Hewlett-Packard Co persisted with Silicon-on-Sapphire semiconductor technology long after most other companies had abandoned the technology, and its experience with Sapphire could pay off in the bright new world of high-temperature superconductors: the company has a stake in Sunnyvale, California-based Conductus Inc, which has developed a superconducting quantum interference device or Squid for detecting minute magnetic forces, which combines a Josephson Junction with a tiny antenna, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Hewlett-Packard has developed a method of depositing a superconducting film on a Sapphire substrate that it says will cut the cost of fabricating devices like Squids by 90%.
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