A custom grind: Drilling Performance

Machine Control Technologies’ Sam Yu on making custom tool and cutter grinders.

Custom machine tools can cost millions of dollars and have long development times. Sam Yu, president and owner of Corona, Calif.-based Machine Control Technologies Inc., said he builds specialty tool and cutter grinders in months—and at a fraction the price of competitors’ custom grinders. And, he’ll even come out and train customers on how to operate their new machines.

In an interview conducted by CTE Contributing Editor Kip Hanson, Yu talked about his career before and after he began building grinding machines.

Cutting Tool Engineering: You didn’t start out to be a machine builder. What is your background?

Sam Yu: I studied electronics and computer engineering at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, during the early 1980s. After graduating, I was hired by a company in Irvine, Calif.—HiLevel Technology—and helped develop bit-slice processor development systems, which were used to build large parallel-processing CPUs from off-the-shelf components. They were considered to be the most-advanced systems of their kind at that time. While there, I also invented an access time tester for checking to see how fast memory and logic chips can process information.

Sam Yu stands in front of one of the 200-plus custom tool and cutter grinders his company has built.
Image courtesy of K. Hanson

CTE: When did you go into business for yourself?

Yu: I always found bit-slice processors inconvenient to use. They are hardware-intensive and generate a type of cascading signal that most software applications don’t need. I created my own microprocessor development system—an alternative to bit-slicing technology—and in 1985 I started my own company, Yu Instruments, to manufacture microprocessor development systems for R&D companies. The problem was there were not many R&D companies and most didn’t need more than a single system, so there wasn’t much demand. I took a job with Hughes Aircraft to make ends meet. I would write test software for the F-16 and different missile systems during the day and continue my microprocessor equipment work in my garage at night.