Company
History
Ionographics mission is to commercialize a novel computer-aided electrochemical microfabrication technology called Electrochemical Printing (EcP). This technology was co-invented by UW Chemical Engineering Professor Daniel T. Schwartz and John D. Whitaker, Ph.D. (patent pending). Jeff Nelson, Ph.D. continued working on the technology and completed his Ph.D. in June 2007. Both Dan and John are both Ionographics advisory board members.
Ionographics was founded by Jeff in November 2007 in preparation for submitting a phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) proposal to the National Science Foundation. Work on the phase I proposal began at the UW in July 2008.
In September 2008, Ionographics learned of a company trying to build some unique metal features for microchip testing products. They invested $70,000 in Ionographics as part of a phase IB supplemental SBIR award in December 2008. This allowed Ionographics to rent some lab space and build our own EcP tool. Ionographics also hired Dan Allred, Ph.D. in December 2008. Dan has a broad set of capabilities in electrochemistry, electrodeposition, protein synthesis, materials analysis, hardware interfacing, and fabrication.
Our phase II SBIR proposal ($500K, 24 months) was awarded in July 2009. Work on this proposal continues at our Ballard laboratory.