Andrew B. Wittkower

Andrew Wittkower ObituaryObituary published on Legacy.com by Greely Funeral Home on Mar. 17, 2026.Andrew B. Wittkower died peacefully in his home in Rockport on March 14th, 2026. He was born in London on November 7, 1934. His parents had escaped from Germany two years earlier. In 1951, they moved their family of four, which included his sister, Sylvia, to Montreal, Canada. A first-class degree from McGill University in mathematics and physics enabled him to be accepted as a graduate student to the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. After failing to understand nuclear structure physics, he decided to try something different and was granted a PhD degree in atomic collision physics from University College, a part of the University of London.Andrew then began his first career as a research scientist by joining a wonderfully innovative group at High Voltage Engineering in Burlington, MA. While there, he published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in scientific, technical and popular journals on ion sources and charge-changing collisions in tandem particle accelerators. His second career, which lasted for 20 years, was as a builder of ion implantation equipment for the semiconductor industry. In 1970, he was a co-founder of Extrion Corporation, which designed and built the first production ion implanter. Now Applied Materials/Varian, this company presently employs more than 1500 people in the Cape Ann area. Subsequently, he became a co-founder of Nova Associates (now Axcelis) and a number of other start-ups – all manufacturers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Andrew was honored with the 1986 SEMMY Award by the Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturers International. Subsequently, Andrew entered his third career fabricating and promoting a new semiconductor material, SOI. In 1986, he became a co-founder of Ibis Technology, the first commercial manufacturer of this material. In 1992, he was a Founder of Soitec USA, a subsidiary of Soitec SA (based in Bernin, France) which is now the largest producer of SOI wafers in the world. He remained its President until 2005 when he became President Emeritus. He was a Life Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, and the Institute of Physics (UK). He described incidents in the course of his career in a memoir "Snippets from my Life as it Was".In 1956, on his way back to England from Canada, he met his future wife (Mary) on the ocean liner SS. Saxonia. They got married in August 1957, emigrated to the USA in 1959, and soon thereafter produced a son (David) and a daughter (Elizabeth). They remained married for more than 60 years until Mary's death in 2020. Thereafter, until his death, he spent with his companion, Cheryl Mazer living in Rockport and enjoying Paris.Andrew greatly enjoyed traveling. During his working life, he traveled to Japan more than 40 times and then for pleasure additionally with Mary, David and Elizabeth, once with each. He went with Mary also on small boat tours to both the Arctic and Antarctic and to many destinations in between, Egypt, India as an employee of Soitec.Andrew enjoyed tending his vegetable garden in the spring, summer and downing a couple of glasses of indifferent scotch year-round. His children and grandchildren loved coming to visit in a house full of music and paintings. We miss him.In keeping with his wishes, there will be no services. Arrangements by the Greely Funeral Home, 212 Washington Street, Gloucester. For online condolences, please visit www.greelyfuneralhome.comTo plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.