About us
ph-instruments was founded in 2018/19 by Peter Hofmann after a 19 years career at MKS Instruments. He had positions as Sales-& Application manager DACH, France and Benelux, finally and for 10 years as Managing Director for Continental Europe.
The business idea to go for the Spinning Rotor Gauge Technology is simple: An outstanding concept for vacuum pressure measurement in industrial High Vacuum applications.
The unique 2 part sensor/readout design allows a robust, accurate, reliable, contactless and long term stable vacuum measurement of static and dynamic vacuums. ph-instruments partners with other independent companies that offer unique technologies to measure the pressure from atmosphere to high vacuum. The inventor of the SRG Technology, the long time R&D & Manufacturing manager of SRGs and the sales/application manager of digital vacuum gauges build the core team.
Peter Hofmann studied Chemistry at the University of Siegen, made his Diploma in the production and characterization of nanocrystalline materials (reactive PVD process, FTIR, BET, x-ray diffraction).
In 1997 he received his PhD at the Technical University of Vienna at the Department of Physical Chemistry focusing on solid state Physics and surface science.
1998 he started his industry career as Sales and Application Manager DACH and Continental Europe at the MKS Instruments Deutschland GmbH. In this period, he gained experience in different kind of Semiconductor, Research and industrial, medical and analytical vacuum applications.
2007 he took over the position as Managing Director of MKS Instruments in Germany, France and Benelux. During his time at MKS Instruments he was responsible for the integration of multiple High-Tech companies into the European MKS organization, for Business Development in industrial / medical / automotive applications, as well as for manufacturing / R&D / service for MKS Germany gas and vacuum components (incl. the Spinning Rotor Gauge, MFCs and Capacitance Manometers).
In 2016 MKS acquired Newport (Photonics), due his background in photonics/spectroscopy and Vacuum Technology he got a global role to integrate both organizations from a sales and application perspective.
Strongly interest in technical sales of unique vacuum pressure gauges lead in 2018/2019 to launch the ph-instruments GmbH. Although known since the 70ies the outstanding SRG technology never gained the position in the vacuum measurement world that it honors due.
One reason was the slow increase of microcontroller power over time that dragged behind and the conflict that the technology created with cheaper and compacter designs of established vacuum pressure gauge manufactures.
Both issues are overcome, therefore, an experienced team of engineers in design and manufacturing of Vacuum Pressure Measurement equipment around the SRG technology was created.
2019 Peter Hofmann founded ph-instruments and holds the position as a managing director.
Raffael Ferdigg holds a Masters Degree in Physics. During his studies he was commonly working with high vacuum systems. He specialized in solid state physics and focused on spin physics in uniaxial antiferromagnetic materials. Raffael joined ph-instruments as CTO to take over the responsibility for all technical issues, applications and future vacuum measurement developments.
His task is a deep dive into Spinning Rotor Gauge technology and related applications. In close cooperation with our sales team he will enable our customers to get best solution oriented digital vacuuum pressure gauges.