Brief History
Soft-Impact was founded in 1996 by a group of enthusiasts from Ioffe Phisical Technical Institute, seeking independence and dreaming to make a self-sufficient research group that would apply scientific potential accumulated in research institutes to solve contemporary problems of semiconductor industry. When former soviet electronics giant "Svetlana" announced creation of Innovation Technological Center on its territory, company embraced the opportunity and moved in its first office in 1997.
In five years, what started as a bold initiative became a team working with universities and semiconductor companies from Europe and USA. During this period, the number of employees and annual output more than trebled. The spectrum of problems that company tackled broadened considerably as well—now it were not only CVD and sublimation growth, but also growth from the melt and modelling of semiconductor based devices. Soon after Czochralski growth technique was introduced into the sphere of our interests, modeling of crystal growth from the melt became one of the company's priority sectors.
In 2000 Soft-Impact launched a program to develop dedicated software and, in 2003, a software tool for simulation and optimization of crystal growth techniques was released, followed by the simulator for modeling the crystal growth from the melt and a number of software products for device engineering in 2004. Abroad, our production is sold via dealer company STR, that has offices in Germany and USA, on the basis of License Agreement.
Soft-Impact Today
Today Soft-Impact is a well established company, specializing in numerical modeling of crystal growth and epitaxy for semiconductor industry. The company staff is now over 50 people—specialists in hydrodynamics, thermophysics and chemistry, mathematicians and programmers, sixteen of them PhDs.
Along with research activities, Soft-Impact provides consulting and engineering services, develops its own software products. Three Soft-Impact's innovative projects were selected by the tender commission of The Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises (FASIE) for funding in 2000-2004. Last one of them is a project for the development of the electron textbook "The thermo- and mass-transport in advanced technologies of semiconductor industry", which was awarded in the competition to the 300th Anniversary of Saint Petersburg "Knowledge and Innovations". Soft-Impact is involved in such international research and development projects as the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the U.S. CRDF Next Steps to the Market Program, INTAS projects etc.
In 2002, Soft-Impact obtained the accreditation of the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology as an Organization of Science (Registration No 4585 of 22.11.02.). From 2003 Soft-Impact participates in the federal innovative project "Development of Synthetic Dielectric Crystal Industry and Products of them", funded by the Ministry, on 2 directions: development of technology and equipment for production of AlN crystals, and for production of bulk sapphire crystals.
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- Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, St. Petersburg
- Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography, Moscow
- Moscow University
- Polytechnical University, St. Petersburg
- University of Fine Mechanics and Optics, St. Petersburg
- University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany
- CNRS, Valbonna, France
- Texas University, USA
- Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel
- University Autonoma of Madrid, Spain
- The Fox Group Inc., Livermore, USA
In our company,
academic science and knowledge of state of the art technologies
complete each other, empowering our team to solve challenging problems,
to come out with innovative ideas. For our emplyees, we create an
atmosphere that fosters creativity and prudent risk-taking.
We provide information and support,
helping our research fellows and students to realize their potential.