CU tech spinout PowerSicel building silicon chips

BOULDER — When you think of silicon chips you naturally think of the traffic, sky-high rents and geeky millionaires of California’s Silicon Valley. But PowerSicel Inc. is making silicon chips right here in Boulder Valley.

The company is a product of technology transfer, spun out of electrical engineering Professor Bart Van Zeghbroeck’s lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2001.

Silicon chips are the building blocks of semiconductors, which are used to make diodes, transistors and other basic “solid state” electronic components. Semiconductors can be made from any crystalline material that allows electrical current to flow through it —…