Burgers and fries may have moved from the diner grill to the fast-food microwave, but pizza has kept its place in the conventional oven.
The problem? Pizza crust, no matter how it's nuked, lacks that final touch of crisp browning the traditional pizza oven offers.But now Texas Instruments, the Dallas-based defense electronics giant, is making pizza ovens that the company hopes will turn out a perfectly browned, restaurant-quality pie in 90 seconds or less.
The ovens are being made on one of the first custom production lines for a commercial customer in one of the company's Texas defense plants. Microchips and defense technology account for 80 percent of Texas Instruments' more than $7 billion in annual revenue.
The fundamental design of the ovens, already in use in two Pizza Hut outlets, is owned by food entrepreneur Philip R. McKee.
The Southern Methodist University business school graduate worked for three years to achieve his goal of "breaking through the thermal barrier" that keeps pizza and other fare from becoming truly fast food.
After turning around a failing food company and developing bread mixes for a Kansas company, McKee in 1989 began focusing on developing a computer-controlled method of quick cooking.
By May, a development team had devised an oven that overcame McKee's "thermal barrier" - the layers of cold air that surround a piece of food as it cooks.