The Atomic Architect: Rick Gottscho on Plasma's Role in Semiconductor Fabrication & Physical AI Infrastructure (Virtual)
Semiconductors are the foundation of modern computing, and plasma is the foundational technology of semiconductor fabrication. Without plasma processes, Moore's Law would have stalled decades ago.
So, why is now plasma's most important moment? The industry faces its next inflection point. Silicon transistors have reached physical limits and cannot go any smaller, and the industry is looking to new materials and chip architectures, advanced packaging, and entirely new device physics to continue improving performance, increasing energy efficiency, and reducing compute costs. And looming over it all: the explosion in AI & the promise of physical AI.
Who better to make this case than Rick Gottscho, Ph.D., Retired Head of Products & CTO of Lam Research. Rick has spent 40+ years in the semiconductor industry and is renowned for his technical leadership in plasma diagnostics and modeling, plasma processing, and process control.
In this fireside chat with moderator Susan Schofer (Partner, SOSV & Chief Science Officer, HAX), Rick will explore:
Plasma's rise: What plasma’s original promise was for semiconductors & why the opportunity is still expanding
Moore's Law & its limits: How plasma enabled decades of scaling & why the old playbook is giving way to a materials revolution
Energy as the new constraint: Why power is becoming the defining challenge of the compute era
What Physical AI needs from chips: What advanced compute actually demands from fabrication today
From R&D to production: Lessons from navigating product innovation through to scaled, high-volume manufacturing
Manufacturing in the USA: Why reshoring matters, what does a new global ecosystem look like, what's missing & how digital twins could accelerate the path forward
📍 Broadcast live from our SOSV NY event space in Manhattan, this is the next installment of SOSV Deep Tech LIVE, our video podcast series exploring the frontiers of deep tech with leading founders, researchers, and technologists.