms have experienced losses ever since going public, especially Silicon Valley start-up firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how entrepreneurship culture affects start-up and venture capital co-evolution during the early evolution of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) and its ability to foster the emergence of ambitious entrepreneurship as an outcome of its activity. Unlike studies that capture entrepreneurship culture at the national level, this study focusses specifically on the culture of venture capital-financed entrepreneurship and understanding its implications to the development of venture capital markets and successful firm-level outcomes within ecosystems.

Relying on EE and organisational imprinting theory, this study specifies characteristics of venture capital-financed entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley to illustrate the American way of building start-ups and examine whether they have as imprints affected to the entrepreneurship culture and start-up and venture capital co-evolution in Finland during the early evolution of its EE between 1980 and 1997.

The results illustrate venture capital-financed entrepreneurship culture as a specific example of entrepreneurship culture beneath the national level that can vary across geographies like the findings concerning Finland demonstrate. The findings show that this specific culture matters through having an impact on the structural evolution and performance of EEs and on the ways how they deliver or fail to deliver benefits to entrepreneurs.

The results show that venture capital-financed entrepreneurship and the emergence of success stories as outcomes of start-up and venture capital co-evolution within an EE are connected to a specific type of entrepreneurship culture. This paper also contributes to the literature by connecting the fundamentals of organisational imprinting to EE research.

Much progress has been made in the field of corrosion technology in the last few years and many new corrosion‐resisting materials have been developed, including improved types of plastics and metals such as zirconium, titanium and tantalum. Plastics are finding extensive use as lining materials for chemical plant operating at moderate temperatures, but the poor thermal conductivity of most plastics makes them unsuitable for the transfer of heat. The recently developed metals and their alloys are extremely expensive to produce and fabricate and, so far, their use has been confined to certain specialised applications, although full‐scale production of zirconium is being carried out in America, mainly because of the low capacity of the metal for absorbing thermal neutrons. At the moment, however, these metals, because of their high cost, cannot compete commercially on a large scale with the older well‐established corrosion‐resisting alloys such as the high‐silicon iron alloys. The excellent corrosion resistance of the high‐silicon iron alloys, even at high temperatures, and their high thermal conductivity have established them as almost standard alloys for acid concentration and cooling plant construction. The following article outlines their composition and properties.

Tabbing and stringing are the critical process for crystalline silicon solar module production. Because of the mismatch of the thermal expansion coefficients between silicon and metal, phenomenon of cell bowing, microcracks formation or cell breakage emerge during the soldering process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of soldering on crystalline silicon solar cells and module, and reveal soldering law so as to decrease the breakage rates and improve reliability for crystalline silicon solar module.

A microscopic model of the soldering process is developed by the study of the crystalline silicon solar cell soldering process in this work. And the defects caused by soldering were analyzed systematically.

The defects caused by soldering are analyzed systematically. The optimal soldering conditions are derived for the crystalline silicon solar module.

The quality criterion of soldering for crystalline silicon solar module is built for the first time. The optimal soldering conditions are derived for the crystalline silicon solar module. This study provides insights into solder interconnection reliability in the photovoltaic (PV) industry.

Experts claim over 50% of sensor applications are currently served by silicon‐sensor technology.