Chip Hirn

Chip Hirn joined the Nanotech West staff in July of 2021 as an Equipment Technician. Chip’s primary responsibilities include providing support for the fields of micro and nanofabrication, energy/battery research, chemical vapor deposition, and infrared material and device characterization. Chip supports all lab equipment, especially vacuum systems, by monitoring and performing preventative maintenance as needed, troubleshoots, repairs, and tests semiconductor process equipment including deposition, plasma etch, lithography, and characterization equipment all in support of 24/7 lab operations.

Chip has worked in the Optics industry for over twenty-three years including eleven years at Zomax in Dublin Ohio working in the Replication Department, manufacturing CDs and DVDs. Chip gained experience working with plasma sputtering chambers, plastic injection molding presses, and working side by side with the engineering team in developing manufacturing processes for new DVD manufacturing equipment at the time. In the last twelve years, Chip has been working as a Process Technician and then Production Supervisor for Luxottica Retail. As a Process Technician Chip led a team of associates providing prescription optical lenses with an Anti-Reflective thin film coating (AR) by way of electronic beam evaporation and plasma etching. As a Production Supervisor, Chip was responsible for process adherence and job flow throughout the lab including support for seventy associates in day-to-day production needs while ensuring all KPIs and metric-driven goals were met.

Chip attended ITT Technical Institute with a degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering in 2007.