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NIST Special Publication 809
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS

TECHNOLOGY

Research Information Center

G^hersbtirg, MD 20899

On the cover: A method for making

improved electrical contacts to hightemperature superconductors has been developed and patented by

researchers at NIST and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Here, NIST physicist Jack Ekin inserts a contact test sample into a cryogenic

test fixture. See article on page 11

.
National Institute of Standards and Technology

Research Reports

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Robert A. Mosbacher. Secretary Robert M. White. Under Secretary

for Technology

National Institute of Standards and Technology John W. Lyons, Director

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, Md. 20899

301/975-2000

Boulder, Colo. 80303

303/497-3000

March 1991

NIST Special Publication 809

Prepared by the Public Affairs Division A903 Administration Building National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, Md. 20899

301/975-2762

Any mention of commercial products

is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement

by the National Institute of Standards and Technology nor does it imply that the products mentioned are necessarily

the best available for the purpose.

Research Update

America's Technology Opportunities 4

1992 Budget Seeks Increase for NIST 9

Making Good Contact 1 1

Grants To Advance Key Industrial Technologies 12

Helping Companies Up the Technology Ladder 18

New Instrument Promises Improved Tracking of Drugs 22

Call of the Future 25

A New Generation of Materials? 27

Manufacturers, Skiers Gain Competitive Edge 28

Microwaves on a Chip 30

New Publications 34

Conference Calendar 36
Research Update

NIST Reorganizes Management

Structure

NIST has reorganized its management

structure to improve the agency's

support for U.S. industry, science and

engineering, and the public. The re- organization eliminates one level of man- agement and combines several research

groups into larger laboratory units. No re- ductions in NIST laboratory programs or

staff are involved. New laboratory units are: Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Chemical Science and Technology, Physics,

Building and Fire Research, and Computing and Applied Mathematics. Functions

of the Materials Science and Engineering

Laboratory and the National Computer

Systems Laboratory remain the same, ex- cept the latter's name has been changed

to the Computer Systems Laboratory.

There is no change to programs within Technology Services.

Measuring Food Components Aim

of New Materials

Scientists studying health and disease

aspects of food consumption depend on

accurate measurements of nutrients and

contaminants in food samples. But to ensure the reliability of instruments and analytical methods, they need standards

ideally standards containing a variety of foods representative of an average American diet. A standard reference material (SRM) now available from NIST offers a

typical diet combined into a bottled freeze-dried powder. Foods such as

eggs, pizza, hamburgers, and beer are

all included. The material contains certified concentrations of 14 chemical elements as

well as ash, fat, dietary fiber, cholesterol,

and caloric content. Chemists can analyze these materials as they would any

food sample and compare their analysis

to the numbers provided. The U.S. Department of Agriculture prepared the SRMs for NIST from foods obtained

through the Total Diet Study, an ongoing

Food and Drug Administration program

that monitors foods from various U.S. regions for pesticides, toxins, and

nutrients. Total Diet (SRM 1548) costs $251 for two 6.5-gram bottles and is available from the Standard Reference

Materials Program, Rm. 204 Bldg. 202,

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-6776.

Materials To Help Measure

Mercury in Waterways

Gauging how much of a pollutant is pres- ent in sediments of the nation's lakes and

rivers can be tricky. Researchers ideally

need an actual sediment sample containing a known quantity of the pollutant

being measured. NIST now has such

samples available for mercury measurements. With this new series of research

materials (RMs), scientists can check the accuracy of their analytical instruments,

and environmental investigators in differ- ent laboratories can be assured they are using the same homogeneous materials as standards. RM 8406 contains only

0.06 micrograms per gram of mercury

and is suitable as a background level. RMs 8407 and 8408 contain 50 and 107

micrograms per gram of mercury, respectively. Levels of numerous other elements

are given for information only. The RMs

are $109 each from the Standard Refer- ence Materials Program, Rm. 204 Bldg.

202, NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-6776.

Using STM To Build Roomtemperature Nanostructures

The vision of custom-building atomicscale structures—perhaps "nano- machines" or ultra-high-performance

electronic devices—by individually

manipulating atoms with a scanning tun- neling microscope (STM) has inspired a number of recent experiments. The most

dramatic results to date have involved

positioning individual xenon atoms on a

very cold (-269 °C) surface. Practical applications of that technique are somewhat limited because it requires that the surface be maintained at cryogenic

temperatures, and it only works with a

limited class of atoms. NIST researchers

recently demonstrated a novel roomtemperature procedure for manipulating

atoms or molecules on surfaces that promises much more general application. By generating an electric field at the tip of the STM probe, they induced

cesium atoms adsorbed on typical semiconductor substrates to collect under the probe tip, forming novel structures that would not otherwise occur by simple

adsorption. Details were reported in the March 8 issue of Science.

Consortium To Develop New Way

To Find Paint Flaws

A government-industry consortium is being explored by NIST to develop an automated non-destructive process to detect and evaluate defects in paints on

metal products such as automobiles. An

automated detection system using computer image processing and robotics along with techniques to "map" the sur- face of a product would be faster and

more precise than current detection sys- tems, says Jonathan Martin, a materials research engineer at NIST. Research

on coating defects, robotics, and non2
destructive evaluation techniques currently being conducted by researchers in the NIST Building and Fire Research and

Manufacturing Engineering Laboratories

could provide the basis for the new in- spection technique. For information, contact Martin at 301/975-671 7 or Theodore

Vorburger at 301/975-3493.

NSA and NIST Computer Security

Project Announced

The National Security Agency's (NSA)

National Computer Security Center and

NIST's Computer Systems Laboratory will work together to develop new criteria for evaluating the security of computer sys- tems. Expected to last at least 2 years,

this effort will lead to a new Federal Infor- mation Processing Standard, or FIPS, to specify computer security requirements

for federal systems that process unclassified information. NIST and NSA will ex- amine the applicability of the well- established U.S. Department of Defense

Trusted Computer System Evaluation Cri- teria for the systems networking environ- ment and will take into account the migration toward an open systems distributed environment. User and vendor experi- ences with existing trusted systems will be studied and will influence the direction of the new criteria. Also to be ex- amined are various alternatives for evaluating products and determining their conformance to specified requirements.

Obtaining Liquid Neon

at Lower Costs

NIST researchers have designed and

constructed a small-scale plant capable

of recycling liquid neon for about $20 per

liter, $150 per liter less than liquid neon

can be obtained commercially. The plant was designed to capture, purify, and refrigerate neon boiling off from calorimetry

experiments in the low-temperature

measurement of the thermal conductivity

of insulating materials. The recycling

plant consists of a purification section, a

heat exchanger, liquid neon and liquid

hydrogen storage dewars, and a fully automated control system. After purification, neon is liquefied in the heat ex- changer by liquid hydrogen flowing

countercurrently through stainless steel cooling coils. Hydrogen flow is automatically adjusted to keep the neon at its nor- mal saturation temperature of 27 kelvins. The liquefied neon is stored in a dewar

directly below the heat exchanger; a low- temperature refrigerator provides cooling

during extended storage or low-flow application. Paper no. 4-91 describes the

plant in more detail and is available from Jo Emery, Div. 104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303, 303/497-3237.

New Technique Measures Fiber

Matrix in Composites

NIST researcher Wen-li Wu has been

awarded a patent for a new technique to estimate the strength of the bonding be- tween polymer matrix resin and reinforce- ments in polymer composites. The mechanical properties of composite

materials are strongly influenced by the bonding of resins and fiber reinforce- ments. Wu's method uses a laser to heat a very small, localized region of the sample. The thermal expansion between

the fiber and resin produces an acoustical emission, which can be measured.

The stronger the interface, the lower the

acoustical signal. The technique is simple to use, is non-destructive, and

addresses one of the technical barriers

to improved polymer composite processing identified by industry at two NIST

workshops. For information, contact

Wen-li Wu, B320 Polymer Bldg., NIST,

Gaithersburg, Md. 20899, 301/975-6839.

Microstrip Patch Antenna

Developed

NIST researchers have developed a small (20-cm-square) microstrip patch antenna

that can be used as a standard transmitting and receiving antenna at frequencies below 500 MHz in an anechoic

chamber. Up to now, well-characterized

pyramidal horns and open-ended waveguides have been used, but at frequencies below 500 MHz, these instruments

become very large and impractical.

NIST researchers proved that the reso- nant frequency, driving point impedence,

antenna radiation pattern, and radiated

field strength of the microstrip patch antenna could be calculated theoretically

from its geometry and are accurate to within 3 percent. Paper no. 2-91 describes the antenna in detail and is avail- able from Jo Emery, Div. 104, NIST,

Boulder, Colo. 80303, 303/497-3237.

"Expect" Automates

Interactive Programs

"Expect," a software tool for automating

interactive programs, is available from

the NIST Manufacturing Engineering

Laboratory. Originally designed to automatically log in computers in NIST's Auto- mated Manufacturing Research Facility, Expect runs on UNIX systems but can

also control non-UNIX computers and

networks. Expect's creator, NIST scientist Don Libes, says the software "uses a script—much like a movie script—to simulate a human interacting with a computer. Expect scripts can describe alter- natives and then 'play' differently each

time as they adapt to the situation." Requests should be sent to Don Libes,

A127 Metrology Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899 or library@cme.nist.gov.

3
America's Technology

Opportunities

t's no secret that the U.S. position in the international marketplace

j has changed over the past two decades. U.S. business and industry

dominated international trading from the period immediately after

World War II until the late 1970s. By that time a reconstructed Europe

and Japan, with U.S. help, were asserting themselves, and they

began to acquire larger shares of the world market—sometimes taking aim

directly at profitable U.S. markets

in the process.

It seems obvious that the pros- pects for the future are for more

and tougher competition. In the face of today's economic downturn, Commerce Secretary Robert

A. Mosbacher points out that our

exports are in fact doing very

well. He feels exports are one key

way to climb out of the downturn.

Doing better with our high-tech

products is one way to boost

exports.

Researchers at the National

Institute of Standards and Technology did the technical analysis

for a report* the Commerce Department issued last spring that examined a series of emerging

technologies and how the United

States stacks up against the comThis article was excerpted from a speech made by John W. Lyons,

director of NIST, to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' Composites

in Manufacturing 10 Conference in Anaheim, Calif, on Jan. 8, 1991.

"Editor's note: This report is available from the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Va. 22161

for $17. Order by PB #90-216557.

... these are weaknesses that this

country and U.S.

technology leaders

are fully capable

of correcting.

petition. The combined U.S. market potential alone for these

technologies, 12 in four areas

advanced materials, electronics and information systems, manufacturing systems, and life sciences applications, is about

$350 billion in annual product

sales by the year 2000, and the world market approaches

$1 trillion. Materials are far and away the largest market

opportunity.

If current trends continue, the United States will lag behind

Japan before the end of the century in most emerging technolo- gies and will trail the European

Community (EC) in several of

them. When it comes to advanced materials, we don't foresee the United States gaining

against the competition unless we

take some new initiatives. In both

research and development and new product introduction, the trend seems headed in just the wrong direction in our competition with the Japanese. However, we seem likely to hold our own

compared with the EC.

In assessing the reasons for our relative decline in the global

marketplace, most observers cite the high cost of capital, the short- term view of the financial markets,

failures in managing technology, our competitors' trading practices, poorly trained workers,

and the like. My own specialty is tech- nology, so let me discuss the challenges in managing

technology.

We have general agreement

that U.S. science is the best in the world—just witness the continuing stream of Nobel prizes to Americans and overseas interest

in our university science base.

4
U.S. creativity remains strong,

and our research and development laboratories continue to develop new technology at a competitive or better rate. Our major

shortcoming is that we continue

to fall behind in taking new tech- nology into the marketplace and

in reaping the resulting sales

benefits. The symptoms of the problem

of going to market show up as problems in three areas: quality, cost of goods, and speed-tomarket. We cannot expect to re- tain or gain market share if we are

not the first with new product

lines with the best quality and

lowest cost.

If that's the bad news, it also

is the good news. Because these

are weaknesses that this country

and U.S. technology leaders are

fully capable of correcting.

First, quality. There are many

techniques for improving the quality of our products. The question

of quality can no longer be limited

to physical and chemical at- tributes—for example, whether or not a product meets specifications. Instead we have to go back

to the design stage and ask

whether the product as designed

is reliable, serviceable, and easy

to manufacture, and whether it

truly fulfills its intended function and satisfies the customer. In short, we need to design for

quality. At one end of the quality spectrum, a statistics-based discipline

is emerging that seeks to achieve

robustness of design through for- mal sensitivity analysis. This dis- cipline recognizes that it is essential that a product not be sensitive

Research physicists John Barker (left) and Susan Krueger insert a sample into NIST's 8-meter

small-angle neutron scattering spectrometer at the NIST Cold Neutron Research Facility, a national user facility for materials research.

to any small changes in any vari- able critical to quality. For most

products, there are many critical variables and aspects of quality

to be juggled, so a structured ap- proach is needed. Fortunately, designing for quality is taking hold as an active field of research, and

one in which industry can expect

benefits in the near future.

In a broader context, we are seeing a whole new movement to improve our companies under the banner of "total quality management." Companies are putting in place management systems that make quality considerations the basic starting point for business

strategies and decision making, as well as for employee and cus- tomer involvement. Quality im- provement is becoming serious

business for business in America,

and the efforts over the past few

years are beginning to add up to a real cultural change for cor- porate America. Cost is obviously one of the primary considerations that deter- mine whether American technologies and companies make it in the international marketplace. Cost can be attacked by streamlining processes, by improving

process measurements, and by

using tighter process controls to reduce rejects. Often this is as

simple as controlling the in- ventory of raw materials, components, and finished goods.

For many processes, flexible auto- mation techniques can and are

bringing about economies of mass production in lot sizes as

small as one unit. This is possible

thanks to the extraordinary

5
advances that have taken place

in microprocessors and their applications.

In many processes, while the

control technology is well advanced, the process sensors are

primitive and limiting. By failing to place a high enough priority on

process technology, we are

opting to lower short-term costs

while ultimately driving up overall product costs. Speed-to-market is the other

critical factor that has been hurt- ing U.S. technology-based

developments. We've heard it over and over again: Technologies are given life in America and

exploited by competitors who

bring our ideas to market.

If you look at the evolution of any number of today's critical technologies, you often can identify a short period of time during

which all factors were favorable. This is when a new business venture and the right product can

reap large profits. And if there is one major difference between

technological development in the 1980s and 1990s compared with

earlier decades, it is the speed at which those technological "win- dows of opportunity" are opening

and closing.

If American companies want

to make it in the international marketplace in the years ahead,

they will have to be much better prepared when those windows of opportunity present themselves.

That's why it is so encouraging to see American managers

begin to focus on concepts of "concurrent or simultaneous engineering," "just-in-time manufacturing," and "lot sizes of one."

Teams of designers, engineers,

and production staff are putting

together new products and

processes in markedly reduced

times. By automating major portions of the design and production processes, our industry leaders are improving quality and

cost and offering the customer

tailor-made products in less time.

...we need to pay

more attention to how

new technical

approaches can

improve—and are improving—our

competitive situation.

If I sound upbeat, it's because

I am. Instead of bemoaning our

slide in key technology-based

sectors of our economy, instead

of worrying about what a tighter federal budget will mean for the

portion of our economy that has

traditionally relied on the defense

sector, instead of complaining

about what the competition is doing, we need to pay more attention to how new technical ap- proaches can improve—and are improving—our competitive

situation. That is what we are trying to do at NIST. Working in partnership with industry and government, we have three main goals

today: to support industry, to carry out selected programs in public health and safety and en- vironmental improvement, and to support the science and engineering community through fundamental research. We are supporting

industry by focusing on: generic, precompetitive tech- nologies for both products and

processes;

emerging technologies, such

as composites, that will be

economically important in the

future;

quality management and quality improvement technologies and

methods;

expanding our cooperative

efforts with partners in industry,

government, and academe; and

strengthening our outreach

and technology transfer efforts. Our work in composites reflects these priorities and shows

how a federal laboratory can work

productively with industry and

government to ensure that America takes full advantage of tech- nology opportunities.

We know that advanced materials, including composites, are a key technology of the future. At NIST we have been addressing

scientific and measurement

issues that are crucial to the successful applications of new

materials. We have focused on

the development of measurement

methods, reference data, and materials to help relate the structure and properties of various materials to issues of design, processing, and performance. For composites, that information is vital since the pressure for rapid use

of these materials has outstripped

the development of a corresponding science and technology base

in fabrication. We all know a

major effort is needed to correct

this problem.

6
NIST Joins with Automotive Consortium

To Improve Polymer Composites Processing

NIST and the Automotive Composites Consortium (ACC) have agreed to a cooperative pro- gram to improve the processing of structural poly- mer composite materials. The ACC partnership of Chrysler Corporation,

Ford Motor Company, and General Motors Corporation is aimed at developing the technology in- dustry needs for processing reliable, costeffective structural polymer composite materials. The cooperative project will focus on composites made by resin transfer molding (RTM) and

structural reaction injection molding (SRIM). NIST

researchers will develop and use computer models for both processing methods to simulate the

fabrication of a complex demonstration part made

by the ACC using the latest processing and per- formance technologies. The demonstration part is the front end structural member of a discontinued

model of the Ford Escort constructed primarily of composite materials. The RTM and SRIM processes involve injecting resins into a mold that has been filled with

fiber reinforcements. By combining plastic resins with glass fibers, very versatile, lightweight, and

high-strength materials can be made.

According to Donald L. Hunston, leader of the NIST polymers composites group, the challenge

is to achieve the optimum flow of resin so that the mold is completely filled in minimum time and with minimum pressure while avoiding bubbles and

voids. The NIST computer models are designed to predict flow patterns and pressures during RTM

and SRIM processing. Information from the simulations will be used by the ACC to optimize processing conditions and to improve mold design.

"This collaborative effort will offer NIST re- searchers an opportunity to compare model predictions with data from the fabrication of a part. The information also will be used to develop

generic tools and procedures needed to establish RTM and SRIM processing as efficient routes for producing a variety of polymer composite parts," said Hunston. Leading industry representatives at two NIST

workshops indicated RTM and SRIM molding as among the most important processing methods

for the next 5 to 15 years. For further information, contact Donald L. Hunston, A209 Polymer Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899, 301/975-6837.

by Roger Rensberger

NIST Public Affairs Specialist

In recent years, our focus has

turned increasingly toward im- proving the understanding of materials processing. Our goal is to assist industry to develop real- time, automated systems of proc- ess control—intelligent manufacturing, in short. Such systems are

vital to improved product quality,

production efficiency and cost, and speed-to-market, those factors critical to any commercially

successful technology.

To ensure that our composites

efforts are targeted on those

aspects of the science base that

will most directly help U.S. companies achieve cost-effective processing, we have held several workshops with industry. Recommendations about the most important processing methods, made

during a 1987 session, helped us

in planning a major expansion of our composites program.

Likewise, a second workshop

held last year on technical barriers, helped to guide another ex- pansion in our composites work. Greater cooperation—among

industry, university, and govern- ment—is absolutely vital if we are going to apply the resources needed to assure that the United

States is competitive in the

future—and that goes for composites as much as for any field. NIST has signed a cooperative

7
research and development agree- ment with the Automotive Composites Consortium put together

Py Chrysler, Ford, and General

Motors. The project is intended to help improve the processing of structural polymer composite materials made by liquid molding.

(See box on page 7.) We are collaborating in other ways with industry and other government agencies to advance

U.S. polymer composites capabilities. NIST has special facilities available to industry for proprietary and non-proprietary

At NIST we have

been addressing

scientific and

measurement issues

that are crucial

to the successful

applications of

new materials.

work. For instance, the worldclass small-angle neutron scatter- ing instrument at our research re- actor has been used by industry

to determine the molecular net- work structure in composite resins, and our small-angle x-ray scattering facility has been used

to study microstructure in highstrength fibers. At our Automated Manufacturing Research Facility, we are developing a workstation to im- prove fabrication by filament placement with thermoplastic

composites. This method has

great potential since it combines

high speed with low cost.

In addition, we have several new extramural programs that can help U.S. composites manufacturers in their efforts to remain

world-class competitors as this technology broadens to more far- ranging commercial applications.

Our regional Manufacturing

Technology Centers program

helps to transfer advanced manufacturing techniques—including

techniques developed at our own

NIST automation laboratories—to small and mid-sized companies.

(See article on page 18.) Operated by not-for-profit, non-federal organizations, the centers reach out to companies

in the region and provide hands- on assistance and training

opportunities. It would be entirely

appropriate for these centers to serve the needs of composites

manufacturers.

Our most recent external effort

is the Advanced Technology Pro- gram, an industrial grants pro- gram intended to speed the development by industry of pre- competitive, generic technologies

with high commercial potential.

Both individual corporations and

joint ventures are eligible for funding after undergoing a technical and business screening. The

program is growing; we have re- ceived $36 million—which totals $72 million with the industry

matching funds—for the next round of grants later this year. (See article on page 12.) Perhaps our most successful new program relates directly

back to quality: the Malcolm

Baldrige National Quality Award.

When you talk about culture changes that will help improve

U.S. economic competitiveness,

and what can be achieved

through public-private sector cooperation, you probably can't

find a better example. NIST manages the program, which was es- tablished by Congress just over 3 years ago, in close cooperation

with the private sector. Only nine

companies have been honored

with this award after having made

it through a tough screening

process.

Just as importantly, the award

criteria are being used extensively by U.S. firms to benchmark

how they stack up against world

competition and to improve their capabilities. If you aren't familiar with this program and the guidelines, I encourage you to contact us immediately. If your company

can win the award, great. But if your organization follows the

Quality Award guidelines, the in- creased awareness and action

that result mean that you, your

firms, American business, and

our economy come out winners.

Our work at NIST will be but one of many factors in improving

the health and competitiveness of the U.S. composites industry. By

addressing the key factors of

quality, cost, and speed-tomarket, and by providing a forum

for cooperative planning and re- search, we offer industry an opportunity to help meet America's

technology challenges. This country has all the tools it needs

to succeed in the competitive years ahead. Now we have to show that we are committed to using them.

8
1992 Budget Seeks

Increase for NIST

resident Bush's fiscal year (FY) 1992 budget request for the

National Institute of Standards and Technology proposes total

funding of $248 million, a 15-percent increase over the FY 91

appropriation of $215 million. The funding request includes

$201.8 million for intramural projects and $46.2 million in

extramural programs. The FY 92 budget strategy continues the effort

begun in FY 91 to expand NIST's

ability to develop generic tech- nology and address a rapidly

growing number of important stan- dards and measurement issues.

It is designed to strengthen NIST

research programs in support of U.S. industry in the economically

important areas of electronics,

advanced materials, computers,

communications, industrial chemical technology, and

manufacturing.

"Collectively, these fields are a powerful driving force behind

the U.S. civilian economic sector," said NIST Director John W.

Lyons. "It is largely in these fields that technology advances are

creating multibillion dollar markets for new products."

The $35.6-million increase

for NIST intramural programs

and facilities represents a

21 .4-percent increase over FY 91 funding levels for these programs. The $22-million increase pro- posed for FY 92 intramural re- search initiatives will support

many new projects, including:

accelerated development of measurement technology and

standards for high-temperature

superconductors, intelligent

machines, advanced microwave

and fiber optic communications

systems, and intelligent materials processing;

establishment of security criteria and evaluation measures for computer and telecommunications operating systems;

collection of thermophysical

property data needed to develop

alternatives to chlorofluorocarbon

refrigerants; and

development of safety practices and construction standards

to protect water, power, sewage,

and other "lifeline" systems from

damage during earthquakes.

The FY 92 budget request

also includes $4 million to begin

to address critically needed and

overdue refurbishment of the Institute's 25- to 35-year-old laboratory facilities to correct safety and

environmental problems and to

initiate upgrades of inadequate

heating, cooling, and electrical systems.

An additional $10.4 million is needed for adjustments to the FY 91 funding levels to account

for inflation and to fund previously

approved upgrades to the Institute's scientific computing system.

The budget proposal includes

decreases totaling $750,000 in the intramural appropriation due

to the completion of an upholstery

ignition project, a decision not to support a non-energy-related in- ventions program, and changes

in the building and fire laboratory.

While the extramural FY 92 re- quest is $2.9 million less than that

of FY 91 , FY 92 program obligations will be increased slightly to $49.6 million due to carryover

funding.

The FY 92 request of $35.9

million for the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) is equal to the level funded in FY 91 . The

ATP awards multiyear grants to U.S. businesses for the development of precompetitive, generic

technologies.

9
The FY 92 appropriation of $10.3 million for the Manufacturing Technology Centers pro- gram will Pe added to $3.4 million

in FY 92 carryover funding to support a total of six regional centers to transfer new and innovative manufacturing technology

to small and medium-sized

companies.

Decreases in the FY 92 ex- tramural appropriation request

include a $1 .3-million decrease

due to phasing out the State Technology Extension Program

because its functions are being

accomplished through other programs.

Overall NIST resources in- clude the direct laboratory (in- tramural) appropriation; research

funds from other federal agencies

and non-federal sponsors; fees from reimbursable services, such

as sales of standard reference

materials and calibrations of equipment; "in-kind" loans or donations of staff and equipment;

and the extramural appropriation.

Increased investment in NIST

intramural research and its wide

variety of technology-transfer

mechanisms will help the Institute better meet industry's needs and

will ensure that the resulting re- search advances reach their intended audience. At the same

time, an expanded intramural re- search program complements the NIST extramural programs by ensuring that the agency has the depth and breath of in-house

technical know-how needed to effectively manage its grants programs.

$40M

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

Appropriation Budgets by Program

FY 1991 v. FY 1992 (Proposed)

Intramural Program

m

7'

>w.€/ <* f&mysj

^6 6*>

Extramural

Program

FY 91

FY 92

(Proposed)

* Includes product standards, measurement services, and administration of extramural programs

J" Includes technical competence program, postdoctoral fellowships, computer support, and facilities ** An additional S3.4 million of FY 91 carryover funds will be spent in FY 92

10
Making Good Contact

broad-based method for making vastly improved electrical

contacts to high-temperature superconductors is the subject

of a patent issued to researchers at the National Institute of

Standards and Technology and the Westinghouse Electric

Corporation. NIST's Jack W. Ekin and Armand J. Panson and

Betty A. Blankenship of the Westinghouse Science & Technology Center

developed techniques for making

ultra-low-resistivity contacts for various kinds of high-criticaltemperature ceramic oxide super- conductors. Contact resistivity using these methods is less than a billionth of that of conventional

indium-solder contacts. The work removes a serious

obstacle to the commercial appli- cation of high-temperature super- conductors in both large-scale

and thin-film devices.

Intense, worldwide research

efforts have focused on new

ceramic materials that become

superconductors at temperatures

far higher than metallic superconductors. These ceramics are

generally copper oxide compounds containing certain proportions of other elements such as

yttrium, bismuth, thallium, lead,

strontium, calcium, and barium.

While metallic superconductors

commonly must be cooled to less than 10 kelvins (less than 10 °C

above absolute zero) and require

liquid-helium cooling, many highcritical-temperature superconductors can operate at more than 77 K and use much cheaper

liquid-nitrogen cooling.

Several scientific and engineering obstacles block wide

commercial exploitation of the new materials, including the diffi- culty of making good electrical contact at the point where the su- perconductor must meet conventional electronic circuitry. Poor

contacts have high resistance,

generating heat and voltage,

which in turn limit the amount of current the superconductor can

carry, making them unsuitable for most applications.

The work removes a

serious obstacle to the

commercial application

of high-temperature

superconductors. ...

A key factor in the problem,

the researchers found, is the electrical degradation of the super- conductor surface where it is ex- posed to air—especially moisture

in the air. The newly patented

methods include etching the superconductor surface to achieve a non-degraded state, or maintaining the non-degraded

state by excluding air after fabrication of the superconductor until a noble metal contact pad is deposited on the surface by sputtering or evaporation.

The methods have been applied successfully to the main

yttrium-, bismuth-, and thallium- based high-temperature super- conductor compounds in both

bulk and thin-film forms. The

patent covers contacts with contact resistivities below a milli- ohm-square centimeter. Resistivities below a nano-ohm-square

centimeter, however, have been

achieved using the method.

For licensing information on

U.S. patent number 4,963,523,

High-Tc Superconducting Unit Having Low Contact Surface Resistivity and Method of Making,

contact Bruce Mattson, A343

Physics Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899, 301/975-3084;

or Mike Lynch, Westinghouse

Science & Technology Center,

1310 Beulah Rd., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15235, 412/256-5241 . Order reprints of papers describing the techniques from Jack Ekin,

Div. 724.05, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303.

by Collier Smith

NIST Public Affairs Specialist

11
Grants To Advance

Key Industrial

Technologies

ommerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher announced on

March 5 selections for the first awards under the Commerce

Department's new Advanced Technology Program (ATP),

which he said could lead to the birth of revolutionary products

and processes in key U.S. industries and help boost the

country's trade and competitiveness.

Eleven new research and

development programs (see

pages 14-17 for program descriptions) have been selected for funding under the ATP in fundamental industrial technologies, in- cluding improved manufacturing

techniques for electronics (such as x-ray lithography); optical re- cording; a variety of hardware

and software technology for computers; high-temperature superconductivity; machine tool control; and novel laser designs.

Mosbacher said, "Nearly half of these projects are proposed by

industrial consortia—partnerships

between large and small companies that were formed to work on

solutions to key technological barriers in their industries. The re- mainder of the proposals are from

individual corporations.

"This demonstrates the new

spirit of cooperation that I see be- tween industry and government,

between industry and academia,

and within industry itself—a spirit that the ATP was designed to

foster." IMHMNaHMHHi

"...grants have the

potential to spawn

revolutionary new

products and processes

in several key

industries."

The awards will provide approximately $9 million in first-year

grants to initiate nearly $100 million in research and development

programs over the next 5 years. More than half of the cost will be

paid by sponsoring firms.

"The programs we have

selected for this round of ATP

grants have the potential to spawn revolutionary new products and processes in several key industries," Mosbacher said. "Driven by industry's insight

into the international marketplace,

tools like the Advanced Technology Program offer an appropriate and powerful framework to achieve our common goal:

developing the leading technologies that the world has come to expect from U.S. companies. We

feel we've made a very good

beginning on a program that promises to be an important tool

for boosting U.S. competitiveness

and trade." Administered by the National

Institute of Standards and Technology, the Advanced Technology Program provides grants

to private industry to support the development of precompetitive,

12
generic technologies with signifi- cant commercial promise. The

program provides incentives for research and development on

fundamental technologies that underlie a broad range of potentially important commercial products, but does not support the development of actual products.

In the ATP, precompetitive means research and development activities up to the stage

where technical uncertainties are

sufficiently resolved to permit

assessment of commercial potential, and prior to development of application-specific commercial

prototypes. The ATP will support

development of laboratory prototypes and proof of technical feasibility but not commercial prototypes or proof of commercial

feasibility. At this stage, results can be shared within a consortium that includes potential competitors without reducing the in- centives for the individual firms to develop and market commercial

products or processes. Generic technology means

concepts, components, or processes, or scientific investigations that potentially could be

applied to a broad range of products or processes. Any business, independent re- search organization, or industrial

joint venture may apply for an ATP grant. No direct funding will be provided to universities or government organizations, but they may participate as members

of a joint venture. Universities may receive funding only through

participation in an industry-led

project.

Awards to individual firms are

limited to $2 million over 3 years and can be used only for direct research and development costs. Awards to joint ventures can be

for up to 5 years and are limited only by available funds. NIST

funding to joint ventures must rep- resent less than 50 percent of the

total research and development

cost.

The next solicitation

for ATP proposals is expected in the late

spring. The program

has $35.9 million

available for awards

in fiscal year 1991.

Projects are selected for funding through a multistage evaluation process. Proposals are first screened for compliance with the basic requirements of the pro- gram. Technical experts then

evaluate each proposal for scientific and technical merit. Those

rated highest for scientific and

technical merit are then rated for four additional criteria: the potential broad-based

benefits of the proposal;

the technology-transfer

benefits of the proposal;

the experience and qualifications of the proposing organization; and

the proposer's level of commitment and organizational structure.

A small group of "semifinalists" are asked to make oral presentations at NIST and, in some cases, site visits may be

made to assess special facilities.

Final decisions will be based

upon:

assuring an appropriate distribution of funds among technologies and their applications; the rank order of the applications on the basis of all selection

criteria; and

the availability of funds. NIST publishes announce- ments calling for ATP proposals

in the Federal Register and Commerce Business Daily at intervals that depend on available funding.

The next solicitation for ATP pro- posals is expected in the late spring. The program has

$35.9 million available for awards

in fiscal year 1991. Proposer's kits containing pro- posal preparation instructions and the forms required for pro- posal submission will be provided

upon request. Only proposals

meeting the criteria outlined in the proposer's kit will be accepted,

and proposals will be accepted

only during the solicitation periods noted in the program an- nouncements. Interested parties

may request that their names and

addresses be added to the ATP

mailing list. For information, write or call the Advanced Technology

Program, B1 10 Technology Bldg.,

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-3972.

by Michael Baum

NIST Public Affairs Specialist

13
Advanced Thallium

Superconductor Technology

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company

High-critical-temperature (HTC ) superconductors

have potentially important applications in many

electronic and electrical devices because they

bring all the advantages of superconductivity

within the range of relatively simple liquidnitrogen cooling. Present applications are limited

in part by the need for commercially viable thinfilm processes to produce HTC components. This proposal is to adapt and develop thin-film fabri- cation technologies for a relatively new and

complex thallium/lead HTC superconductor

developed and patented by Du Pont. The project

will develop two fabrication processes—a two- step approach using RF sputtering and postannealing, and one in which sputtering and

annealing are done simultaneously. Photolitho- graphic and ion-milling techniques will be used

to pattern the films, and a variety of basic electronic devices will be fabricated to demonstrate

the new technology.

Technologies: Materials, superconductivity

Project length: 3 years

First-year request: $370 K

Total request: $1,590 K

Cost-sharing funds: $784 K

Contact: Alan Lauder, 302/695-9230

Solid-State Laser Technology for

Point-Source X-Ray Lithography

Hampshire Instruments, Inc., McDonnell Douglas Electronic Systems Co.

The next generation of microlithography

equipment needed to produce dense, highperformance integrated circuits will require

commercially practical x-ray sources. A possible

alternative to large, very expensive electron storage rings is a compact x-ray point source in which a rapidly pulsed, high-energy laser is used

to excite an x-ray-emitting target. Until recently,

this technology was limited by the lack of good

laser materials able to cycle rapidly at high

energy levels, but it is now possible to grow

crystals of neodymium-doped gadolinium gallium

garnet (Nd:GGG) with the required properties in commercially useful quantities. Hampshire Instru- ments and MDESC propose a joint venture to at- tack the next obstacle—the development of large- scale laser diode arrays to "pump" the crystalline laser host. The key problem is precise control of the energy produced by the diode array to satisfy the narrow absorption requirements of the crystal.

Successful development would make possible a

relatively low-cost, high-performance x-ray workstation of enormous value to the entire U.S. semiconductor industry.

Technologies: Semiconductors, x-ray lithography

Project length: 1 year

First-year request: $1,090 K

Total request: $1,090 K

Matching funds: $1,094 K

Contact: James Forsyth, 716/482-4070

Nonvolatile Magnetoresistive

Semiconductor Technology

Nonvolatile Electronics, Inc. (NVE)

An important limitation of main computer memory

is that it is "volatile"—the data disappear as soon

as the power is shut off. Some specialized semiconductor memories—so-called "EEPROMS"

are limited in the number of read/write cycles

they can handle before wearing out, and more

permanent storage devices such as disk or tape

drives are slow and have complex, mechanical

parts subject to wear. The design of the entire range of modern computers from microcomputers in automobile control systems to supercomputers would be affected by the development of a fast, dense, non-volatile memory capable of unlimited read/write cycles. NVE proposes to develop that technology, based on a unique

magnetoresistive memory (MRAM) patented by

Honeywell Inc. and planned for use in space and

avionics applications. NVE has an exclusive li- cense to develop non-space/avionics applications of MRAM technology. NVE proposes to im- prove significantly the device speeds, density,

and production yields in order to compete with conventional DRAMs (dynamic random-access

memory) in a broad range of commercial

applications.

Technologies: Computers

Project length: 3 years
First-year request: $599 K

Total request: $1,738 K

Cost-sharing funds: $869 K

Contact: James M. Daughton, 612/550-0913

New User-Interface for Computers

Based on On-Line Recognition of

Natural Handwriting

Communication Intelligence Corporation (CIC)

In 1990, the value of computers and peripherals

produced in the United States came to more than

$63 billion, yet studies have shown that no more

than about 5 percent of the population uses computers at even the most elementary level. A sys- tem that allows people to interact with computers

using their own "natural" (cursive) handwriting

should significantly expand this important market. Handwriting input also offers significant advantages over all other data input technologies for applications like text editing and filling standard

forms. CIC's research plan is to create a large

database of cursive handwriting for evaluating

such systems, test and improve current handwriting recognition algorithms and extend them to European languages, evaluate the potential of new approaches to handwriting recognition, and

merge these approaches in a robust handwritingrecognition system that is independent of the user—that is, one that does not require "training" the computer to recognize each individual user's handwriting.

Technologies: Computing

Project length: 2 years

First-year request: $671 K

Total request: $1,264 K

Cost-sharing funds: $912 K

Contact: Francis V. Dane, 415/328-131

1

Short-Wavelength Sources for

Optical Recording

National Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC)

Data storage devices are a $50-billion-a-year in- dustry, largely controlled by U.S. (64 percent)

and Japanese (34 percent) firms. Although currently only a small portion of that market, the most

promising new technology in this field is optical

recording such as is used for compact discs, a market largely controlled by Japanese (80 per- cent) firms. NSIC members—Applied Magnetics

Corporation, Bernoulli Optical Systems Company,

Eastman Kodak Company, International Business

Machines Inc., Maxoptix Corporation, and Optical Data Storage Center (University of Arizona)

propose to develop an integrated, short- wavelength laser source for optical recording.

Multiple lasers (for multichannel recording), solid- state components to increase frequency, and a

non-mechanical scanning system for tracking the beams will be fabricated in a single device. Besides greatly advancing the art of diode laser sources and optical modeling, these new heads

would revolutionize the industry—data storage

four times as dense, data read and write speeds

twice as fast or better, in smaller, more rugged

devices.

Technologies: Optics, electronics, computers,

data storage

Project length: 5+ years

First-year request: $50 K*

Total request: $5,421 K

Matching funds: $9,200 K

Contact: John L. Simonds, 619/558-6835

*Preliminary grant contingent on further development of the consortium.

Advanced Manufacturing Technology

for Low-Cost Flat-Panel Displays

Advanced Display Manufacturers

of America Research Consortium (ADMARC)

The trend in the multibillion-dollar display industry

for computers, television, and other commercially

important products is toward larger and higherresolution "flat-panel" displays. Beyond the development of the display technology itself, successful commercialization of low-cost, highquality flat-panel displays will require important

advances in testing and repair equipment, as

well as better connection and packaging technologies. ADMARC, a joint venture of relatively small U.S. producers of flat-panel displays, pro- poses a linked series of research programs to develop automated inspection and repair tech- nology and advance two generic technologies for interconnections (the electronic links between the

15
display panel and the microchips that drive the

display) and packaging: "flip-chip-on-glass" and

polysilicon ICs-on-glass. The results will be applicable to the design, production, testing, and

manufacture of any type of flat-panel displays.

The companies that will direct the major research

tasks are Optical Imaging Systems, Inc. (Troy,

Mich.), Photonics Imaging (Northwood, Ohio),

and Planar Systems, Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.). Seven other companies will participate in the research. Technologies: Electronics, computers, television Project length: 5 years

First-year request: $1 ,251 K

Total request: $7,305 K

Matching funds: $7,604 K

Contact: Peter S. Friedman, 419/666-1024

Fabrication and Testing of

Precision Optics for Soft X-Ray

Projection Lithography

AT&T Bell Laboratories

Projection x-ray lithography is a key enabling

technology for future generations of extremely

dense, compact microelectronic circuits. Producing ICs with critical dimensions six times smaller than today's state of the art, it will lead to signifi- cant improvements in a vast range of commercial

products. X-ray mirrors, used to image patterns

from mask to wafer, are the most important opti- cal elements in such a system. The technology is severely limited by our inability to measure

directly and hence control the surface quality of these mirrors. This proposal is to develop the technology to test, fabricate, assemble, and align

aspherical x-ray mirrors in an imaging system

with resolution limited only by the diffraction of the x-rays. In addition to benefiting the electronics and semiconductor industries, the technology

would have important applications in high-density

plasma research, x-ray lasers and microscopy,

and space optics.

Technologies: Electronics, manufacturing, x-ray Project length: 3 years

First-year request: $955 K

Total request: $2,000 K

Cost-sharing funds: $3,525 K

Contact: John E. Bjorkholm, 908/949-3050

Printed Wiring Board

Interconnect Systems

National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS)

Printed wiring boards (PWBs) are often over- looked in discussions of microchips and other advanced electronic components, but they form the backbone of virtually every electronic product,

providing connections between individual electronic devices. PWB technology is approaching

fundamental limits in materials and processes

that must be overcome if the U.S. industry is to maintain a competitive position. (The U.S. share

of the $25 billion world market dropped from

42 to 29 percent in 3 years.) Four members of the NCMS consortium—AT&T, Texas Instruments,

Digital Equipment Corporation, and Hamilton

Standard Interconnect Inc.—will work with Sandia

National Laboratories to develop a more consistent epoxy glass material with improved mechanical characteristics for PWBs, improved

processes and process-control techniques to pro- duce more reliable solder connections, improved

methods and technologies for fine-line imaging on the boards, and a better technical understanding of the chemistry underlying key copperplating processes. Technologies: Electronics manufacturing

Project length: 5 years

First-year request: $2,370 K

Total request: $13,783 K

Matching funds: $14,674 K

Contact: Gene Allen, 703/281-7326

Volume Holographic Mass

Storage Subsystem

Microelectronics & Computer Technology

Corporation (MCC)

One of the principal bottlenecks in the mass proc- essing of large amounts of computerized information is the relative slowness of mass data storage

systems, such as disk drives. Mass storage sys- tems are about 100,000 times slower than typical

microprocessor CPUs. This joint venture pro- poses to develop the next generation of computer mass memory using holographic recording

to store information in photorefractive crystals.

16
Such a device would respond in microseconds

rather than milliseconds and have applications across the entire range of computer technology,

from personal computers to supercomputers.

MCC has already developed and demonstrated

the basic concept. This project will develop the support technology required to supply the electrooptical components of the system, develop low- cost designs and processes for producing the

crystal arrays which form the storage medium,

and build a prototype 2-gigabyte memory.

Technologies: Computers

Project length: 5 years

First-year request: $823 K

Total request: $10,331 K

Matching funds: $1 2,700 K

Contact: Cynthia Williams, 512/338-3512

Tunable Deep UV and VUV

Solid-State Laser Source

Light Age, Inc.

Commercial lasers are a $1 billion market and

growing, fueled by applications in photolithography for the semiconductor industry, materials processing, and medical and scientific instrumentation. Short-wavelength light sources in the ultra- violet (uv) or vacuum ultraviolet (vuv) ranges are

particularly desirable, but today such sources are

restricted to large, expensive synchrotrons, ex- cimer-pumped lasers, or dye lasers that have

been inefficiently "frequency upconverted." The

latter two require facilities for dealing with toxic and mutagenic gases or liquids. Light Age pro- poses to develop two comparatively new laser technologies to produce a broadly tunable, solid- state laser light source for the uv and vuv. The new source will be based on a marriage of tunable alexandrite lasers and recently

developed techniques for shifting laser frequencies using novel non-linear crystals. This ap- proach could provide researchers, doctors, and

engineers with high-average-power uv lasers that are cheaper, safer, more compact, more efficient, and more reliable than any now on the market. Technologies: Lasers, photolithography, medical devices

Project length: 1 .5 years

First-year request: $627 K

Total request: $701 K

Cost-sharing funds: $254 K

Contact: Georgia J. Fisanick, 908/563-0600

Advanced Compensation Techniques for

Enhancing Machine-Tool Accuracy

Saginaw Machine Systems, Inc.

The ability to shape parts to the very high toler- ances demanded by aerospace and other applications is a key sales point in the machine-tool

industry; any technology that can significantly

enhance machine-tool accuracy at a modest in- crease in cost can have a major impact on this important industrial sector. Thermal errors, caused by the expansion or contraction of various parts of the machine tool due to temperature changes, present one of the most recalcitrant problems in high-precision machining.

Laboratory systems have been demonstrated

that use thermal sensors and computers to correct for this, but existing techniques require detailed measurements to be made on each in- dividual machine. Working with the University of Michigan, Saginaw proposes to develop a

generic mathematical model of thermal errors and the sensor and computer-control systems

necessary to give machine-tool manufacturers an

easily adaptable thermal-error correction tech- nology that can enhance the accuracy of their products four to five times at reasonable cost. Technologies: Manufacturing

Project length: 2 years

First-year request: $266 K

Total request: $540 K

Cost-sharing funds: $168 K

Contact: Gerald J. Romito, 517/753-8465

17
Helping Companies

Up the

Technology Ladder

he United States is home to more than 350,000 manufacturing

companies with fewer than 500 people on the payroll. These

companies make everything from massive tree stump crushers

to kitchen countertops. They produce over half the value added

by all U.S. manufacturing and supply many of the components

required by large manufacturers. They are, as one manufacturing expert

recently commented, "the bottom

end of the industrial food chain." And when they are suffering

through hard times, the U.S. economy suffers with them.

A relatively new program at the National Institute of Standards

and Technology aims to help

such small companies compete

by utilizing appropriate levels of advanced manufacturing tech- nology. Computer-aided design

and manufacturing (CAD/CAM),

"just-in-time" inventory systems,

automated inspection, total quality management—improving quality and efficiency by incorporating

such fundamentally new ap- proaches to manufacturing is both a necessary and daunting

task for many small companies.

Established in 1988 through

the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, the Manufacturing

Technology Centers (MTC) pro- gram currently includes three operating centers in Cleveland,

Ohio; Troy, N.Y.; and Columbia,

S.C., with centers in Kansas City, Kan., and Ann Arbor, Mich., ex- pected to open within several months. (See box.) Their mission

is to help smaller U.S. companies

take advantage of more advanced technologies to help im- prove their competitiveness.

Their mission is

to help smaller U.S.

companies take advantage of more advanced

technologies to help

improve their

competitiveness.

The situation for Kintz Plastics

in Howes Cave, N.Y., is typical.

The company uses a vacuum

molding process to make plastic

parts for a large variety of custom

applications, ranging from plastic "clouds" for airport ceilings to housings for medical instruments

and protective covers for infrared sensors. Wynn Kintz, president of the company, contacted the NIST

Northeast Manufacturing Technology Center (NEMTC) in Troy,

N.Y., and asked for help. He was

interested in speeding up the process for producing the steel or aluminum molds used in shaping

custom plastic parts and in reducing the "down time" for programming the company's computercontrolled machine tools. He had

already spent several months in- vestigating the problems, but was

making little headway. There were just too many options to consider and not enough time or infor- mation available to make the deci- sions best for his business.

NEMTC sent CAD/CAM experts to the company's plant to assess the firm's needs and to recommend solutions. Within

18
Kansas, Michigan Named Sites

of Technology Transfer Centers

Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher an- nounced on March 7 the selection of two organizations to establish regional manufacturing tech- nology transfer centers in Michigan and Kansas

to aid small and medium-sized businesses.

The Industrial Technology Institute in Ann

Arbor, Mich., and the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation of Topeka, Kan., were selected by NIST. The institutions now will negotiate

cooperative agreements with NIST for approximately $1 .5 million each for the first year, which

they will match.

"The establishment of Michigan and Kansas

centers means that small and medium-sized busi- nesses in the two areas soon will have improved access to the advanced manufacturing tech- nology and processes they need to compete and

prosper," Mosbacher said. "The new centers complement the efforts of centers in Ohio, South

Carolina, and New York, which are already working with the Commerce Department to modernize

America's industrial sector through technology

transfer." Twenty non-profit institutions from 18 states representing various segments of state and local government and the academic world competed

for the federal support. NIST selected the two or- ganizations after a National Research Council

panel reviewed all applications for technical merit and NIST representatives visited the finalists. The new centers will assist local companies to gain expertise with technologies that include sensors, computer networks and communications

systems, inspection scheduling, computer-aided

design and manufacturing, quality control, and

intelligent machines and robots. With NIST assistance, the Industrial Technology Institute will create a center in Ann Arbor. The center will focus its initial efforts on approximately 8,000 machine tool, tooling, metal-forming,

and plastic processing firms that supply the auto- motive and office furniture industries—the state's principal employers.

The center will seek its first clients in an area bounded by metropolitan Detroit, Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids,

Saginaw, Bay City, and Flint. For information,

write or call: Bill Hetzner, Acting Director, Industrial Technology Institute, 2901 Hubbard Rd.,

Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106, 313/769-4580.

The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation will establish the Mid-American Manufacturing Technology Center in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City, Kan. Its service area will eventually be expanded to include western Missouri; northern Oklahoma, including Oklahoma

City and Tulsa; and eastern Nebraska, especially

greater Omaha. Information on the center is avail- able from William Brundage, Acting Director,

Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation,

112S.W. 6th Ave., Suite 400, Topeka, Kan. 66603, 913/296-5272.

by John Blair NIST Public Affairs Specialist

12 months Kintz Plastics had pur- chased the automation equipment the company needed,

trained employees, and cut mold

production time from 8 weeks to 8 days. The result was increased

profitability and increased capacity for new business with the

potential to improve profitability even more. AccuSpray Inc. had similar problems. The 30-person company manufactures special paint

spraying equipment that reduces

hazardous emissions to the

environment. AccuSpray president Ken Marg turned to the NIST

Great Lakes Manufacturing Technology Center (GLMTC) in Cleveland to help him make significant

redesigns of both his product and

its production method. "The world

of manufacturing is changing

19
The Great Lakes Manufacturing Technology Center helped AccuSpray Inc. redesign its product and production method. Here, an AccuSpray employee demonstrates the special paint spraying equipment, which

uses half the paint of conventional methods.

pretty rapidly," says Marg. With

help from GLMTC and its affil- iated group, the Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program,

he says, "We made much more intelligent decisions than we would

have otherwise." The Cleveland center's monthly luncheon forums for small businesses and regular

training seminars are also very

helpful, Marg adds. "You learn

that there are other ways that things can be done and it's a tre- mendous source of new ideas." The assistance available through the MTCs can be critical

for companies at certain stages in

their development. "We're at a

point where we're making a turn- around and resources are hard to come by," says Tom DiCarrado,

vice-president for operations for Macbeth, which has worked extensively with the Northeast center. Forty-five percent of Macbeth's products, spectrophotometers used in judging the color of paints and papers, are exported.

Since many other countries pro- vide government support to their high-tech industries, says

DiCarrado, "we would really be

hurting without these kinds of pro- grams. It really keeps us even."

Individual Approaches

Each of the three existing centers has a unique system and style of operation in reaching out to its

client companies, explains Phil Nanzetta, who directs the MTC

program for NIST. The individual programs reflect the diversity of companies in the regions of the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast United

States. In addition, all three

centers offer a wide range of assistance, including free advice an- swering specific questions over

the telephone, free demonstrations of computer software and

machine-shop hardware, seminars and training courses tailored

to small businesses, and ex- tended projects lasting from

several days to a year, in which new technology is incorporated

into a company's manufacturing

process.

All of the centers are operated

by non-profit organizations and re- ceive up to 50 percent of their funds, to a maximum of $3 million annually, from NIST for the first 3 years, with declining govern- ment support for a maximum of 3 additional years. Great Lakes Manufacturing

Technology Center—This center

is operated by the Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program,

which is one of Ohio's Thomas

Edison Technology Centers. With

30 full-time staff members, it pro- vides training, workshops, and

shop floor demonstrations of CAD/CAM and other equipment

and tailors commercially available technology to the needs of small companies. Frequent special

events, such as the luncheon

forums described above, reach a

large number of the more than 6,000 small manufacturing companies in the immediate Cleveland area. Contact: George Sutherland,

Director, Great Lakes Manufacturing Technology Center,

Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program, 2415 Woodland

Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 441 15, 216/987-3200.

20
Northeast Manufacturing

Technology Center—Located

within the Center for Manufacturing Productivity and Technology Transfer at Rensselaer

Polytechnic Institute, this center employs a full-time staff of nine,

plus 16 part-time staff at Rensselaer and other universities and col- leges and 19 student interns. It also utilizes a network of 18 tech- nology extension agents affiliated with the New York State Science

and Technology Foundation. According to an October 1990 re- port on the MTCs by the NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced

Technology, many of the clients served by the Northeast center tend to be "more technologically

sophisticated on average." Contact: Gene Simons, Director,

Northeast Manufacturing Technology Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, CII-9009, Troy, N.Y. 12180-3590, 518/276-6682.

Southeast Manufacturing

Technology Center—A newly es- tablished program headquartered

at the University of South

Carolina, the Southeast center is

affiliated with several state tech- nology transfer organizations and

serves a largely rural clientele with a full-time staff of 64, most of whom are located at 2-year technical colleges. The majority of its contacts are with small metals- processing companies who need

help in a wide range of manufacturing practices from basic shop

floor techniques to robotics technology.

Contact: Steven Eisele, Assistant

Director, Southeast Manufacturing Technology Center,

University of South Carolina,

Swearingen Engineering Center,

Columbia, S.C. 29208,

803/777-9595.

Total Quality Management

An important theme for the manufacturing technology centers is transferring the concept of "total quality management" to small manufacturers. Total quality management, explains William Ranson, director of the Southeast

Manufacturing Technology Center (SMTC), involves engaging

employees at all levels of a manufacturing company in the task of improving product quality.

SMTC is using its experience

with RECO Industries Inc.—

a

Columbia, S.C, manufacturer of large steel pressure vessels—as a case study in how to work with an individual company to establish total quality management.

"We went in with a team of eight

people and formed a committee

with eight RECO people," says Ranson. The changes initiated by

the committee included im- proving the company's welding

process, better materials planning, installing a new CAD/CAM

system, and drawing up a plan

for employee education and training. The project began in November and is ongoing.

"The long-term positive benefits of this committee's action will substantially contribute to RECO's well-being and competitiveness in the coming year," commented Stuart Point, the company's executive vice president.

The Technological Ladder

"What we're attempting to do with these companies is move them

up the technological ladder," says Gene Simons, director of the Northeast manufacturing center. "The bottom rung is the totally manual shop. The first rung may

have a numerically controlled machine tool, and the next rung would be a shop that has a computer-aided design system to go

with the numerically controlled

tool. And so on up the ladder until hopefully they're into a complete

computer-integrated manufacturing system."

The bottom line, adds George

Sutherland, director of the Great Lakes center, is "to do whatever it takes to help improve the competitiveness of these small companies. These companies very much appreciate what's being

done for them through the MTCs.

There's a void out there and this program is filling that void." General information on the Manufacturing Technology Centers program is available by writ- ing or calling Phil Nanzetta, B124

Metrology Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899, 301/975-3414.

by Gail Porter NIST Public Affairs Specialist

21
New Instrument

Promises Improved

Tracking of Drugs

he idea has been around for a while. Scientists have known for

some time that it is possible to create a system that can dependably detect drugs, pollutants, bacteria, and viruses in humans by

using chemical components of the body's immune system. But

the challenge to date has been to combine the biochemical components that make the process work with repeatability and a reliable

method for gauging the component being measured.

Researchers at the National

Institute of Standards and Technology have now developed such

a device that has, for example,

possible future applications in doctors' offices and other clinical settings. Based on immunoassay

technology—which uses anti- bodies like those found in the human body to seek out and

latch onto the substances being

measured—the system is auto- mated, fast, and reusable. It also can be calibrated easily to ensure accuracy and consistent results

"a significant advantage," says chemist William MacCrehan, who

manages the project.

Dubbed the liposome-based

flow injection immunoassay

(LipoFIIA) system, the device's

key benefit lies in its ability to pick out and quantify in minutes the amount of a specific chemical

compound or other component

from a complex mixture such as

blood or urine. Other methods re- quire hours or even days.

Having seen excellent results with in-house trials of the device,

NIST researchers have also re- ceived high marks from tests of the instrument held recently at the

National Institutes of Health's

Clinical Chemistry Laboratory in Bethesda, Md. NIST has applied

to patent the system.

The device had its beginnings

in 1985. "We saw immunoassays

then as a wide-open field that was about to take off," says MacCrehan. "We knew that there would soon be a need for analyti- cal methods and calibrations. So we decided to develop our own

generic system that could be

adapted to serve these purposes

and act as a prototype for a liposome-based system."

While they emphasize the LipoFIIA system's medical promise, NIST scientists envision other

applications of the system, including environmental pollution monitoring and chemical process

control.

The device's key

benefit lies in its ability

to pick out and quantify

in minutes the amount

of a specific chemical

oompoynd or other

component from a complex mixture such

as blood or urine.

For now, however, researchers are focusing on the system's use as a clinical laboratory analysis instrument. The NIST device can, for in- stance, check blood levels of therapeutic drugs. Because it

22
works quickly—in about 12 minutes in most cases—an instru- ment of its design could be a boon to doctors monitoring

patient levels of certain drugs that might be toxic, even lethal, at pro- portions only a fraction above

their effective concentrations.

Such an analysis could be per- formed in the doctor's office while

the patient waits. Further revisions now in the works may make

the instrument even quicker.

The LipoFIIA system has

advantages not found in other instruments on the market. Conventional analysis techniques

high-performance liquid chromatography, for example—require

time-consuming, labor-intensive,

and potentially costly steps to separate and identify the sub- stance being analyzed. Another

method known as radioimmunoassay uses antibodies like the NIST

system, but it requires "tracers" made of radioactive materials that must be properly discarded.

Still other immunoassay sys- tems work by using enzymes,

which react with the component

of interest to create a measurable

product. But they are cumber- some and require chemical proc- essing agents that cannot be

reused. The NIST system employs lipo- somes—submicroscopic, balloonlike globules made partially of cholesterol—to do much of its work. Because liposomes can be

used to amplify detection of a

substance, the LipoFIIA system can analyze components as low as parts per billion in concentration, making it more sensitive than

enzyme methods. Also, lipo- somes can be stored for at least a year at room temperature,

whereas enzymes require

refrigeration.

Additionally, the LipoFIIA sys- tem incorporates flow injection

technology into its design, a fea- ture that allows the device to be

used repeatedly for a batch of analyses. In a flow injection sys- tem, samples are introduced into a continuous stream where they

undergo controlled dispersion

and can be chemically or physically treated with appropriate

processing agents.

The LipoFIIA system begins

by using monoclonal antibodies

to recognize the target substance. These antibodies, the same kind of proteins that are the human body's natural detectors

of foreign substances, are the sys- tem's biochemical "arms" that

identify and latch onto the target

substances, which may be only one of many components in an

actual sample (a blood speci- men, for example). Liposomes

are coated with a chemical lookalike of the target substance,

which the antibodies recognize.

At the heart of the device is a

regenerable immunoreactor

column in which biochemical re- actions between antibodies,

liposomes, and the target sub- stance being analyzed occur. Antibodies—available commercially for many drugs, viruses,

Biochemist Anne Plant, a collaborator on the LipoFIIA system, prepares a sample in the NIST laboratory where the system was developed. In the back- ground is analytical chemist Steve Choquette.

23
and bacteria—are immobilized by

chemical bonding onto glass

beads and placed into the im- munoreactor column. When a sample containing the target sub- stance is introduced into the im- munoreactor, liposomes also are

introduced. Antibodies in the im- munoreactor column bind with the target substance and also

with the liposomes.

NIST researchers have used

antigens of the asthma therapeutic drug theophylline extensively

to demonstrate the LipoFIIA sys- tem. They often have "spiked"

blood serum with theophylline to simulate an actual blood sample

with an unknown quantity of the drug. Like theophylline in the serum sample, liposomes coated

with theophylline are drawn to the

antibodies, which see the two components as the same thing.

Both theophylline and liposomes

then enter a competition to win

residency with the antibodies,

each of which finally ends up har- boring either theophylline or theophylline-coated liposomes.

The "loser" liposomes, still coated

with theophylline, and the rest of the sample, flow out of the sys- tem. The "winner" liposomes re- main behind, held tightly by the antibodies in the immunoreactor

column.

Because the liposomes each

contain either electrochemical or fluorescent "marker molecules,"

chemists can use a detergent to explode the liposomes, releasing

the markers and allowing a signal

from those molecules to be

measured by a detector. The

number of liposomes and anti- bodies in the system is always

constant, so after measuring the

signal associated with spiked

samples containing different known concentrations of theophylline, the signal from real unknown

samples allows researchers to determine how much theophylline is

in the blood sample. If there is a

high concentration of the drug in the sample, then a small number

of liposomes will bind to the anti- bodies, and a small signal will be

measured. Conversely, a large

signal means there are many lipo- somes held by antibodies, therefore indicating a low drug

concentration.

The NIST device can,

for instance, check

blood levels of

therapeutic drugs.

NIST researchers have seen

excellent results when analyzing

theophylline in blood serum.

Laurie Locascio-Brown, a NIST

biomedical engineer, recalls a re- cent instance when the LipoFIIA

system was tested for its ability to differentiate between two compounds that are nearly carbon

copies of each other. "We used a sample containing theophylline

and caffeine, which are very similar chemically," she says, "and we were pleased to find that the system effectively measured the theophylline concentration in the sample."

NIST research has shown that antibodies chemically bonded to the glass beads in the immunoreactor column can be reused

hundreds of times, remaining ef- fective for at least 3 months. This

is an important plus since

antibodies can be expensive and

time-consuming to replace.

On the agenda next are tests

of the device's value in measuring environmental trace organic

pollutants and in controlling the

creation of fermentation products

within a bioreactor. But for the moment, NIST re- searchers have seen the NIH

trials as a sign that the LipoFIIA

system is a success. "We tested 100 (blood) serum samples containing different components,"

Locascio-Brown says. "The great

advantage of doing this at NIH is

that we used actual samples from a variety of patients, so we were

able to examine performance in a

real-world setting beyond our own laboratories. It was the ideal

test."

by John Henkel

NIST Public Affairs Specialist

24
Call of the Future

he 21st century is calling and if you answer the phone, chances

are you will not only talk to but also see the person on the other

end and, at the same time, be able to send information—a sales

report, product design, or even a grandchild's drawing. A new

telecommunications technology, Integrated Services Digital

Network (ISDN), is being heralded by many as the basis for information

networks that will make this possible.

While some ISDN networks

are being used now, they are

proprietary and exist only as

"islands," says Shukri Wakid,

chief of the Advanced Systems

Division at the National Institute

of Standards and Technology.

Before the technology can grow

and become, in Wakid's words,

"ubiquitous," obstacles must be

overcome. One of the biggest is compatibility of products. Standards for ISDN on everything from how in- formation should be formatted to how fast it should be transmitted are emerging from national and

international standards organizations. But, standards don't always

ensure compatibility.

"Standards are designed to meet many requirements," says

Wakid, "so they have many options and even some ambiguities." The result: Products from

different vendors will not work

together.

To help overcome this obstacle, NIST, together with private

industry—manufacturers, service

providers, and prospective users

of ISDN technology—formed a new organization called the North

"Both users and

vendors are going

to come out winners."

American ISDN Users' Forum

(NIU Forum). The forum brings

together potential users of the technology with the manufacturers and service providers who

will be providing the products.

The aim of the forum is to define potential applications of ISDN and the features that may

be required and then to make

the detailed technical decisions

needed to produce multivendor

products and services that meet

users' needs. "The forum really puts the users in the driver's seat and gives them a chance to make

ISDN a competitive tool for their

industry," says Wakid, who chairs the forum. "Both users and ven- dors are going to come out winners," he says.

In addition to NIST, the other founding organizations of the forum are Ameritech Services, the Association of Data Communications Users, Bell Atlantic, Bell

Communications Research, Inter- national Computers Ltd., NYNEX,

and Southwestern Bell. More than 300 participants attend the forum,

which meets regularly.

What Is ISDN?

ISDN is a telecommunications

technology that makes it possible

to send and receive data, voice,

and images simultaneously over

existing telephone networks. Part

of the reason ISDN technology is so powerful is that it uses digital networks, which are able to break

information up into bits of data

that can be fed directly to computers for processing.

Digital networks are steadily

taking the place of older analog

communications systems. According to the U.S. Commerce Depart- ment's U.S. Industrial Outlook

1990, about 30 percent of publicswitched telephone networks in the United States are digital. In contrast, France has converted

about 60 percent of its switching

and transmission to digital tech- nology, and Japan about 45

percent. Instead of separate lines for telephones, computers, facsimile machines, and video displays,

only one line is needed for

25
sending and receiving all types of information. This convergence of computers and communications

technology can speed data trans- mission and gives users more

control over information. Competition for World Markets

The agreements reached in the forum also will put U.S. telecommunications suppliers in a

stronger position to compete for world markets. Around the world,

telecommunications is seen as im- portant for economic growth and

improved productivity. According

to James Martin Associates, consultants on information systems

development, the European Community is actively involved in pro- moting ISDN, and telecommunications services in general, in each

of its member countries. In Japan, ISDN is part of a govern- ment-sponsored national tech- nology project called the Information Network System.

Both the European and

Japanese communities recently

established ISDN users' forums

very similar to the NIL) Forum. What Has the

Forum Accomplished?

Since the forum began in February 1988, more than 500 organizations have participated in 1 1 workshops held nationwide. More than

100 ISDN applications have been

defined, and the first set of imple- mentors' agreements are to be

published by mid-1991 . The

agreements outline how vendors

will implement ISDN standards to ensure that products and applications will work together. "This is a

major milestone," says Wakid,

"and reflects the substantial work

going on in the forum." In addition, some of the conformance

tests developed by the forum

have been contributed to the In- ternational Telephone and Tele- graph Consultative Committee, an international standardsdevelopment body, as a U.S.

position on testing.

Is the forum living up to participants' expectations? Scott Beale,

of ARINC, and Bob Sherry, of AT&T Bell Laboratories, believe it

is. In a recent paper, Beale and

Sherry, who chair working groups

in the forum, say, "Many users

are no longer asking whether the technology is real or not, instead

they are concerned with the real world aspects of implementing

ISDN. The formation of the NIU

Forum has increased user involve- ment in ISDN implementation and

fueled the growth of ISDN in North America."

The forum is considering a

demonstration of the standard

ISDN technology for October

1991 to be held in conjunction

with two large telecommunications trade shows. The demonstration will show that specifications

developed by the NIU Forum will result in compatible products.

ISDN networks showing that products and services can work to- gether will be set up around the country and, possibly, the world. What Else Is Needed?

After implementation agreements

are reached and products are developed according to the agreed-upon specifications, the

final stage is testing. "Even if a vendor follows the specifications, assurance is needed that they've

been implemented correctly in

the product and that, indeed, ven

dor X's products will interoperate

with vendor Y's," says Wakid.

NIST has made significant technical contributions to the ISDN con- formance testing working group

of the NIU Forum.

In addition, the forum is working with the long-running NIST

Workshop for Implementors of OSI (Open Systems Interconnection). The OSI workshop was es- tablished in 1983 for the same

reason as the ISDN forum: to bring users and manufacturers to- gether to develop implementation

agreements of OSI protocols.

The OSI standards provide a

set of rules, known as protocols,

for computer-to-computer trans- missions of data between computer products from different manufacturers through a variety

of communications technologies,

including ISDN. But, as is the case with ISDN, the standards

provide many options. The OSI

workshops have had a successful track record in developing

technical agreements that are being implemented in products.

In 1989, NIST, the U.S. Air Force, AT&T, and five other companies conducted a successful

trial run of products implementing

OSI protocols using ISDN as the communications technology.

Users, software developers,

system integrators, service providers, and manufacturers are

invited to join the ISDN users' forum. For further information, contact Dawn Hoffman, A224

Technology Bldg., NIST, Gaithers

burg, Md. 20899, 301/975-2937.

by Jan Kosko

NIST Public Affairs Specialist

26
A New Generation

of Materials?

omposites made by mixing powdered ceramic superconducting materials with a polymer may be a practical way to fabricate a new generation of materials with the magnetic levitation

properties of superconductors—even though they do not

conduct electric current, say researchers at the National

Institute of Standards and Technology. Having developed just such a new

superconductor-polymer composite, Aime S. DeReggi, ChwanKang Chiang, and George T. Davis, scientists at NIST, have re- ceived a patent for the innovation. Even though the new composites do not conduct an electric current, work in the laboratory

has demonstrated that a ceramic

superconductor placed in a

matrix of polyvinylidene fluoride displays the magnetic levitation properties of a superconductor.

When a magnetic field is applied

to the composite at superconduct

ing temperatures, an electric current flows around the surface of each particle, creating a counter- magnetic field which gives the composite its levitating properties

The NIST scientists report that the polymer acts as a binder and

shields the particles from exposure to moisture and other chemically active substances that can

destroy superconductivity in the unprotected superconductor. The

composite material also has ther- mal and mechanical properties

that permit repeated cooling and

27

The new composites

have magnetic properties

that are intermediate

between non-magnetic

materials and

superconductors.

warming between room temperature and cryogenic temperatures

without loss of physical integrity.

In addition, the new composites have magnetic properties

that are intermediate between

non-magnetic materials and

superconductors. Measurements

to examine the dependence of these properties on the quantity

of superconductor particles in the polymer matrix were made in collaboration with Lydon J. Swartzendruber of the NIST

magnetic materials group. Magnetic measurements

were conducted on bar-shaped,

centimeter-sized samples of composite materials containing varying amounts of finely ground

superconducting particles.

Chiang and DeReggi prepared

the polymer test specimens by

conventional molding techniques

using the yttrium-barium-copperoxygen superconductors. Magnetic susceptibility was measured

from room temperature down to 10 kelvins. According to the scientists, because only a small amount of polymer is required to act as a

binder, there can be little loss of magnetic levitating properties in the composite compared to an undiluted superconductor material. The new superconductorpolymer composites were

developed as part of the NIST

polymer research program. It is designed to support U.S. companies that produce, process, or use synthetic polymers, and to strengthen the scientific foundation that supports this important

class of materials. For information, contact Aime

S. DeReggi, B320 Polymer Bldg.,

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-6725. R.R.
Manufacturers,

Skiers Gain

Competitive Edge

ix computer software and hardware companies and a sports

helmet firm have combined forces at the National Institute of

Standards and Technology to give America's top speed skiers

and small machine shop operators a competitive edge. The

companies used NIST's "Shop of the 90s" facility and equipment to design an aerodynamic helmet for athletes who flash down slopes

at speeds up to 224 kilometers

(139 miles) per hour. The facility

is used to research and demonstrate how small machine shops

can rapidly produce sophisticated, competitive products

with commercially available technology.

John Simpson, director of NIST's Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, recently pre- sented the product of the cooperative effort, a mold for a

Darth Vader-like helmet—and a

diskette containing a computerized version of the mold, to Tom

"NIST's concern is

technology development

and transfer."

Westenburg, head of the United

States Olympic Committee

(USOC) engineering and tech- nology department.

"NIST's concern is technology

development and transfer. We're

not in the helmet business, and

others must speak to the ultimate safety of the helmet our industrial partners designed for this extraordinarily exciting new sport of speed skiing," Simpson said. "We

can say with certainty, however,

that the head gear made from this mold will illustrate that the more

than 127,000 small machine

shops across the country can use

off-the-shelf, computer-based

technology to quickly produce

world-class, top-quality items," said Simpson.

A NIST technician cuts the mold for the speed-ski helmet out of an epoxy- based resin in NIST's Shop of the 90s.

28
The United States Perform- ance Engineering Program

(US PEP), a not-for-profit Carls- bad, Calif., organization dedicated to applying technology to sports competition equipment, ap- proached NIST about the project

last fall. Steve Gubelmann, chief executive officer, said, "We have

built our research and development capabilities around microprocessor-based technology.

NIST's Shop of the 90s also uses

commercially available computeraided design and manufacturing

(CAD/CAM) technology to help

small machine shops modernize

and compete. We both believe

that existing, cost-effective tech- nology can help win the gold for America."

Gubelmann assembled a team of industrial partners, many

of which already were working

with the Shop of the 90s. They

met at NIST Dec. 1 7-21 , 1 990,

to design the helmet, which is to be worn by members of the U.S. speed-skiing team at the sport's world cup competition May

12-17, 1991, at Mt. Bachelor,

Wash. They are the only North American world cup races before speed skiing's debut as a demonstration sport in the 1992 Winter

Olympics in Albertville, France. The resulting technology, including engineering data, is also to be provided at no charge to the United States Skiing Association

and to the USOC.

The firms that donated material and personnel to the helmet

project under a cooperative re- search agreement with NIST are

Zenith Data Systems (Vienna,

NIST s Shop of the 90s

also uses commercially

available computeraided design and

manufacturing technology to help small

machine shops

modernize and compete.

Va.), Brown & Sharpe (North

Kingstown, R.I.), CADKEY

(Manchester, Conn.), FastCut Numerical Control (Carson,

Calif.), CNC Software Inc. (Tolland, Conn.), and Bell Hel- mets (Norwalk, Calif.). The work

took place at NIST.

All the CAD/CAM soft- ware was loaded on a highperformance microcomputer.

US PEP used a coordinate measuring machine to convert measurements from a handbuilt helmet

prototype into three-dimensional

visual design data. The geometric

data obtained from the reverse engineering effort were further re- fined so that CAM software could

create numerically controlled tool paths for machining the final hel- met mold. A three-axis milling machine was used to cut the mold

out of an epoxy-based resin.

Bell Helmets will use the mold

to manufacture the speed-skiing team's new head gear. "Machine shop operators across the country can learn a

great deal from this cooperative

effort," said Adrian Moll, Shop of the 90s chief. "The speed-skiing

helmet project offered NIST and

its research partners an opportunity to demonstrate that small machine shops can move quickly

from an idea to finished product.

Small machine shops can compete nationally and internationally

if they take existing technology

seriously." J.B.

A member of the U.S. speed-skiing team models the helmet produced in a collaborative effort between NIST and a team of industrial partners.

29
Microwaves

on a Chip

NIST Gauges Measurement Needs of Growing Industry

ancy a cheap, on-board radar for your car to help avoid collisions? How about a low-cost TV satellite antenna about the size

of a salad bowl to replace today's obtrusive, expensive

"dishes"? Electronics engineers envision those and many more

potential products as the result of new monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology now taking shape in government and

industrial labs. But before these

miracle devices can be successfully developed commercially,

there are numerous obstacles

largely measurement related—to overcome. Researchers at the

National Institute of Standards

and Technology are tackling

many of these problems through

existing in-house programs and

through team projects with out- side organizations.

The impact of MMIC tech- nology promises to be comparable to that of conventional in- tegrated circuits (ICs), which in the recent past made possible

small, inexpensive electronic devices of great power and

complexity—high-speed laptop

computers, for example. MMIC

technology promises to do similar things by fostering the creation of products such as an intelligent

traffic-light control system that can adjust the timing of whole net- works of lights in response to changing traffic conditions.

The impact of MMIC

technology promises

to be comparable to that of conventional

integrated circuits. ...

Currently, microwaves are used widely in communications,

radar, and remote sensing devices, as well as in ovens. Present-day technology is built on

comparatively large, discrete components such as antennas,

amplifiers, mixers, and oscillators.

It is in a state roughly akin to the days when computers were large,

expensive assemblies of transistors, capacitors, and other components.

"MMIC technology can't use

wires for interconnections. The

microwave systems need special,

precision-engineered components to guide the waves.

Everything involved is very expensive," says Dylan Williams, a NIST

electrical engineer. "However, it's now possible to build all of this on

a chip, much like a lower- frequency integrated circuit."

Joining Forces with Industry

Early MMIC devices used silicon as the base material, limiting the usable frequency range. Now gal- lium arsenide, more useful but difficult to work with, has extended

the frequency range and im- proved performance.

Still, there are key issues in standardization and measure- ment that must be resolved to ensure that MMIC devices from

different companies can be inte- grated into working systems. In mid-1989 NIST began a MMIC

measurement program and

formed an industry-government

consortium to establish national standards and provide traceability for critical measurements.

30
Members of the consortium

include Cascade Microtech Inc.; ITT Defense and Gallium

Arsenide Center; TRW Electronic System Group; and laboratories belonging to the U.S. Army

Laboratory Command, WrightPatterson Air Force Base, and

Rome Air Development Center. "We're pioneering in solving some of the important measure- ment problems that industry

needs to address before MMIC

can be a commercial technology," says Dennis Friday, assistant chief of the NIST Electro- magnetic Fields Division. "Making

conventional ICs is fairly well un- derstood, but at microwave

frequencies, very different problems arise. Just connecting two MMIC devices together without

losing or degrading the signal

through reflections is difficult. Working with the consortium, we've attacked several very seri- ous problems in MMIC that be- came apparent when companies

started producing these chips

and trying to put them into systems."

One of these problems is temperature, which determines

many of a circuit's electrical characteristics. Circuits may have a

diminished lifetime, or may fail altogether, if they get too hot. Thus, it is critical for MMIC

developers to have temperaturegauging capabilities, as well as a measuring system everyone can

agree on. Presently there are no

proven methods for measuring

the temperature of many MMIC

circuits because of the small size

of many components, some with

dimensions less than one-fifth the diameter of a human blood cell. NIST electronics engineer

David L. Blackburn is addressing

these measurement needs by

evaluating several existing

temperature-gauging techniques

and researching possible new

ones. Among the methods being

examined are infrared microradiometry (using the amount of infrared radiation naturally

Ensuring MMIC Compatibility

Because of the infinitesimal size

of MMIC devices, microwave

characteristics must be measured to promote quality control and to ensure that final specifications will be met. With the aid of a

microscope, microminiature

"wafer probes" are used to make

electrical contact with the circuit. Signals are injected and sensed

by the probes at critical points in

NIST electrical engineer Dylan Williams examines a microwave chip at one of NIST's wafer probe workstations.

emitted by all warm bodies as a measure of circuit temperature),

liquid crystals (a clear liquid-like material that becomes opaque to certain light at a very precise

temperature), and computer

modeling.

the circuit in order to determine

its operating properties.

Product uniformity and inter- connectibility are essential if U.S. manufacturers are to have a competitive edge in the international market. "Right now we do not

31
Wafer maps are used by NIST engineer Constance Schuster to analyze test structure data. Various shades on the maps represent different data values.

have a clear understanding of the measurements we are making,

and manufacturers use a variety

of different calibration tech- niques. This makes it difficult to predict accurately how two micro- wave chips from different manufacturers—or sometimes even

from the same manufacturer—will operate when connected together

or to an antenna," says Williams. Working with the consortium,

NIST is developing improved

methods and integrated circuit standards to calibrate or characterize the probes industry is presently using.

"Since rapid technology transfer is essential to the success of

this work, we hope to have consortium members utilizing new

measurement methods a few

months after they have been

developed and verified by NIST,"

Williams says. The techniques will be transferred to the consortium

members by distribution of computer software and standard intercomparison integrated circuit ele- ments deposited on thin wafers.

Ball Aerospace Company of Boulder, Colo., will construct the

initial NIST standards under a

contract sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency (DARPA).

"Within 2 years we hope to be

able to fabricate our own stan- dards in-house with better control over the tolerances and electrical characteristics," Williams says. At

present, however, NIST intends to get improved measurement tech- nology into the hands of consortium members as quickly as

possible.

"Right now we cannot say with

certainty—even when each chip

has been measured carefully by

its manufacturer—that an as- sembled system will work exactly as expected," Williams says. The

eventual goal of the project is to ensure that every MMIC chip

manufactured in this country can

have transitions (electrical input

and output terminals) that are well characterized and compatible.

Giving Meaning to Data

While much of the NIST research

has potential consumer and massmarketing applications, a signifi- cant slice has military applications. Under another cooperative

agreement with DARPA, NIST

electronics researchers are working with the U.S. Air Force's Wright Research and Development Center (WRDC). In support

of the DARPA goal to provide

manufacturing capabilities that produce affordable MMICs, NIST

and WRDC are developing test and data analysis methods to show how the materials and proc- essing used to fabricate MMICs

NIST is developing

improved methods and

integrated circuit

standards to calibrate

or characterize the

probes industry is

presently using.

affect their performance in a sys- tem. To do this, microelectronic

test structures are produced on

the same semiconductor wafer at the same time as MMICs themselves. Automated probing sys- tems are used to measure both

test structure parameters and

MMIC performance, which are then correlated using data analysis techniques.

32
The DARPA program needs a

yardstick—a method that is economical, accurate, and repro- ducible—so the manufacturers

know what they are producing

and customers know what they

are buying. Getting people to use

standard test structures and test methods has been fairly easy, but

that's only part of what's needed

for correlations and comparisons

to be meaningful," says NIST en- gineer Constance E. Schuster. With each wafer providing over 30,000 data points that rep- resent over 100 characteristics,

this program is pursuing one of the most comprehensive test structure data analysis efforts ever. NIST and WRDC researchers have a considerable chal- lenge to develop methods for simplifying data interpretation.

Typically, test structure data

analysis is done using "wafer maps," which resemble color- enhanced aerial photographs,

where various colors represent

different data values. Analysts

reading these maps need expertise in MMIC materials, processing, and devices, as well as a keen eye for pattern recognition. "To their credit, analysts are spending hours every day looking

at wafer maps, knowing they will find things that will help them

make better circuits," says

Schuster. "But this is a slow, error- prone and analyst-dependent

process. They need a better way,

especially for the production en- vironment they must eventually

support."

As one way to make testing

and data analysis more reliable and efficient for the production

MMIC technology

promises to

revolutionize

consumer and military

electronics.

environment, NIST researchers

are considering the applicability

of computer-based patternrecognition methods. "From previous experience, we know such methods are a big

help in identifying the most criti- cal pieces in a pile of data so

analysts can more easily diag- nose problems. Such methods

should also help streamline the amount of test data that needs to be collected in a production environment. This would be the real payoff for DARPA people,"

Schuster says. Whether they are developing

tests for MMIC chips or examining measurement standards,

NIST researchers agree that MMIC technology promises to rev- olutionize consumer and military electronics. "The potential here is not just for reducing the size and

lowering the cost of microwave

devices," says Friday. "MMIC

should open up a whole new communications spectrum that's not being used now—from 50 gigahertz right up to infrared frequencies. When that technology arrives there are going to be

opportunities for new products

that will sound like science fiction, products we can't even guess at."

by Fred McGehan and

John Henkel

NIST Public Affairs Specialists

33
NewPublications

Standardization Activities of

Organizations in the United States

Toth, R.B., editor, Natl. Inst. Stand. &

Tech. (U.S.), NIST Spec. Pub. 806, 736

pages (February 1991 ). Order by stock

no. 003-003-03070-8 from GPO, $31 pre- paid ($38.75 foreign).

This directory summarizes the stan- dards activities of more than 750

organizations in the United States, including federal agencies and approximately 425 private-sector groups. The

largest section contains an alphabetical

listing of 637 non-government organizations that develop standards or contribute to the standardization process by

working with other organizations, or are sources of documents and information. The format provides quick access to information on the type of organization,

scope of activities, whether standards

are voluntary or mandatory, availability,

and key words. Entries for 77 federal agencies, departments, and other

organizational components that develop

standards are included, as well as sources for information, subject index,

acronyms and initials, and former names

of organizations.

Manufacturing Technology

Centers Program

NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced

Technology, 27 pages (October 1990).

Order from Dale E. Hall, A527 Administration Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

20899, 301/975-2158.

NIST's Manufacturing Technology

Centers program is off to a promising start toward improving the technological competitiveness of small and mid-sized businesses, the NIST

Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology said in this report to Commerce

Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher. The

centers are intended to bridge the gap

between sources of manufacturing

technology and the companies that need

it. The nine-member committee praised

the technology-transfer efforts of the New

York, Ohio, and South Carolina centers, noting local business support for such

efforts as direct project assistance, technical training courses, and demonstrations of hardware and software. The

report looks at program strategies, operations, and financial support of the centers.

Polymer Composite ProcessingSecond Industry Workshop

Johnson, C, Chang, S.S., and Hunston,

D., Natl. Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NISTIR 4461, 86 pages (December

1990). Order by sending a self- addressed mailing label to A209 Polymer

Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-6837.

The most important technical barrier

to improved polymer composite

processing for the next 5 to 1

5

years is industry's inability to control

resin flow and fiber orientation, said a group of 24 leading composite users,

suppliers, and fabricators in a 1990

workshop at NIST. Their findings are given in this report. The workshop was

the second meeting at NIST in which rep- resentatives from industry were asked to target the most critical scientific and technical barriers in composite processing

and to identify the serious performance

issues that producers must address to meet increasing international competition. The industry group strongly supported conclusions from an earlier meeting, which ranked pressure molding

and liquid molding as the two most important polymer processing methods for the

future. Process monitoring and the measurement and control of fiber-matrix adhesion also were given high priority. Impact

damage and environmental attack were

selected as critical performance issues

for all industry sectors.

U.S. Assessment of the New

Diamond Technology in Japan

Feldman, A. and Schwartz, L.H., editors,

Natl. Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NIST

Spec. Pub. 807, 96 pages (January

1991). Order by sending a self- addressed mailing label to Albert Feldman, A329 Materials Bldg., NIST,

Gaithersburg, Md. 20899, 301/975-5740.

After visiting 21 Japanese companies, universities, and govern- ment agencies engaged in diamond research and development, a team of U.S. materials experts reports

that the Japanese are leading in new synthetic diamond technology. In this report, the experts concluded that while no

specific application of diamond technologies could be identified in which Japan

has a dramatic advantage, there was a

general impression that Japanese laboratories are ahead of the United States in high-rate deposition methods, but probably behind in understanding the fundamentals of the process.

Bibliography of Selected

Computer Security Publications

January 1980-October 1989

Bassham, L.E., III, editor, Natl. Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NIST Spec. Pub.

800/1, 200 pages (December 1990).

Order by stock no. 003-003-03060-1

from GPO, $11 prepaid.

^^his bibliography serves as an

excellent resource for individuals interested in computer security

issues. Citations are listed under 10 categories: general, management, foundations, access control, trusted systems,

database security, communication and

network security, cryptography, privacy

and pre-1980 publications. Included are appendices with the addresses of all journals and magazines referenced in the bibliography and a list of key words.

54
Multimedia Courseware in an Open Systems Environment:

A Federal Strategy

Moline, J., Hankinson, A.L., and Welsch,

LA., Natl. Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NISTIR 4484, 53 pages (December

1990). Order by stock no. PB #91-

143362 from NTIS, $17 prepaid

Thefederal government and other

U.S. organizations are likely to in- vest billions of dollars to develop

multimedia training materials for use in computer-based interactive training sys- tems. This publication discusses the federal strategy for creating an environment

in which high-quality portable course- ware is available as commercial off-the- shelf products competitively supplied by

vendors. The strategy comes from the Department of Defense Portable Course- ware Project, which requires standard

software interfaces.

NIST Standard Reference Data

Products 1991 Catalog

Chase, M.W., Jr., and Sauerwein, J.C., editors, Natl. Inst. Stand. & Tech.

(U.S.), NIST Spec. Pub. 782, 1991 Ed., 52 pages (February 1991). Order by

sending a self-addressed mailing label

to Standard Reference Data Program,

A320 Physics Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg,

Md. 20899, 301/975-2208.

Scientists and design engineers

will be interested in this catalog,

which provides the latest information on the data computations, publications, and computerized databases

available from the NIST Standard Refer- ence Data Program and other sources.

Critically evaluated data compilations are

available in the following areas: analyti- cal chemistry, atomic physics, chemical

kinetics, materials properties, molecular

structure and spectroscopy, thermodynamics and thermochemistry, and the thermophysical properties of fluids.

1989 Computer Security and

Privacy Plans (CSPP) Review

Project: A First-Year Federal

Response to the Computer

Security Act of 1987 (Final

Report)

Gilbert, D.M., report coordinator, Natl.

Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NISTIR 4409,

189 pages (September 1990). Order by

stock no. PB #91-107540 from NTIS,

$23 prepaid.

This report describes the computer

security and privacy plan review effort conducted jointly by NIST and

the National Security Agency's National Computer Security Center in response to the Computer Security Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-235). The act requires federal agencies to prepare and submit to NIST and NSA—for review and comment—security plans for all computer

systems that contain sensitive information. The report also discusses future directions for implementing the act. The

goal of the act is to prompt federal agencies to take measures to improve the

security and privacy of sensitive information in federal computer systems.

Directory of Federal Government

Laboratory Accreditation/

Designation Programs

Breitenberg, M., editor, Natl. Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NIST Spec. Pub. 808,

105 pages (February 1991). Order by

sending a self-addressed mailing label

to the Standards Code and Information Program, A633 Administration Bldg.,

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-4031.

This publication is designed to help

federal, state, and local govern- ment officials, exporters, manufacturers, and others in commerce and

industry locate federal laboratory accreditation programs and the organizations

designated by the agencies to assist

them in carrying out their responsibilities

for testing products and services. Thirty- one lab accreditation programs are

listed, as well as 13 federal programs

with limited types of assessment. Entries are organized by agency, department, or independent commission. Each entry

contains a program description, date

initiated, authority, fields of testing

accredited or designated, products

affected, program requirements, availability of publications, and information on accreditation criteria.

Time and Frequency Users

Manual

Kamas, G., and Lombardi, M.A., Natl.

Inst. Stand. & Tech. (U.S.), NIST Spec.

Pub. 559, 160 pages (September 1990).

Order by stock no. 003-003-03050-3

from GPO, $8.50 prepaid.

NIST's popular time and frequency

users' manual is written for readers at all levels of understanding.

This revised edition contains updated in- formation about time and frequency ser- vices available from NIST, other federal agencies, and other countries. The carefully indexed publication will be useful to technicians, experimenters, calibration

laboratories, and scientists since it covers most aspects of receiving and

using time and frequency calibration signals, the history of time services, foreign

transmitters, satellite services, and cali- bration methods.

Ordering Information

To order publications from NTIS, send

the request with payment to: National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Va. 22161. Publications can be

ordered from GPO by mailing the order

with payment to the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing

Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.

35
Conference Calendar

Applications of Cold Neutron

Spectroscopy in Chemistry,

Biology, and Physics

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

Purpose: To explore the scientific opportunities offered by four new instruments

at NIST's cold neutron research facility, which will permit the spectroscopy of chemical, physical, and biological

processes across a very wide energy

range. Selected Topics: Chemical spectroscopy with neutrons, neutron spectroscopy of polymer dynamics, tunneling

motions in molecular solids, neutron scattering from biological systems, time-offlight spectroscopy, user policies at the cold neutron research facility. Format: Workshop.

Audience: Physicists, chemists,

biologists.

Sponsor: NIST. Contact: William A. Kamitakahara, E151

Reactor Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

20899, 301/975-6878.

North American ISDN Users'

Forum (NIU-Forum)

Regal Constellation, Toronto, Canada

Purpose: To develop user-defined applications, implementation agreements for existing standards, and tests needed for a transparent, ubiquitous, and user- driven integrated services digital network

(ISDN).

Topics: ISDN-related subjects. Format: Tutorials, users' and implementors' workshops, working group meetings.

Audience: ISDN users, implementors,

and service providers.

Sponsor: NIST. Contact: Dawn Hoffman, B364 Materials

Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-2937.

Fifth International Conference on

Liquid Atomization and Spray

Systems (ICLASS '91)

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

Purpose: To present the state of the art

in experimental and computational tech- niques related to atomization processes

and sprays used in industrial, transportation, and agricultural systems.

Selected Topics: Spray formation; instrumentation techniques; modeling of sprays and spray flames; atomization

processes in gas turbines, internal combustion engines, and furnaces/boilers. Format: Plenary lecture, invited and contributed papers, poster session,

instrumentation and equipment exhibits. Audience: International representatives

of industry, academia, and other govern- ment agencies.

Sponsors: NIST and ILASS-Americas

(Institute of Liquid Atomization and Spray

Systems). Contact: Hratch Semerjian, B312

Physics Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

20899, 301/975-2609.

Joint U.S./German Conference on New Directions for Operations

Research in Manufacturing

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

Purpose: To provide a forum for participants to discuss new directions for operations research in manufacturing.

Selected Topics: Distributed real-time scheduling, hierarchical and heterarchical control systems, integrated algorithms for design, process planning, and

equipment level programming.

Format: Open forum. Audience: Universities and manufacturers. Sponsors: NIST, Operations Research

Society of America Special Interest Group on Manufacturing, German Operations Research Society, and National Science Foundation. Contact: Al Jones, A319 Metrology

Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-3554.

Third International Symposium

on ESR Dosimetry and Applications

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

Purpose: To focus on current applications of electron spin resonance (ESR)

spectroscopy.

Selected Topics: Ionizing radiation dosimetry, including reference and transfer dosimetry, archeological dating, geology, solid-state effects, instrumentation, imaging, medical applications. Format: Symposium.

Audience: Archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists, radiation scientists. Sponsors: NIST, Department of Energy,

China University of Science and Technology, and International Atomic Energy

Agency.

Contact: Marc F. Desrosiers, C214

Radiation Physics Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899, 301/975-5639.

Gage Block Calibration

NIST, Gaithersburg, Md.

Purpose: To emphasize the concepts,

techniques, and apparatus used in gage

block calibration. Selected Topics: Statistics, process

control, gage block comparators,

interferometry. Format: Short instructional course. Audience: Metrology laboratory

managers and technicians. Sponsor: NIST. Contact: John Stoup, A107 Metrology

Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899,

301/975-3471.

36

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