AMS’s core team is made up of chemical engineers with master’s degrees in business. AMS personnel have spent decades developing solutions for low cost high purity silicon materials.
Dave Keck
General Manager /
Vice Chairman AMS China
Dave, the founder of AMS, brings 30 years of experience in silicon and specialty gas production, technology and business development. Dave’s plethora of experience is derived from positions he has held at REC Silicon and GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT). At REC Silicon Dave held engineering, plant manager, and sales VP positions. Dave founded the polysilicon division of GTAT that grew to over $500 MM/year in revenue. Dave later became the CEO of GTAT.
Dave’s technical experience includes start-up, commissioning, operation and optimization of trichlorosilane/silane plants and the design and operation of TCS/silane based polysilicon CVD reactors. He is the named inventor of key patented technologies at REC Silicon.
Dave holds a B.S. Chemical Engineering and MBA from the University of Washington.
Owen Metcalf
Market Development Manager
Owen has over 20 years of experience in the high purity silicon value chain including manufacturing, technology, sales and marketing. He worked for 20 years at REC Silicon holding positions of production engineering though director of market development.
Owen’s commercial position is enabled by technical expertise in engineering design, start-up, commissioning, and optimization of silicon gas manufacturing, storage and filling systems.
Owen’s commercial responsibilities have included management of a $200 MM/year silicon gas business line as well as global systems engineering, product management, new product development, and director of applications and electronic grade polysilicon sales.
Owen holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Montana State University and an EMBA from Washington State University.
Chad Fero
Director / Chairman AMS China
Chad has 20 years of experience in high purity silicon materials’ production, technology, and business development. Chad developed this expertise through positions previously held at REC Silicon, GTAT and working for Advanced Polysilicon Solutions; the company he started which is now merged with AMS.
Chad’s technical expertise includes start-up, commissioning, operation, and optimization of large scale chorosilane/silane plants. Chad was a key designer in five generations of polysilicon CVD reactors and contributor to key patented technologies owned by AMS: Patents.
Chad’s commercial responsibilities have included the sales and marketing of silicon related equipment and technology reaching over $300 million per year in revenue.
Chad earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Montana State University and MBA from the University of Montana.
Min-kyu (Francois) Lim
President of AMS Korea
Francois has spent 40 years in the semiconductor, polysilicon, and silicon gas industries. He has held executive management positions at Samsung Corporation, OCI, and SK Materials.
Prior to joining AMS, Francois was President and CEO of SK Materials Co LTD. During his four-year tenure, the market cap of SK Materials grew from $250 million to $1.7 billion and sales grew by 300%.
Before SK Materials, Francois was a Sr. VP at OCI Company. OCI went from being the first polysilicon manufacturer in Korea to the world’s number two producer.
Francois spent twenty-seven years working for Samsung Corporation in various positions including President of Samsung France and Executive VP of the Samsung Petrochemical Division.
Francois supports AMS from Seoul and has a Master’s Degree in Economics from Paris University.
Summer Zhang
Asia General Manager /
AMS China General Manager
Summer has experience in the semiconductor equipment industry from working for Electroglas, which produces world class wafer test equipment. Summer also worked in customer service for GTAT and later in the supply chain function. She has been instrumental in successfully managing customer service for projects of over $100 milliion.
Located at the AMS office in Shanghai, Summer earned a B.A. Business Administration from Shanghai University.
Kevin Papp
Director of Engineering
Kevin has 12 years of chlorosilane, silane, and polysilicon experience from working at GTAT.
He brings unique experience from the petrochemical industry as well from doing engineering design, technology licensing and development of technologies such as extraction, crystallization and distillation for Sulzer GTC.
Kevin’s responsibilities have included design, commissioning, startup, optimization and troubleshooting grassroots chlorosilane, silane, and polysilicon facilities. Other responsibilities have included process improvement, debottlenecking and revamp at various production facilities.
Kevin holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Montana State University.
Casey Wornath
Equipment Engineer
Casey has 15 years of experience in silicon product and processing equipment at REC Silicon and GT Advanced Technologies.
Casey’s responsibilities have included electrical/control system design, software development, commissioning and start-up of various equipment types. Casey was a contributor to patented technologies owned by AMS: Patents.
Casey holds a B.S. in General Engineering from Montana Tech.
Jodie Mason
Director of Logistics
Jodie brings 17 years of experience in international logistics & supply chains from REC Silicon and GTAT. This experience includes freight forwarding, domestic trucking, international air and sea logistics, import/export and procedures.
Jodie’s responsibilities included importing and exporting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of silicon materials and hazardous goods; managing supply chain and logistics; worldwide supervision; and she also managed global warehouse operations worth in excess of $20 MM.
Jodie has specific experience shipping thousands of metric tons of silane and chlorosilanes worldwide.
Jodie earned a B.S. in Business Information Systems and an MBA from the University of Montana.
Mike Pfund
President of AMS Diamond Products
Mike worked 10 years at GTAT supporting chlorosilane, silane, polysilicon and crystallization technologies. His responsibilities included project management for greater than $500 MM/year of polysilicon projects. This included commissioning, start-up, operation and optimization of chlorosilane plants and polysilicon CVD reactors.
Mike also spent time as a product manager and development engineer for DSS and EFG technologies with responsibilities for technology development and commercialization.
Mike earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Montana. Mike currently manages AMS’s industrial solvent division: diamondproductsinc.com
Patents
Systems and methods of producing trichlorosilane
Hydrochlorination heater and related methods therefor
Systems and methods of heating a hydrochlorination feed stream
Improved radiation shielding for a CVD reactor
Apparatus and methods for conversion of silicon tetrachloride to trichlorosilane
Heater and related methods therefor
Purification of trichlorosilane
Reverse circulation fluidized bed reactor for granular polysilicon production
Cold filament ignition system
Cold filament ignition system and method of silicon rods
Chuck and bridge connection points for tube filaments in a chemical vapor deposition reactor
Increased polysilicon deposition in a CVD reactor
Method of making large surface area filaments for the production of polysilicon in a CVD reactor
Reactor filament assembly with enhanced misalignment tolerance
CVD reactor
Large surface area silicon filament, and method for producing polosilicon
Patent Pending
Method and system for selective recovering of monochlorosilane and dichlorosilane in a polysilicon production process
Radiation shielding for a CVD reactor