NIST

PUBLICATIONS

AlllDM SSbflES

NIST

Industrial

Impacts

A Sampling

of Successful

Partnerships

1995

national Institute of

Standards and Technology

Technology Administration

U.S. Department of Commerce

A Note to U.S. Industry

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a mission to work in partnership with industn' toward the shared goal of strengthening the nation's technological and economic bases. Here are a few examples of how we are fulfilling our

mission:

Crucible Compaction Metals, a company in Oakdale, Pa., wanted technical

assistance in honing a new way to make high-performance metal parts. They turned

to NIST where they joined a handful of companies with similar goals in a research consortium that taps into a variety of NIST specialists and advanced equipment. The

company ended up increasing productivity by 40 percent.

SDL Inc. of San Jose, Calif., wanted to develop a high-risk laser technology, but the

risk was too great for them to bear alone. So they, too, tumed to NIST, which

administers the Advanced Technology Program to share costs with industry for developing high-risk, enabling technologies with commercial payoff. With

unexpected swiftness after the start of their project, SDL had three spin-offs on their hands—and on the market.

Thomson Berr.- Farms of Duluth, Minn., wanted to automate the way they make

jams, syrups, dressings, and vinegars. They contacted NIST's Upper Midwest

Manufacturing Technology Center, which is part of a growing nationwide network of

assistance centers managed by NIST. The advice they received helped the company

increase their productivity by 50 percent while almost quadrupling their manufacturing capacity.

Ames Rubber Corp. in Hamburg, N.J., made the NIST connection in the form of a

coveted Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. This award, which was

established by Congress in 1987, is the most visible outcome of a program designed

to promote and recognize quality in the business sector. The stringent criteria to

qualif}' for the prestigious award are playing an increasing role in the way Ames and

many businesses mn.

This booklet briefly chronicles these and other recent cases in which U.S. companies and

NIST have crossed paths to their mutual benefit. We hope that they will encourage you to explore how you too can take advantage of the opportunities for collaboration with a

technology' agency that's designed to work with industry.

Hoping to hear from you,

Arati Prabhakar, Director

Contents

NIST at a Glance 5

Organizational Contacts 6

Advanced Technology Program Impacts 7

Manufacturing Extension Partnership Impacts 33

Laboratory Impacts 47

Baldrige National Quality Program Impacts 87

Index of Companies 91

3

NIST at a Glance

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a primary mission to promote

U.S. economic growth by working with industry to develop and apply technology,

measurements, and standards. NIST, a non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration, carries out this mission through a portfolio of four major programs.

The Advanced Technology Program is a rigorously competitive cost-sharing program

designed to help industry pursue high-risk, enabling technologies with significant

commercial potential. The program, which seeks to build bridges between basic research and product development, provides multiyear funding to single companies

or industry-led joint ventures. Beginning in 1994, the bulk of ATP funding was

^plied to focused program areas targeted at specific, well-defined technology and

business goals. The focused programs—each identified and defined from industry

input—support multiple projects that complement and reinforce each other.

The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is a grassroots effort to improve

the competitiveness of smaller manufacturers by providing access to the infonnation

and expertise that allow them to improve their operations through the use of appropriate technologies. These smaller companies are assisted through MEP's

growing nationwide network of affiliated manufacturing extension centers run by

local, state, and non-profit groups.

The oldest component of NIST's portfolio resides in its laboratories—electronics and

electrical engineering, manufacturing engineering, chemical science and

technology, physics, materials science and engineering, building and fire research,

computer systems, and computing and applied mathematics. These labs maintain

world-class expertise in measurements, standards, data evaluation, and test methods

with specific efforts planned and implemented in coordination with industry.

The Baldrige National Quality Program is a quality outreach effort that recognizes

and promotes quality improvement by U.S. manufacturers and service companies.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has become both the U.S. standard of quality achievement in industry and a comprehensive guide to quality improvement.

There are many specific mechanisms by which the private sector interacts with NIST's

3,200 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel either in Gaithersburg,

Md., or Boulder, Colo. They range from shot-in-the-dark problem-solving phone calls

to more formal and long-term collaborations, including cooperative R&D agreements,

R&D contracts, workshops, guest researcher agreements, patent licenses, and research

consortia involving several companies and NIST. Direct assistance is available to smaller

manufacmrers from the NIST manufacturing extension centers around the country.

5
Organizational Contacts

General Inquiries

(301) 975-3058

email: inquiries@nist.gov

Advanced Technology Program

(800) ATP-FUND

email: atp@micf.nist.gov

Manufacturing Extension Partnership

(301) 975-3593

email: mepinfo@micf.nist.gov

Baldrige National Quality Program

(301) 975-2036

email: oqp@micf.nist.gov

Laboratory Programs:

Electronics and Electrical Engineering

(301) 975-2220

Manufacturing Engineering

(301) 975-3400

Chemical Science and Technology

(301) 975-3145

Physics

(301) 9754200

Materials Science and Engineering

(301) 975-5658

Building and Fire Research

(301) 975-5900

Computer Systems

(301) 975-2822

Computing and Applied Mathematics

(301) 975-2728

Technology Services:

Standards Information Center

(301) 975-4040

Weights and Measures

(301) 975-4004

Laboratory Accreditation (301) 975-4016

Technology Commercialization

(301) 975-3084

Standard Reference Data

(301) 975-2208

Standard Reference Materials

(301) 975-6776

Calibrations (301) 975-2002

Technology Evaluation

(301) 975-5500

6
Advanced

Technology

Program

Impacts

NIST

Indu6trial

Impact

Company:

Accuwave

Santa Monica, California

business:

Fiber-optic telecommunications

Number of Employees:

10

The National Institute of

Stan^lards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotee

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

"As magnificent as they are, today's

optical-fiber networks are still very

primitive," muses Accuwave CEO

Neven Karlovac. They are reminiscent

of the early days of radio—

a

transmitter, a receiver, and you turn

the signal on and off. Radio has come

a long way. Tight, efficient use of the available spectrum has made possible a multiplicity of closely spaced AM,

FM, and cellular phone channels.

Fiber-optic networks have a way to go.

Karlovac's company has away to get

there. The small (10-person) Santa

Monica company was a high-tech

start-up in 1990, with a nifty

technology' in search of useful

applications. Accuwave could use holograms "written" in the interior of

thick, photorefractive crystals to separate a mixed beam of light into separate wavelengths. It seemed

the basis for a very compact,

discriminating "multiplexing"

technique to allow many separate

channels to share a single optical

fiber simultaneously.

Commercial systems have been able

to multiplex a few channels on a

fiber, but Accuwave had demonstrated

techniques that—in principle

could do 10 times better. Multiwavelength light entering one end of an Accuwave "volume

holography" crystal would encounter a series of holographic gratings, each

tuned to reflect a specific wavelength

while passing all others with minimal

loss.

What Accuwave didn't have was the

in-house resources to develop their technology to the point where they

could plausibly enter the huge, highly

competitive communications market.

In particular, they wanted to extend

their technology, developed for visible

light, to the infrared wavelengths more commonly used for long-distance telecommunications.

Theirentreewasal992 NIST

Advanced Technology Program award

for $2 million. "As a small company, we couldn't have entered the

telecommunications market with the

*The ATP award

enabled us

to take our

technology

and develop a

prototype and

make it real."

resources to develop a product

without the ATP award," says Karlovac. "The award enabled us to take our technology and develop a

prototype and make it real."

Very real. Although the ATP project is

still underway, Accuwave has spun

off some early results as new products. "As an offshoot of that work we have

focused on a particular market need

for wavelength standards," explains

Karlovac. Just as every radio

transmitter has a crystal to tune it to a

specific wavelength, multichannel

fiber-optic networks need a "crystal"

to define specific wavelengths for each

channel. Such a wavelength reference

is necessary to control the transmitter

wavelengths and important for networking monitoring equipment to ensure that you have the correct channel on each wavelength.

9
At ajuly 1994 conference on optical

networks, the company unveiled three new products based on early results of

their research program: an optical

network monitor, a wavelength

standard, and a wavelength "locker"

to allow tighter control of laser wavelengths on optical networks.

"As far as we know," says Karlovac,

"these are unique products. They've

created a category of their own. To get

the same functionality, you'd need a benchtop of lab equipment costing

tens of thousands of dollars. The

Accuwave units are less than 2 cubic

inches each, designed for mass

production and use in networks.

They're low-cost, compact, and

rugged."

"Our entry into the

telecommunications

market has largely

been as a

result of the ATR"

The announcement was particularly

well received, Karlovac recalls, because it by chance followed an

invited paper from AT&T that singled out the need for accurate and

ubiquitous wavelength standards as

the number-one issue for optical

networks. "We've had outstanding

response. In fact, we already have a commitment from five companies to go through beta testing with us and

we're working on that right now," he

says, "Of course the road to success and profitability still is a long one

the telecom marketplace has a long

gestation period, and quite a few

things need to happen. From the business point of view, we intend to .

serve the comimunications R&D

market for the next couple of years, so

these won't be in your home right

away."

But, he says, the Advanced

Technology Program played a key

role in getting them this far: "Our

entry into the telecommunications

market has largely been as a result of the ATP."

10
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company:

Aphios

Wobum, Massachusetts

business:

Technologies that inactivate \1ral

contaminants in biological and

biotechnological products

Number of Employees:

20

The National Institute of

Stan^larcls and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce'e Technology

A<5lministration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with inclustry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

March 1995

Trevor Castor has it out for viruses. Not only that, since 1988 when he

founded a company now known as Aphios, the Trinidad-bom

mechanical and chemical engineer

has aimed to make it his business to

protect the nation's supply of blood

and blood products from vimses,

whether they be well-known viruses

like the ones that cause AIDS and

hepatitis or less familiar threats such

as the deadly Ebola vims.

Laudable as that aim is, the vims-killing technology that he and

Arthur Lander, a physician and

biology professor at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, had invented

for this purpose was too unconventional and untested to

readily attract the venture capital

needed to usher their laboratory

successes toward commercial

vims-clearing systems. Castor, who is

president and CEO of Aphios (Greek

for "without vimses"), recalls wryly

that in 1991, "I hit the road mnning

hard, contacting about 100 venture

capital companies and all of the human plasma processing

companies.... Nine months later, I came up empty—physically,

emotionally, and financially

exhausted."

Even as Castor was chalking up

rejections, a new federal technology

initiative, the Advanced Technology

Program (ATP), was getting into

gear. As Castor saw it, the point of the National Institute of Standards and

Technology's ATP was to help

companies like his test the mettle of new and promising technology leads through cost-shared research and

development agreements whose

primary goal was to reduce the risks

enough for the private sector to take

the development baton all the way to a commercial end.

As it turns out, his 1992 application to

the ATP was successful. It was a

critical boost for him and Aphios,

which at the time had only three . employees. Under the two-year

agreement, the federal government

contributes a total of $2 million while

"As a result of

winning the ATP

coet-ehannQ ^rant,

we have been able to

assemble a crack

team of scientists."

Aphios kicks in $500,000. The

five-year-old ATP was forged with

provisions for financial arrangements

like this one to encourage innovative

companies like Aphios to enter ATP

competitions.

"As a result of winning the ATP

cost-sharing grant," Castor says, "we

have been able to assemble a crack

team of scientists." Now, among the 20 or so Aphios employees are

virologists, molecular and cell

biologists, protein chemists, and a

veterinarian as well as biomedical,

chemical, and mechanical

engineers—an assemblage of

scientific and technical talent

essential for developing and

ultimately commercializing the biotechnology Castor and Lander

invented. "Before ATP we had tested one vims, now we have examined a

dozen," Castor adds. Moreover, he

credits the ATP with allowing him

11
and colleagues "to demonstrate the technology to a level where we can

attract collaborators from large and

significant companies" in the blood

products industry. Preferring not to

reveal the partners, he notes "we have

four agreements and six in the works." Just in time, too. After the ATP agreement ends this year. Castor

estimates it will take an additional

$5 million to get their technology to

the commercial phase. "This will have to come from the venture community or from these partnership

agreements," he says.

The technology that is the focus of

these actual and hoped-for R8d)

agreements is called "critical fluid

in activation." Castor believes this technology could provide a generic means of inactivating all or most

viruses, known or unknown, that might be present in protein-rich

media such as blood and

biotechnologically produced drugs. It

will do this, he says, without affecting

the proteins—such as the clotting

factor used by hemophiliacs—in the same media.

Procedures involving heat treatments and detergents have proven effective against viral contaminants and are in

use, but Castor says these fall short of the mark for the emerging

biotechnology community. Heat

treatments can simultaneously

destroy the function of the very

proteins that the treatment is intended to protect. In Castor's words,

"You don't want to make scrambled

eggs of the protein." As for detergents,

He credits the ATP

with allowing him

and his colleagues

"to demonstrate

the technology to

a level where we

can attract

collaborators from

large and significant

companies" in the

blood products

industry.

they can leave behind traces of

themselves, and they only work on

viruses coated with oily molecules

known as lipids. That includes such menaces as HIV, but the uncoated

hepatitis A virus, for example, would

slip by these detergents.

Critical fluid inactivation hits the mark. Castor believes, with the same

principle that incapacitates deep sea

divers who surface too quickly. Such

divers will suffer a painful and

sometimes lethal condition, called the bends (caisson disease), when

nitrogen that had dissolved in their blood and tissues at the higher

pressures of deep water boils out

again as the divers retum to shallower, lower pressure water. The

viral version of the bends starts when

blood and other virus-containing

products enter a treatment chamber

loaded with a gas, say, carbon

dioxide. The chamber's temperature

and pressure are then adjusted to

levels at which the gas becomes a

so-called critical fluid, which means

that its physical properties and state

hover somewhere between those

of a gas and a liquid. In this form, the carbon dioxide infiltrates the viral

particles to create a pressure-triggered

time bomb. When the chamber

pressure is reduced, the carbon

dioxide inside the virus reverts unambiguously to a gas and expands

explosively, apparently taking with it much of the virus's genetic material.

Although no one yet knows exactly

how the technique works, the Aphios

scientists know that the viruses they

have subjected to this treatment emerge stripped of their abilities to cause infection. Moreover, proteins in the same media often glide through

the procedure either unscathed, or

they revert to their functional forms

after undergoing a temporary change.

Teasing out the details of what

happens to the viruses and proteins

remains among the priorities for Aphios researchers, and plenty of work

lies ahead before critical fluid inactivation will be ready to undergo

its rite of passage through the Food

and Dmg Administration's approval

process. Still, with prototype systems

in hand, and with strategic

collaborations in place or in the works, Castor is optimistic that by

^

1998 the technology will have the FDA

go-ahead to become what he expects

will be an important new tool for the medical, public health, and

biotechnological communities.

12
NIST

I nduatrial

Impact

Company.

The Auto Body Consortium

APX International,

Madison Heights, Michigan

ASC, Southgate, Michigan

Classic Design, Inc.,

Troy, Michigan

Detroit Center Tool, Inc.,

Detroit, Michigan

ISI Automation Products Group,

Mt. Clemens, Michigan

Perceptron,

Faraiington Hills, Michigan

Modem Engineering,

Troy, Michigan

Progressive Tool,

Southfield, Michigan

Chrysler Corporation,

Detroit, Michigan

General Motors Corporation,

Warren, Michigan

business;

Auto manufacturing

The National Institute of

Stan^iands an^l Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

March 1995

When Toyota's "ball bearing" ad for

its Lexus cars appeared during prime

time, its message hit the U.S. car

industry in the solar plexus. In the ad, a ball bearing rolls flawlessly along

the car's virtually perfect seams. The

manufacturing uniformity that is shown improves a car's quality,

reduces company costs, and shortens

time to market. It leads to tighter

fitting doors, less wind noise, and

fewer rattles and vibrations, all of

which play pivotal roles in the decisions of car buyers. "The ad was a

call to innovation," recalls Emest

Vahala, a 43-year retired veteran engineer at General Motors who now

is president of the Auto Body

Consortium (ABC). The group's goal

is to help U.S. auto body

manufacturers surpass the industry

benchmark of product uniformity set and held by Toyota. The consortium was able to forai, Vahala says, only

because the National Institute of

Standards and Technology's

Advanced Technology Program

provided an unprecedented

framework for cooperative R&D even among arch rival companies.

"We were all skeptical when we first

started this," recalls Dwight Carlson

of Perceptron, an ABC member

company that specializes in manufacturing sensor technology.

The consortium's eight small

technology suppliers work with the

large auto makers as well as researchers at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University.

"Now we know that this really works,"

Carlson says.

The industrial challenge has been

clear enough: If domestic car makers

are to continue competing in the

global industry, they have to reduce

car-to-car manufacturing variation

from the typical 3 to 5 millimeters

(on critical dimensions such as door

openings) to 2 mm or less, or about

the thickness of a nickel. Toyota has

been the acknowledged "master of

variation reduction," notes Carlson. Other auto makers in Europe and the

Pacific Rim have been closing in.

The consortium wae

able to form, Vahala

says, only because

NIST's Advanced

Technology Program

provided an

unprecedented

framework for

cooperative R&P

even among arch

rival companies.

Meeting the challenge in the United

States, however, would require an

unprecedented collaboration among

researchers in small companies,

universities, and large auto makers.

The millions of dollars required for the R&D also would be an issue, but it was the cultural hurdle of working

across traditional lines of the R&D

continuum that was the first barrier

to clear. That is where the Advanced

Technology Program came in like no

other entity could have, say Carlson

and Vahala.

"Prior to the NIST ATP program,

there was no authorization which

provided the necessary teaming

stmcture and monetary support for auto companies, smaller suppliers.

13
universities, and government to

establish teams to improve the competitiveness of the domestic auto

industry," according to ABC. Under

the three-year ATP agreement, which

ends in September 1995, the U.S. government contributes $4.8 million

to the ABC's small members. Of the roughly $6.5 million of industry

matching funds, GM and Chrysler

kick in $2.25 million while the eight

smaller partners ante up the rest. The

ATP catalyzed the horizontal

integration of small innovative

suppliers and academic researchers as well as the vertical integration of

these players with the Big 3 auto makers.

The fundamental manufacturing

challenge rests in the fact that assembling car bodies is like assembling jigsaw puzzles. In both

cases, each of many pieces must fit nearly flawlessly with its neighbors.

Even minuscule misfits can accumulate into unappealing results. In only three years, the ATP 2 mm

Program—as its participants call

it—has yielded new valuable results. Among them are software and

modeling tools for controlling and

streamlining the manufacturing

processes; laser-based sensing

techniques for reducing variation

occurring along the continuum from

mathematically precise designs to manufacturing dies to production

parts; and techniques of precision

clamping to reduce tiny warps and

deflections in sheet metal.

When integrated into assembly lines run by trained and skilled workers,

these innovations have reduced the

total variation of U.S.-made car

When integrated

into assembly lines

run by trained and

skilled workers,

these innovations

have reduced the

total variation of

U.S.-made car

bodies to the 2 mm

mark, and

then some.

bodies to the 2 mm mark, and then some.

Based on the results already in, auto makers have felt confident enough to

invest additional resources to get the new technology on-line sooner than

initially projected. The 2 mm goal is a

reality already on several assembly

lines whose products—including the Chrysler Grand Cherokee, Dodge Ram

trucks, and GM 325 and 330

trucks—are rolling on the nation's

roadways. At the GM Linden plant in NewJersey, variation levels now even run at a world-class 1.74 mm. These

technology implementations have

been accomplished in a way that promises a long-term competitive

advantage, Carlson says. Similar to Toyota's approach, the ABC technique

maximizes worker knowledge and

contributions for each particular

model. But the ABC approach also

stresses manufacturing technologies

that are more readily adaptable to many models, paving the way for a more agile brand of world-class

manufacturing.

The unusually rapid transfer of technology from R&D stages to the plant floor is a natural outcome of the vertical integration among

suppliers, researchers, and auto makers within the ATP framework,

Vahala says. As soon as a technology or practice is proven, auto makers can make the investment in money and

personnel to get that innovation into assembly lines. "This has a life of its own now," adds Carlson. There are 64

assembly plants making American

cars in the United States and Canada,

and ABC members say that all of them probably will adopt the innovations of the ATP 2 mm

Program. With on-the-road proof that collaborative R&D really can work in the auto industry, many now seek to

replicate the 2 mm project in other

manufacturing steps, including metal

stamping and welding.

The potential payoffs are enormous,

the ABC says. The domestic auto

industry accounts for one out of every seven jobs. It makes up 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Autos and auto parts make up two-thirds of the U.S. trade deficit. If the ATP 2 mm

Program, and other collaborative

efforts modeled after it, can help the

U.S. auto industry to gain global

market share, the U.S. economy as whole ought to benefit. That is no

pipe dream, Vahala says. He proudly

points out that the Tmck of the Year

according to Motor Trend magazine

is made at a plant in Moraine, Ohio,

where the innovations of the ATP

project have been put into practice. In

the end, it is quality like that that

attracts buyers, earns market share,

and determines which auto makers

are at the top.

14
NIST

Indu6trial

Impact

Company.

Diamond Semiconductor Group

Gloucester, iMassaciiusetts

3ueineee:

Semiconductor equipment

manufacturer

Number of Employees:

28

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with Industry to deve\op and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

"We're here now only because of the Advanced Technology Program. We'd

tried all the other avenues —except

for foreign investors." Risky ventures

to replace an established technology

don't fare well in a tight R&D market.

Manny Sieradzki, president of Diamond Semiconductor Group Inc. (DSG), has firsthand experience.

Not that he was trying to sell an unwelcome technology. Sieradzki

and his partner, DSG research director Nicholas White, hoped to develop a new type of ion implantation

machine, one of the primary tools of the semiconductor industry. The new

machine would be smaller, faster, cheaper, and more accurate than

existing machines and accommodate

larger wafers—all good things. But it would require a design breakthrough

that was widely believed to be, if not

impossible, certainly very difficult. And expensive. And times were light.

Ion implantation is used widely to

tailor the chemical composition of minute regions in a crystalline wafer

of a substrate, such as silicon, as part

of the process used to create

integrated circuits. The new DSG

machine is a high-current implanter,

the type used to implant "source" and

"drain" regions for microscopic

transistors. In what might intuitively seem like a leap backwards, one of the

principal features of the DSG

machine is that it works on a single

wafer at a time, in contrast to conventional high-current implanters

that do a batch of 13 to 17 wafers at once.

Why? In part, explains Sieradzki, the advantage of his new machine is one

of better process control. The vast

majority of wafer-fabrication steps are done one wafer at a time, so a

single-wafer implanter fits better in

the process stream. You can better tweak the process for optimal results working on single wafers. And, were something to go wrong with the

process, a single-wafer machine only

trashes 2i single expensive wafer.

"WeVe here now only

because of the ATR

We'd tried all the

other avenues

except for foreign

investors."

But perhaps more importantly, the

existing technology for high-current

ion implanters is being challenged by

the demands of semiconductor

manufacturers for ever larger wafer

sizes. True, the size of individual

features in integrated circuits is

getting smaller and smaller, but the chips themselves are becoming larger

and larger to accommodate greater

complexity. Take a look at a

state-of-the-art microprocessor. If you

want to maintain the number of chips per wafer for each new generation, the wafers have to get bigger.

Which means all the processes have to be scaled up. Currently, the standard

production wafer is 200 mm in diameter, but the industry wants to move to much larger 300-mm wafers —about the size of an LP record. To

build a conventional ion-implanting

machine that holds a dozen or more

of these monsters ... whirling around

at about 1,800 rpm ... in a vacuum ...

15
is a very expensive prospect loaded

with engineering problems.

The reason one would try at all is because it is extremely difficult to take a high-current ion beam and scan

it

uniformly—across the face of a

large semiconductor wafer. The catch

is, you can't conveniently scan the

beam as you would in a TV picture

tube, because at the high beam

current, it would simply tear itself

apart. So conventional machines hold

the beam more-or-less steady and move the wafers, whirling them

around on a disk that slowly moves

under the beam.

DSG's answer was a new design of

ion-beam optics that produces a wide

(about 350 mm), unifoma, nearly

parallel ion beam. By simply moving

the wafer through this curtain of ions

at a constant speed, 300-mm and

larger wafers can be processed quickly

and evenly. The new DSG optics make

for a markedly simpler machine, so it should be much cheaper to build and

maintain than a conventional

ion-implantation machine.

But the concept wasn't an easy sell. "We spent a year and a half looking

for funding, mostly from U.S. companies," recalls Sieradzki. "The

concept was one that had been talked about for years," adds White, "but not everyone believed it was possible. It was definitely high risk. And the market had been in a slump, so there wasn't a lot of development money

available anyway."

"Without the

original ATP funding

into the Diamond

Semiconductor

Group, there

wouldn't have been

enough 'existence

proof for Varian

to go ahead with

the technology,

particularly since it

was c^uite high risk."

One option was to look for overseas

investors, but before trying that the

partners decided to apply to the NIST

Advanced Technology Program

(ATP). Their project was one of 21

selected in 1992, and even before the

final papers were signed, the fledgling

company had attracted the attention

of Varian Associates, one of the largest

suppliers of ion-implantation

equipment in the world.

"Winning the ATP award was

absolutely crucial to us," says

Sieradzki. "It's clear to us that without the ATP we wouldn't have

secured domestic funding for this." Bruce Thayer, the Varian marketing

manager dealing with DSG, frankly

agrees, "Without the original ATP

funding into the Diamond

Semiconductor Group, there wouldn't

have been enough 'existence proof

for Varian to go ahead with the technology, particularly since it was

quite high risk."

Under the ATP award, DSG developed

their concept and built a prototype

machine. That was enough for Varian, which bought a worldwide

license to manufacture, sell, and

service DSG's ion implanter. And the company kicked in some funds to help with product development, an

area not covered by the ATP.

DSG now has 28 full- and part-time

employees and is looking to the next challenge—flat-panel displays. With

its wide product capacity, the DSG

implanter should be an ideal machine for making the large

integrated devices that are the core of

most flat-panel displays, but it will

require a major marketing effort in the display industry, which isn't used

to the concept of using ion

implantation. To have picked that as

their first market, says Sieradzki,

would have meant trying to launch a

radically new technology and a

radically new application at the same

time. His advice: "Don't do that." But now that the basic technology is well

in hand and headed for the showroom ....

The partners are understandably

bullish about the company's future,

but in a time of increasing

commercial competition on an

international scale. White has a cautionary moral to add: "We'd be a Japanese company right now," he

says, "if it weren't for the ATP."

16
NIST

Indudtrial

Impact

Company:

Eagle-Picher Research Laboratory

En\1ronmental Science & Technology

Department

Miami, Oklahoma

Business:

Develops and manufactures electronic

electro-optic and photonic materials

and devices

Number of Employees:

202

The National Institute of

Stanclards and Technology Is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

Physicist Jan Schetzina knows how to show-and-tell. In June 1994, at the end of a technical talk he was

presenting at a meeting on

semiconductor devices at the

University of Colorado, he held up a

little black box, his finger poised on a

button. When he pressed it, a

pencil-thin beam of bright green light

from the box hit the back wall. He

then swept the light like a beacon

across the audience of several hundred. The next thing Schetzina

remembers is that his ears were filled with a round of spontaneous applause.

Those gathered at the meeting—the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics

Engineers' Device Research

Conference—knew what that light

signified. It meant that Schetzina of the North Carolina State University

(NCSU) and his colleagues had

achieved a milestone toward the goal

of making highly controlled semiconductor crystals that emit

green or blue wavelengths of light.

Schetzina's show-and-tell glory rests

partly on his team's expertise with a

crystal growing technique called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE),

which allows them to build and vary

crystal stmctures atomic layer by

atomic layer.

The applause for Schetzina's

demonstration was for more than

skilled MBE work at NCSU. Also

pivotal were a unique supply of

pristine zinc selenide (ZnSe) crystals

from Eagle-Picher Research

Laboratory and what both Schetzina

and Eagle-Picher representatives

describe as a critical assist from the National Institute of Standards and

Technology (NIST) in the forni of an

Advanced Technology Program grant.

There actually is nothing new about

light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which

were the kind of devices Schetzina was

talking about. Nice bright ones have

been shining for years inside CD

players, or from the panels of consumer electronic products. But no

one yet has made a true green or blue

LED that lasts more than a few

seconds. Those LEDs now marketed as

Also pivotal was

a critical assist

from NIST in the

form of an

Advanced Technology

Program grant.

"green" lack intensity and are actually a disappointing hue of yellow

green, Schetzina says.

There is no shortage of technological

carrots for green and blue LEDs and

laser diodes, which emit a much

narrower range of wavelengths than

LEDs. For one, their availability

would complete the basic spectrum of

solid-state light-emitting devices and

that could launch a new branch of the flat-panel display industry for TVs,

computer monitors, control panels,

and electronic games. Even more

important, according to several key

players in the field, is that their

shorter wavelengths can pack more

information than the redder ones now at the heart of optical

communications. Moreover, those same shorter wavelengths could lead

to data recording and storage systems

with much greater capacities than

today's best. Companies such as 3M,

Xerox, and Sony in Japan, military

17
planners, and academic researchers have been hot on the trail of this technology for years.

There have been plenty of dead ends. Schetzina and many other research

teams around the world had made

green LEDs by depositing II-VI semiconductors (so-named because

they are made by mixing and

matching elements from the second

and sixth columns of the Periodic

Table) atop a crystal of gallium

arsenide (GaAs, a III-V compound).

Anyone who has ever tried to make

GaAs-ZnSe combos though has mn

into a show-stopping problem—the

devices last only a short time, usually a few seconds, before their crystal

structures become riddled with lightquenching defects.

The seeds for destruction probably are sown as soon as the first layers of ZnSe are deposited on the gallium

arsenide since the respective spacing

between the atoms in each layer are not quite matched. Like a plastic top

forced onto a mism.atched deli

container, these differences elicit

strains, which researchers think are

the source of the structural defects

that appear soon after any current

courses into the crystals.

Like other semiconductor researchers,

Schetzina suspected that the only way

to grow durable ZnSe-based LEDs

would be on top of ZnSe crystals, in which case there would be no mismatch between atomic spacings.

That is a scenario much easier to imagine than make real. No one had

ever succeeded in growing ZnSe

crystals large enough to offer commercial promise, Schetzina says.

Until 1991, that is. That is when

"Without the ATFJ

they would not have

had the incentive

or help that they

needed at a very

critical time...

researchers at Eagle-Picher, led by

Gene Cantwell and William Harsch,

announced that they had come up

with a patented method to grow the

coveted ZnSe crystals. Called seeded

physical vapor transport, the method

involves a heated tube that contains

purified zinc selenide powder whose

atoms boil off and then migrate

toward seed crystals on either end of

the heated tube on which large

pristine crystals then grow. Harsch was confident that he and colleagues

would be able to come up with the ZnSe crystal that others had given up

on, but he wanted to take the crystal

to the next step of technology

development. So in 1991, Harsch gave

Schetzina a call.

Their subsequent collaboration

already has yielded prototype LEDs

that emit a deep emerald green light,

which is more than 50 times brighter

and more efficient than commercial

yellow-green devices. Recently, the NCSU/Eagle-Picher team also has

demonstrated bright blue LEDs, says

Schetzina.

The timing of these successes was

crucial. Eagle-Picher's original efforts

to make ZnSe had been funded since

the mid-1980s by a federal agency

that shifted its emphasis entirely to gallium arsenide substrates in the

early 1990s. The subsequent loss of

government funds for ZnSe research

led company management to

seriously rethink the material's

commercial potential. "I was told

either to do something with the technology or to get out of the [ZnSe]

business," Harsch recalls. Knowing

"that the technology was too good to

drop, though," the company applied

for support from the Advanced

Technology Program, Harsch says.

In late 1992, Eagle-Picher was

awarded a 3-year ATP award totaling

$1,759,000. "Without the ATP, they

would not have had the incentive or help that they needed at a very critical time when they were about to make

internal decisions," Schetzina says. Adds Harsch: "It gave our program

credibility in the minds of our

corporate people." The award also enabled the company to greatly

leverage its own investment for a

high-risk project with potentially high

payoffs, just what ATP awards are chartered to do.

"This is tuming into a textbook case

of technology transfer," says Harsch.

Since the award was granted, the Eagle-Picher group has been able to improve their success rate at growing

usable ZnSe crystals from intermittent

to nearly 100 percent, he says. By the

fall of 1994, they expect to receive a !

production MBE system exactly like

j the one Schetzina's group uses at l NCSU and the company plans to hire

[ some graduates from Schetzina's lab. .

j The hardware purchase was part of

the ATP agreement. Says Harsch:

"By the end of the year, we could be

selling the world's brightest and most

|^ durable green LEDs." '
NIST

I nduatrial

Impact

Company,

Engineering Animation Inc. Ames, Iowa

3ue'meee:

Develops simulation, visualization,

and animation software

Number of Employees:

96

The National Institute of

Standarcis and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

October 1994

One of the most successful and

powerful inventions during the course

of human evolution was imagination:

the ability to picture mentally, to simulate, what might happen if this or that particular action is taken

before taking the actual physical risk the actions entail. Beyond its critical

role as a survival tool, imaginative

simulation has been a veritable engine of scientific insight and

technological innovation, one of the

latest being the creation of artificial simulation tools that leverage human

imagination into vast new territories.

In 1991, Engineering Animation Inc., a fledgling computer simulation

company based in Ames, Iowa, was

anxious to see how it might take its three-dimensional visualization and

animation technology into new

biomedical territories where company

executives saw a big market. Others

had been developing straightforward

anatomic simulation tools, the sort of things that could supplant or complement anatomy books and

medical school cadavers. But the

founders of EAI, all of them

mechanical engineers by training, were convinced they had a unique

knowledge base and capability to add

mechanically realistic motion to that

otherwise static anatomy. Instead of

offering a virtual cadaver, they had

their sights on a "virtual human"

that could walk, breathe, grasp

objects, pump blood, sustain injury,

undergo surgery, and simulate

whatever else real people might do or

that might befall them. Medical

students, surgeons, ergonomic

engineers (who worry about the way

products and humans interact), as

well as advertisers and entertainment

professionals all looked like potential customers.

The problem was that the project was

just too ambitious, risky, and

expensive for the company to take on

by itself. It would require the

integration of massive amounts of anatomical, physiological, and

biomechanical data into a computer

visualization system that could

"We talked to

venture capitalists,

but the project

seemed too far out

for them."

manipulate and process those data at the enormous speeds required for producing computer images and

animations. The company already

had begun to make a name for itself among litigation lawyers, who were

using the company's simulation

products to make and break cases in which juries needed to visualize

clearly details of complex events like car crashes and spreading plumes of underground pollution. The virtual human, though, was a leap beyond

those simulations.

"We talked to venture capitalists, but

it seemed too far out for them,"

recalls EAI President and CEO

Matthew Rizai. As he put it to a Des Moines Register reporter in

April 1991, just a few anxious weeks

before the company heard the verdict on a proposal it had submitted to the Department of Commerce's Advanced

Technology Program (ATP), the goal was nothing less than "to represent every single millimeter of the body,

19
inside and out." More than that, it had to render all of those data into images in such a way that the simulated parts would realistically move and respond to each other and

to external forces.

In mid-April 1991, Rizai and his co-workers heard very good news from the managers of the ATP at the National Institute of Standards and

Technology, a cost-sharing program

designed especially to encourage

companies like EAI that wanted to pursue high-risk technologies with

high potential payoffs. More

specifically, the company leamed that over the next three years, it would

receive nearly $2 million in its quest

to develop the first tier of a virtual human, a high-fidelity

musculoskeletal system. If Rizai and

his colleagues could do that, they

knew they could later hang the rest of a simulated human anatomy onto

this framework, ultimately providing a tool by which users could peel back

anatomical layers like an onion, zoom in to the cellular level, observe

"We sincerely believe

that push for us

was the ATP award.

Today we are a

QrowlnQ company

adding hi^h paying,

highly skilled jobs."

how a disease like osteoporosis erodes

and weakens the labyrinthine mineral

basis of bone, and assist their imaginations in ways impossible with

books, cadavers, and even living

breathing humans. Like any tool, much of its ultimate value would

probably emerge unexpectedly from

the people tinkering with it.

Rizai unhesitatingly pegs the ATP

award as the turning point for EAI, which in its five years has grown from

hve employees sharing a revenue of $35,000 to a rapidly growing

company of 96 employees attracting

$5 million in revenue. For every young company that becomes

successful, Rizai surmises, "there is always something that pushes it, that launches it into a growth phase. We

sincerely believe that push for us was

the ATP award. Today we are a growing company adding high

paying, highly skilled jobs."

Although the infusion of cash for research and development was a major part of that push, the award

served up a less tangible and probably

longer lasting value to the company,

Rizai adds. "It built up our

confidence. The ATP award put us on

the map. We started getting noticed. People started calling us and it helped us network."

As for the project that won the company its ATP award, "we are right on time," Rizai says. "We are well

into developing the final stages of a musculoskeletal system as a

database" for visualization and

animation products and services, he

says. Moreover, with the alliances that the company has formed with

biomechanical engineers at Johns

Hopkins University and with

computer hardware engineers at

Silicon Graphics Inc., which

specializes in powerful platforms for computer simulation, ambitions like creating a virtual human do not seem

so far-fetched anymore.

20
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company.

Illinois Superconductor Corporation

Evanston, Illinois

3ue'meee:

Start-up company that focuses on

designing and building wireless communications components based on high-temperature superconductors

Number of Employees:

36

The National Institute of

Stan^larcls and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Connmerce'e Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with Industry to de^e\op and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

January 1995

Cellular phones have changed the way tens of millions of people stay in touch, but the wireless technology

underlying them metes out its share

of headaches. All too often, cellular phone users find themselves cut off

in mid-sentence, striving to listen through static, or diverted by

uninvited voices from other

conversations. Despite these problems,

and the profit-eating tendency of

users to "chum" between carriers

in search of better service, revenues

in the decade-old wireless communications industry have

grown rapidly to an estimated

$12 billion to $14 billion in 1994. With stakes like that, competition to provide better and more reliable

services at attractive prices has

become fierce.

That is what fuels the optimism of Ora Smith, president and CEO of

Illinois Superconductor Corp. (ISC)

in Evanston, III, and partly why his company was successful in its 1992

proposal for a three-year $3.5 million

cost-shared proposal to the Department of Commerce's Advanced

Technology Program. Smith, a lawyer

and mechanical engineer by training,

and his co-workers are betting that

the high-risk road their company is taking in a bid to become a player in

the ascent of wireless technology will pay off in a big way. The technical

task for which they sought assistance

has been to develop ways of preparing

and depositing films of the hightemperature superconducting

material—yttrium-barium-copper

oxide, known by the acronym

YBCO—onto metal and ceramic

backings of various shapes and sizes.

Getting this basic material processing

capability under control, Smith

expects, will lead to a variety of higher

performance products for wireless mobile communications systems,

including cellular phones and

personal communication systems.

The first products to approach the commercialization stage, however,

will be receiver filters that Smith

says can greatly reduce the radio

The technical task

for which they

sought assistance

has been to develop

ways of preparing

and depositing

films of the

high-temperature

superconducting

material.

interference that causes many of the warts on cellular communication

technology. He estimates that the

potential market for these will be

$750 million worldwide for

retrofitting existing base stations with new filters, and about another

$ 1 50 million per year for equipping new base stations. In the field, the

filters that ISC is developing would be

placed between the antennae and

receivers at the cellular base stations

that now punctuate the global

landscape by the thousands. Current

technology, such as "copper cavity

filters," has worked well enough so

far to facilitate the birth of cellular networks over a decade ago and the subsequent dramatic growth of the

wireless industry. What is good

21
enough now, however, will not be

good enough tomorrow, Smith notes.

That explains why ISC, a tiny

company with 36 employees, thinks it

is onto something big. The approach

is a risky one since it depends upon

high-temperature superconducting

materials such as YBCO that have yet

to prove their highly touted potential.

In experimental filters, the materials'

laboratoiy-proven property of being

able to grab onto a very narrow range

of frequencies amidst a noisy,

frequency-filled background,

however, means that whoever can

develop an economic means of preparing and manipulating the ceramic materials could open

themselves to some sizeable market

niches.

ISC's approach, developed both

in-house and through collaboration

with the University of Birmingham in England, has been to first prepare

slurries loaded with precursors of the

YBCO material and then to "paint"

the slurries onto ceramic or metal

substrates of shapes and sizes matched to the communications

frequencies the filters are supposed to

control. Then, a heating step as well

as exposure to oxygen converts the precursor coating into the superconducting material. The

most time-consuming development

challenge has been to find exact

processing conditions that give

reliable, repeatable results at acceptable costs.

"The ATP award

gave us a lot of

credibility," quickly

attracting more

venture capital.

The ATP has had multiple effects on

this effort. Smith says, adding that his company's first ATP proposal in 1991 was turned down. ISC was barely a

year old at the time, and it had not yet

devised a strong business plan. To

increase its chances with a second

proposal, ISC sought out contacts,

including one at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., who

they knew could add expertise in integrating the new superconducting

filters into real-world wireless communications systems while

simultaneously strengthening the

project's overall business focus. "The

ATP competition provided a focus that

attracted senior management at AT&T," Smith explains, which led to an agreement in which AT&T Bell Laboratories would work with ISC

under a subcontract agreement, with

ISC placing one of its engineers at AT&T.

ISC's second bid in 1992 for an ATP

award was successful. In addition to paying for subcontractors, ISC hired

four highly trained electrical engineers and materials scientists,

thereby greatly accelerating the rate

of progress, Smith says. "The ATP

award also gave us a lot of

credibility," quickly attracting more

venture capital. Moreover, Smith

adds, "because of the ATP, we were

able to become a public company."

During its initial stock offering in October 1993 on the NASDAQ stock

exchange, the company raised some

$15 million in capital.

This infusion of investor cash has

enabled ISC to take another pivotal

step in the perilous life of high-tech

startups. The company has leased

its first manufacturing facility,

according to Sharon Trafford, ISC's contracts manager. Most startups never make it to this do-or-die

transition from research to production. What's more, field tests of prototype YBCO-based filters begin

this year on ISC's home turf in Chicago, on the west coast, and in the

Pacific Rim. Although the ATP funds

are devoted to preproduction

research—and not to these more

downstream steps of ISC's company

development, "we attribute a major

portion of what we are doing to the ATP program," Trafford says.

Smith expects these technical steps to be followed with what must be the most important business milestones

for any new company. As he put it: "We hope we will get our first product revenue in 1995."

He believes in ISC's technology

enough that he thinks the company

would eventually have gotten to this point even without the ATP. But he

credits the program with accelerating

technical progress while helping to put their company on the radar

screens of others in the wireless industry and financial community.

22
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company:

National Center for Manufacturing

Sciences

AlliedSignal Inc. AT&T

International Business Machines

Corporation Texas Instruments Inc. United Technologies/

Hamilton Standard Corporation

Sandia National Laboratories,

U.S. Department of Energy

Business:

Suppliers, makers, and users of printed-wiring boards (PWBs)

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

Printed-wiring boards (PWBs) lack

the glamour and romance of advanced microprocessors, flat-panel

displays, or ultrahigh-density

memory systems, but that doesn't mean they're unimportant.

Perforated with tiny plated holes,

embroidered with a lacework of copper lines, these thin composite

boards form the backbone and

nervous system of virtually every

electronic product. In 1991, the world

market for PWBs was estimated at $19 billion.

It is a market that U.S. companies

have been losing. Ten years ago, the

U.S. share of the PWB market was

estimated at 42 percent. By 1991,

it had fallen to 27 percent. Many

relatively small firms are involved—of the estimated 725

independent PWB companies in the

United States (excluding captive

producers working for large

manufacturers), roughly 80 percent

have annual sales under $5 million.

To date, PWB technology has kept

pace with the increasing complexity

and speed of electronic devices, but it

is approaching fundamental limits in both materials and processes. Because

of the market size, relatively minor

improvements in materials or manufacturing processes can result

in sizable savings for the entire

industry. By solving technology

challenges, U.S. industry can rebuild

its position in the PWB market —indeed, capture the high end.

With these thoughts in mind, the National Center for Manufacturing

Sciences (NCMS) in Ann Arbor, Mich.,

assembled a team of member

companies in 1990 to attack a broad

array of fundamental technical issues

in PWB manufacture with support

from the NIST Advanced Technology

Program (ATP). Now, in the last half

of the 5-year project, member

companies that include AlliedSignal,

Inc.; AT&T; IBM; Texas Instruments; and United Technologies/Hamilton

Standard Corp. already are benefiting.

In the last half

of the 5-year

project, member

companies already

are benefiting.

The research plan presented to the ATP envisioned a $28 million effort, more than half of which is coming

from the private-sector partners. The

Energy Department's Sandia National

Laboratories later joined the venture,

contributing $5.2 million.

Working from an initial industry

study to detennine just what PWB

customers needed, the joint venture

tackled a variety of often subtle problems. Where insulation requires two or three sheets of glass epoxy to be

laminated together to get the desired

thickness, for example, a couple of

dollars could be saved on every sheet simply by using one thick sheet in place of two or three thin sheets. But can you do that and maintain the exacting tolerances required for the

best PC boards? Some data suggest

that drills tend to go askew when

boring through thicker sheets, and

the surface finish of thick materials

tends to be rougher, which might

interfere with the copper plating steps. For that matter, would thicker

23
materials have the necessary dimensional stability? An evaluated

database of numerous highperformance laminates and

mathematical models to predict key

technical issues—the dimensional

stability of various laminates and the

reliability of copper connections

plated through holes—are three early

achievements of the materials team.

But in addition to any benefits from

the research program, participants in

the NCMS/ATP project report that simple cooperation reaps substantial

rewards. A study conducted in 1993

found that after 2 years, the project

already had saved the participants

about $13.5 million simply by

avoiding redundant research and

sharing facilities and inforaiation.

Bob Holmes, a research manager for AT&T noted, "We were quite insular,

working in a large company, and

weren't really aware of what other

people in the industry were doing

about this. The NCMS/ATP project

opened a lot of windows and got us

talking to a lot of other people. We

saw that they had a lot of the same

problems and sometimes had new

insights on how to solve them."

Lee Parker, also with AT&T, worked on imidazole, an organic

"solderability" preservative (OSP), as an inexpensive way to protect bare

copper leads on a PWB from oxidizing

without the use of tin-lead solder, an

environmental hazard. He found that working with the NCMS/ATP project

benefited his work in two ways. "One,

After 2 years,

the project already

had saved the

participants about

$13.5 million.

they went a long way toward making

OSPs acceptable in the industry. Texas Instruments (TI), in particular,

would present results of solderability

studies using imidazole at conferences and impress people with

the product. Two, the other members

of the project helped us understand

technically what was going on with

the coating. As a result, imidazole is saving AT&T millions of dollars a

year, and we now are working with Lea Ronal, a chemical supplier for

the electronics industry, to market it intemationally. The NCMS/ATP effort was very important in getting this to market so quickly."

TI's Foster Gray has similar stories. Tools developed by the PWB

surface-finish team, he says, allowed

TI to halve the solder defect rate on

boards for the HARM missile. Materials researchers with the PWB

project also demonstrated that a

board's coefficient of thermal

expansion—a measure of dimensional stability—varied

depending on where the board was

cut from the original four-by-eight

sheet. "It's a result none of us

1 expected. Now that we know it's happening, we can control for it and

get better process control overall."

Another PWB team, says Gray, tumed

up a useful negative result. The PWB

industry was seriously considering an

in-process test for gauging the

solderability of boards, until the PWB

team demonstrated that the technique

had too much variation to be an

accurate predictor of solderability.

"That's difficult to quantify," observes

Gray. "But you know it saved the whole industry a great deal of time

and money that we would have spent

putting in this equipment and trying

to use it."

Participation in the PWB effort also gave TI access to a ?W) test pattem

developed by AT&T for monitoring

production lines, according to Gray. "In the days gone by, we'd have had

to develop that ourselves, instead we

could use the AT&T test. We saved a

cool million dollars right there."

In fact, says Tom Newton, manager of advanced programs for AlliedSignal

Laminate Systems, industrial cooperation may be one of the biggest

single advances to come out of the NCMS/ATP project. "The consortium

concept is not natural in our

industry," says Newton. "It takes a consortium-type effort of almost

constant contact, working on specific

problems, for people in our industry

to really start talking. To get in there,

do hands-on work together, that shows commitment. It was tough to do that, given our conceptions of how

the PWB industry did business. The

NCMS/ATP project created a stmcture

to make it happen."

Could it have happened without the impetus from the ATP? "Well, I don't

know," says TI's Gray. "But no one

ever worked it out until they came

along."

24
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company.

Nonvolatile Electronics Inc. Plymouth, iMinnesota

3ue\r\eee:

Designs and manufactures memory

and sensor devices using

proprietary' magnetic materials

Number of Employees:

23

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by wori<ing

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measunsments,

and standards.

August 1994

In 1989, after a quarter century of work in the secure setting of major

corporations, James Daughton took a

leap into the unknown. In March of

that year, his start-up company,

Nonvolatile Electronics Inc., became

a legal reality awaiting a human

contingent to give it life. Three

months later, Daughton left his post

as vice president of Honeywell's

Corporate Solid State Laboratory to lead NVE into the raging waters on

which new startups sink or swim.

For Daughton, the decision to create NVE was a culmination of decades of work on magnetic materials, which

he began as a graduate student in the

early 1960s, and that remained a prominent theme throughout his subsequent work in electronics and

sensor technology at IBM and then

Honeywell. While he was at Honeywell

he co-invented a computer memory

technology—called magnetoresistive

random access memory

(MRAM)—that became the seed of NVE, which now licenses MRAM

technology from Honeywell.

MRAM is a "nonvolatile" type of computer memory; it retains data even after a computer's power is tumed off. NVE has been developing a range of memory and sensor products

that marry MRAM components with more standard silicon-based circuitry.

The company relies on established

"chip foundries" to make the circuits; NVE engineers then pattem MRAM

components onto the chips out of magnetic, insulating, and conducting

materials.

Daughton is quick to admit that NVE

has had its ups and downs. Having

skirted ruin in its first 2 years, it has

only begun the process of establishing a track record. In 1994, NVE even began selling a few copies of its first commercial product—a magnetic

field sensor. Daughton hopes the sensor will infiltrate big markets,

including anti-lock brake systems,

pacemaker technology, and machine

tool controls.

With big-name companies courting

NVE and its technologies, and product

revenue beginning to trickle in.

"Our company would

not exist if it

hadn't been for

our ATP award"

Daughton sees reason for optimism.

He says so with a sense of relief. From

the get-go, the company has been

surviving on government contracts and grants, including a cost-matching award of more than

$1.7 million from the Advanced

Technology Program, which is managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

"Our company would not exist if it hadn't been for our ATP award,"

which expired in the spring of 1994,

Daughton says.

Besides helping the company expand

and maintain a staff of more than

20 skilled researchers, the ATP

award hastened several specific

technological developments,

Daughton says. "We came up with new architectures that enabled us to shrink the size [of MRAM chips]

by at least 50 percent ... and we

leamed all kinds of techniques to

25
overcome limitations in product

reproducibility."

Ironically, the first product to enter the marketplace, the so-called giant magnetoresistance (GMR)

bridge sensor, is an unexpected

spin-off of their MRAM development.

These magnetic field sensors are based on a new type of thin-film

material, first reported in 1988 by

French researchers, whose

sandwich-like structure comprises one or more altemating layers of magnetic and non-magnetic

materials. The collective resistance changes dramatically in the presence

of a magnetic field, which explains

why the property is called giant

magnetoresistance. NVE engineers

happened onto a method of making

their own GMR materials during

efforts to improve the ability of their MRAM material to retain data.

The ATP

award hastened

several specific

technological

developments.

In addition to the ATP award,

Daughton credits several NIST

researchers with providing pivotal

assistance ever since NVE was

incorporated. One of them, surface

scientist William Egelhoff, "has been

there for us from the beginning, and

still is," Daughton says. In August

1994, NVE researcher Eugene Chen

wrote a letter of gratitude to Egelhoff

for a recent technical tip to deposit a

thin layer of "transition" oxide

undemeath their GMR material

(a multilayer structure involving

nickel, iron, and cobalt), an exercise that resulted in record-level responses

of the GMR material to a magnetic

field. "John Unguris," another NIST

researcher, "helped us solve a yield

problem," Daughton adds. The key

here was data obtained using a

specialized microscope that revealed the materials' microscopic magnetic

structure responsible for its magnetic

behavior. Yet a third assist came from

John Moreland's group at NIST's Boulder facility. There, data from a magnetic-force microscope helped

map out the details of the GMR

materials' "magnetic microscopes."

"We now are healthy," Daughton says of his company. He is well aware that

significant revenue from products

remains a goal, for NVE, not yet a fact of business life. Meeting that goal, not govemment contracts, will soon become the basis of NVE's health.

26
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Companies:

SAGE Electrochromics Incorporated

Piscataway, NewJersey

3M

St. Paul, Minnesota

business:

Electrochromic devices for

tint-controllable windows intended

for architectural glazing

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology Is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measunsments,

and standards.

February 1995

Five years ago, chemical engineer

John Van Dine knew that he and

SAGE, his fledgling high-tech

company in Piscataway, N. J., had

plenty of challenges ahead in an ever more competitive intemational

environment. He knew there could be no guarantees of success.

Today he is more confident than ever. A good part of his optimism comes

from what started out as a disappointing failure in 1990. He

previously had leamed about the Department of Commerce's Advanced

Technology Program (ATP), a cost- shared research and development

initiative to help companies

undertake high-risk, high-technology

research harboring big commercial

possibilities. SAGE fit the ATP profile

exactly, Van Dine thought. The

company's goal, after all, was to develop transparent "electrochromic"

technology for manufacturing "smart windows"—panes of glass whose

transmission of light can be

electronically controlled in response

to the amount of sunlight present, the time of day, the season, or simply the personal preferences of occupants.

Though companies in Japan, France,

and elsewhere have been working on

the technology for years, none has yet

found a way to manufacture smart windows at a cost that would open up

the technology's biggest commercial

niche—architectural glazing, which

industry observers estimate at about

$1 billion annually in the United

States alone.

Basically, SAGE's electrochromic

technology consists of a stack of thin

and transparent layers of proprietary

materials—^which together are much

thinner than a sheet of paper—that

comprise an unusual courseway for electrons and ions. Two layers serve as

positive and negative electrodes,

enabling anyone with a power supply

and a switch to control the window's

tint. A small voltage (five volts, or so)

sets electrons and lithium ions from

other layers into motion. Some of the lithium ions end up traversing a

central ion-conducting layer into a

The company's goal

was to develop

transparent

"electrochromic"

technology for

manufacturing

"smart windows."

tungsten oxide layer. As a result, the

layer's optical properties change. In

this case, it blocks more sunlight than

before the lithium ions arrived. Upping the voltage sends in more

lithium, resulting in more blocked

light. Reversing the voltage draws the lithium ions back out of the tungsten

oxide layer, allowing more light

through.

The point of all of this, Van Dine says,

is twofold. Smart windows with

electrochromic tinting can reduce

glare, which is becoming more

problematic as more liquid crystal

displays and computer monitors

populate workplaces. Smart windows

also can help increase a building's

energy efficiency through the optimal

use and control of the sun's light and

heat content, thereby reducing the need for artificial light, heating, and

cooling.

27
Despite the technology's cleverness,

the company's first ATP proposal was

turned down. Van Dine attributes the disappointment partly to the company's youth at the time and

partly to the absence of a detailed business plan, which is a key criterion

in the ATP. With those issues in mind,

Van Dine realized his company

needed partners. Within about a year, he had found them at the nearby

Center for Ceramic Research of Rutgers University, and at 3M, a Fortune 500 company based in

St. Paul, Minn. 3M already had

experience in specialty window film

(called privacy film) that uses the same principles underlying liquid

crystal displays to toggle between

transparent and opaque conditions.

In the partnership, SAGE would

continue to provide the cutting-edge

work in electrochromic materials and

technology. The Rutgers connection

would provide the company with

access to additional materials experts

and top-notch research facilities. And

3M's experience in developing

commercially feasible manufacturing

processes, its marketing expertise, and

its own foray into switchable film

technology would increase the chances that the entire project

ultimately would move across the line

that separates good technology ideas

from products that sell.

"It enabled us to

accelerate and

expand our

technology

development and it

put our company

Into a better

internationally

competitive

position."

With renewed confidence, SAGE and

3M gave the ATP a second shot in

I 1992. This time the news was not

disappointing. The National Institute of Standards and Technology', which

administers the program, and the partnership would commit a total of

approximately $7.3 million over three years to preproduct research and

development. The goal. Van Dine

says, is to develop materials and

manufacturing methods suitable for

justifying the additional "tens of millions of dollars" that he estimates

would still be required for product

development and designing and

equipping large-scale manufacturing

facilities.

Van Dine says the ATP experience

clearly has put his company into a

better competitive position. For one

thing, he says, "it enabled us to

accelerate and expand our technology

development and it put our company

into a better intemationally

competitive position." SAGE added

four scientists and engineers to its previous staff of six. 3M's principal

scientist on the project, Jim

Billigmeier, says that his company's

portion of the ATP now supports six

full-time scientists on the project.

Ironically, Van Dine adds, the company's initial failure at winning an ATP award may have created one

of the most valuable returns of all: It served as the catalyst for linking SAGE

and 3M into a more powerful

partnership.

The marketplace—not research and

development—will administer the

critical commercial test of electrochromic windows. The initial

test may not be that far off. Van Dine

MPopular Science magazine

(Febmary 1995) that tint-control windows based on his electrochromic

technology could be available for sale

in about two years.

26
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company:

SDL Inc. San Jose, California

business:

Producer of iiigh-power

semiconductor lasers and

fiber optic components

Number of Employees:

180

Company:

Xerox Corporation

Palo Alto Research Center

Palo Alto, California

business:

Manufacuirer of document

processing technologies

Number of Employees:

300

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology Is an agency of the U.5. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

'February 1994

There are few substitutes for an

annual infusion of, say, $1,400,000

for 5 years to ratchet up the research and development throttle. That is what happened to SDL Inc. and the Xerox Corp. beginning in September

1992, when their joint proposal to the Advanced Technology Program (ATP)

for work on visible diode lasers and

optical fiber components met with

approval from a review panel at NIST,

which runs the program for the Department of Commerce.

In less than 2 years since the ATP

award, which is designed to support

development of high-risk

technologies that might enhance and

spawn many other technologies, SDL

has had three unexpectedly near-term

spin-offs—new semiconductor-based

laser products with wide-ranging

applications that are now on the market, says Donald R. Scifres, SDL's

president and CEO. The three products are laser diodes that emit red

light directly at various powers

without requiring a second laser for

excitation, which is usually needed

for high-power lasers. The company

also is pushing forward to develop

laser systems that can emit green and

blue light, a much tougher technical

challenge that is expected to open

many more technological doors.

In the nearer term, applications for

the red-laser products could range

from surgery and an emerging

light-based tumor treatment called photodynamic therapy to new

laser-based cutting tools for manufacturers to high-speed color

printing. It is that last possibility that

provided the original impetus for SDL

to join with Xerox Corp. and give the ATP a shot, and why green and blue

lasers remain at the top of the to-do

list. "We want to eventually use these

types of lasers in high-speed color printing operations," says Neville Connell, director of the electronic materials lab at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center.

The semiconductor laser market is as competitive as it gets. "If you don't

accelerate your development, you fall behind your competition," Scifres

says. The competition is getting stiffer now as high-technology firms around

the world race for some of the newest

trophies in the arena of optical

components—those green and blue

lasers. Together with the more mature

technology of red lasers, these open

up paths to higher capacity

communications systems, new color

In less than

2 years since the

ATP award,

6PL has had

three unexpectedly

near-term

spin-offs.

displays, medical tools, and many

other products.

The ATP awards are supposed to smooth the path from laboratory to marketplace and to post higher speed

limits along the way. The program is designed so companies can leverage

their own investment and

commitment to higher risk, higher

payoff technologies with partial

support from the govemment. In the

case of SDL and Xerox, the ATP ideal seems to be working. Says Connell:

29
"We now can get where we want to go

twice as quickly." Secondly, he adds, the ATP competition "provided

impetus to form an alHance with SDL

and Stanford University," which is

also contributing to the research

effort. Scifres also credits the ATP

award with strengthening his company's competitive position. "We

were in catch-up mode and I think we

have caught up and surpassed Europe

and Japan," he says.

Scifres admits that his company

probably would have developed one of the recently commercialized lasers without the ATP award.

As for the other

two products,

"they might never

have happened

without the

ATP award."

Progress, however, would likely have

been sluggish at best. As the funding

started coming through, SDL hired

four new people to their staff of 180,

and as orders for the spin-off products came in, they hired even more for

their production lines. As for the other two products, he says "they might

never have happened without the ATP

award."

Moreover, the three products are pure

bonus for SDL since high-power lasers

for printing are in the bull's-eye for the SDL/Xerox alliance. No

complaints on this score, especially

because the spin-offs keep spinning. In a letter last December to NIST

Director Arati Prabhakar, Scifres noted that another company was

considering one of these spin-off

lasers for its own products. No final word on that yet, but if an order is

placed, Scifres noted in the letter, "it would represent SDL's highest volume

order."

30
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company.

X-Ray Optical Systems Inc. Albany, New York

Business:

Start-up company specializing in

lenses that focus X-rays and neutrons

into beams for use in research,

medical imaging and treatment, and

manufacturing.

Number of Employees:

8

The National Institute of

Stanclards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

February 1994

If Lilliputians in the high-technology arena think big enough, they can get a shot at the big time. Just ask David

Gibson, president of X-Ray Optical

Systems Inc., and one of eight

employees at the 3-year-old start-up in Albany, N.Y. The company is not out 01 the woods yet, Gibson says, but

the path ahead looks downright

inviting, in large part because of new

t\^es of collaborations with the

federal research infrastmcture.

The prime movers of the company

are two physicists—David Gibson's

father, Walter Gibson of the State University of New York at Albany, and

Muradin Kumakhov of the I.V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy

in Moscow. They had known each

other for decades as professional peers and collaborators. Kumakhov and

colleagues in Russia had been finding

that arrays of tiny glass capillaries,

when carehilly bundled, seemed

capable of focusing X-rays and

neutrons.

Most scientists had long assumed

that the ability to focus these types of

radiation was a great idea that the Muse of Physics would make both

irresistible and unreachable. That

ability could mean even^hing from

uniquely fine probes into the

structure of matter to more powerful

medical treatments to the means

for making next-generation

microprocessors. But lens materials

mostly absorb, rather than transmit

these types of radiation, and can

hardly bend whatever radiation does

get through.

Kumakhov made an end run around

this seeming impasse. By making tiny

glass capillaries with smooth interiors

that bend gradually, X-rays and

neutrons entering them would

repeatedly graze off the walls like a

stone skipping on water. When

bundled, such tubes could take a diverging weakening beam of X-rays

or neutrons emanating from a

radiation source and redirect them

into parallel beams or onto small

intense spots.

Gibson senior and Kumakhov were

themselves convinced that the lenses had astounding scientific and

technological potential. Kumakhov

and Russian colleagues had done some experiments with prototype

lenses that supported the concept. To

go farther at more than a snail's pace, though, they had to convince other

scientists in the United States that

That ability could

mean anything and

everything from

unic;^uely fine

probes into the

structure of matter

to more powerful

medical treatments

to the means

for making

next-generation

microprocessors.

they were onto something, and they

had to find financial support for development.

To build an organization, they

recruited David Gibson, an MIT

educated mechanical engineer and

business manager. He knew that

31
nothing would happen unless

external backing could be gotten and

that the technology was too green to

attract venture capital. So in the summer of 1990 when X-Ray Optical

Systems (XOS) was being

incorporated, he came across an

article that mentioned the then

fledgling Advanced Technology

Program, administered by NIST. He

read carefully. "My gut told me that

this was a program designed for us," he recalls. "The Kumakhov lens was a

high-risk nascent technology whose

commercial payoff seemed very promising but that needed further development, just the kind of thing

the ATP was created to support."

In 1991, they received word that their subsequent application for an ATP

award had failed. Gibson surmises

that the verdict followed naturally

since the company did not yet have an infrastmcture and its business

strategy was incomplete. But the ATP

experience had primed him to other

possibilities in the govemment. The same year, XOS applied for and won

two of the Department of Energy's

Small Business Innovative Research

grants. The momentum has only

been building since.

A crucial part of that motion began

also in early 1991 when the three-man company went on a

15-stop, cross-country dog-and-pony

show to govemment labs equipped

with accelerators, industrial users of

X-rays, and academicians. Though

they fielded some flak for their marketing bravado, they also tumed

some heads, including ones at NIST.

The series of

government grants

and collaborations

have provided X06

with access to

ec^uipment and

experts tailor made

to assess, develop,

and validate the new

technology.

One payoff came through in December 1991, when XOS signed a Cooperative Research and

Development Agreement (CRADA)

with NIST. The goal of the CRADA is

[ to develop neutron lenses that could

help NIST in its mission of providing

ever more accurate measurement

capabilities for industry while helping

XOS in its commercialization

mission. A few months later, the company learned that its second try

for an ATP had met with success and

would receive $1,900,000 from the

govemment in its part of a

cost-sharing R&D agreement, in which XOS would have to come up

with $350,000 for indirect costs. In June, just as the ATP money started coming in, the company began

working with NIST researchers on

another project to develop lenses that could form parallel beams of X-rays.

In September of 1993, XOS began

work on another collaboration with

NIST in which it would provide lenses

to NIST researchers for real world

microanalysis of samples. In

exchange, XOS would leam about

what was necessary for the optics to be

successful in that use.

In December 1993, as a result of progress made during the CRADA,

XOS shipped its flrst commercial lens

to a very familiar customer, scientists

at NIST's research reactor. It has

exceeded expectations in preliminary

tests, notes NIST research chemist

Gregory Downing, who expects the

lens to dramatically enhance NIST's

analysis abilities and services as well

as its collaborative efforts with other

U.S. companies including Intel, CIDTEC, Westinghouse, Texas

Instruments, and a consortium of companies developing synthetic

diamond products.

The series of govemment grants and

collaborations have provided XOS

with access to equipment and experts

tailor made to assess, develop, and

validate the new technology, David

Gibson says. "It has allowed us to develop applications that we would

otherwise not have addressed," he

adds. The ATP award and NIST

technical capabilities also enabled

XOS to act like a bigger company with more resources and personnel without

actually having to invest in these

before the technical risks were

overcome. That hurdle trips up many

start ups. The ATP award had an

important spinoff too. When news got out that XOS had been a winner in

their second ATP competition, the company was finally able to convince

private investors that the risk was

reasonable. The foundations for

success seem to be in place, Gibson

says. XOS may not be in Lilliput for

long.

32
Manufacturing

Extension

Partnership

Impacts

33

NIST

Iiidu6trial

Impact

Company:

clipper Diamond Tool Co. Inc. Long Island City, Mew York

Buelnese:

Manufacturer of precision

superabrasive and diamond cutting

tools and grinding wheels

Number of Employees:

38

The National Institute of

Standards and lechno\oq^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerces Techno\oq^

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic grovvth by working

with industry to develop and apply

tecy\no\o<^, measurements,

and standards.

June 1994

Like the gem used in its product, the

future once again looks bright and

shiny for the Clipper Diamond Tool

Co. Inc. This was not the case 3 years ago when company founder and

president Joseph Klipper realized

drastic moves were needed or the

50-year-old company would have to

close its doors.

But after hooking up with the NIST

New York Manufacturing Extension

Partnership (MEP), the company has

made a dramatic tumaround,

improving productivity and morale

and regaining customers.

When Klipper came to the United

States from Belgium in 1940, he

planned to set up a small

manufacturing operation to provide

gems for the jewelry industry.

However, with America's growing

involvement in World War II, he

realized that both he and his newly

adopted country could benefit if the company manufactured something more utiHtarian than ornamental.

He tumed his expertise to developing

tools using industrial-grade

diamonds to shape, size, and grind

metal parts used for precision

machining. During the war and for

the next 40 years or so, business was

good for the company. Sales were

brisk, and the company counted

among its customers numerous

manufacturers such as Pratt &

Whitney, Ford, and Chrysler.

But, during the 1980s things took a downturn. Rent for the Manhattan-based company was

skyrocketing, and customers were tuming to competitors in Japan and

Germany.

"It's a story we hear quite a lot," says

Phil Massaro, a field engineer with

the New York MEP Industrial Technology Assistance Corp. (ITAC). "Mr. Klipper and others in the company recognized they were behind the times, that the company

had stagnated, but they were not quite sure what steps to take to modemize."

After hooking up

with the NIST

New York

Manufacturing

Extension

Partnership, the

company has made

a dramatic

turnaround,

improving

productivity and

morale and regaining

customers.

Massaro worked with Klipper,

company vice-president Steve Grossman, and others to find a wide

range of city and state grant programs

to help the company upgrade and

modemize its operations. Most of the

grants were matched with company

funds, says Massaro.

For example, he says, "We worked

with them to access a program offered by New York City that will help offset

costs of moving if a company

relocates within the city." Moving to a new facility in Queens not only

reduced rent costs but set the stage for

the next step, a total reorganization.

35
With the expert advice of Les James, an engineering consultant hired with

New York MEP's assistance, a new modem layout was designed and the company began to automate both its manufacturing and office operations. "For example, we installed computer-aided design and

manufacturing equipment and an automated accounting and inventory

control system. Clipper employees now can electronically transfer drawings directly to customers, and

soon, customers will have direct

access to other data, such as information concerning purchase

orders and invoices," says James.

Also, with New York state grants

facilitated by ITAC, James set up

employee training programs in

subjects such as statistical process

control, quality management, and

English-As-a-Second-Language.

"Our company has

been revitalized"

says Klipper. "We are

once a^ain able to

compete both here

in the United

States and around

the world."

The changes have resulted in marked

improvements. For example, just

6 months after implementing a

quality improvement program,

Clipper eamed Ford Motor Co.'s Q-101 rating—its highest quality

ranking for vendors.

Statistics down the line look good: For 1992 and 1993, productivity was

up 3 to 4 percent. Ninety-eight

percent of all orders are sent out

within 2 weeks, up from 90 percent.

Cycle time for some products has been

shortened to 7 days. Prior to the

improvements, the shortest cycle time was 28 days. In addition, the number

of orders leaving the factory on time

has improved by 20 percent. The

company currently exports 15 to 20 percent of its products to Europe,

South America, Israel, and Mexico

and hopes to increase that number as

well. "The task before us now is to capture the opportunity for growth

that the renewed market interest has

offered," says Grossman.

"Our company has been revitalized,"

says Klipper. "We are once again able

to compete both here in the United

States and around the world. If it had

not been for this help, Clipper

Diamond Tool would not be around

today," he says.

36
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company:

Dee Inc. Crookston, Minnesota

Bue'meee

Aluminum foundrv' and machining

company

Number of Employees:

185

The National Institute of

Standards and TechnoloQ;^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

A^lministration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to deveiop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

As an aluminum foundry and

machining company, Dee Inc. makes

parts for snowmobiles, personal

watercraft, oil and air filtration equipment, and other products. The

company employs 185 and has

annual sales of more than $8 million.

Even though Dee Inc. increased sales between 1991 and 1992, the company

wasn't seeing a corresponding

relationship in profitability,

according to company President Jim

Ellinger. At the same time, Dee

recognized the need to emphasize

process controls beyond meeting its shipping goals.

Dee manufactures aluminum-alloy,

sand- and permanent-mold castings.

In addition, Dee offers machining

and engineering services, which

account for almost one-third of sales. Some of Dee's products ultimately are used by John Deere, Caterpillar and

Ford—companies that, as part of

their quality improvement processes, have set stringent standards for their

suppliers to meet.

"That got us to look at what being a

qualified supplier really means,"

Ellinger says. Dee decided it needed more control over its processes and

requested a needs analysis by the NIST Upper Midwest Manufacturing

Technology Center (UMMTC),

managed by Minnesota Technology.

The review provided an operational

"snapshot" of Dee and pointed to some steps the company might take to improve things.

As a result, UMMTC assisted Dee in choosing and buying manufacturing

software and management

information system (MIS) software and hardware, in establishing a

cost-based pricing system, and in securing the services of a metallurgist

to help the company refine its foundry

processes.

The most important step Dee took,

Ellinger says, was to initiate a "Total

Quality" philosophy stressing

employee empowerment. Dee had

discovered that its decision making

was top-down. "That's not the

future," Ellinger says. "So we

embarked on a path to see that trend

reversed."

Pee decided it

needed more

control over its

processes and

rec^uested a needs

analysis by tlie

NIST Upper Midwest

Manufacturing

Technology Center

(UMMTC).

Through the UMMTC, Dee found a

facilitator to conduct on-site employee training to open up lines of communication. As a result, "we saw

the evolution of the team approach,"

Ellinger says. It's an approach that Dee successfully tested when it implemented a management

information system.

"If our people are going to be

empowered to set goals and standards,

they're definitely going to need

information," Ellinger says. So Dee

bought bar-coding hardware and

software that provides "real-time"

information on what's happening in

37
the plant. More importantly, Ellinger

says, "the people that selected the new

(system) are the people using it."

As a result of employee involvement,

"worker frustration has notably

diminished," Ellinger says. "We're

also seeing increased efficiency and

reduced scrap."

Of the NIST center's role, Ellinger

says, "They bolstered the knowledge we already had. They also helped us

in terms of technical expertise, in finding a facilitator, and in finding a

metallurgical engineer. They

"... The NIST center

provided an

outside opinion as

to our weaknesses

and strengths...

provided an outside opinion as to our

weaknesses and strengths, which

offered a reinforcement for directions we were interested in taking."

As a result of its improvements, Dee's

sales have increased and the company

is developing new markets. In

addition, the company has reduced

both foundry and machining set-up

times. Ellinger says the company is now achieving the type of profitability

it needs to stay competitive for the

future. Subsequently, employment

has increased from an average of 103

in 1991, to 169 in 1992. Most

importantly, Ellinger says, Dee is more competitive. "If you're more

efficient and make a more

value-added product, your potential

for gaining more market share

increases."

36
NIST

Induetrial

Impact

Company:

dym Mow, Inc. Gushing, Oklahoma

3uemeee:

Manufacturer of commercial lawn mowers Number of Employees:

16

The National Institute of

Stanclards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commense's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standardis.

March 1995

When Ronald and Jean Good

purchased T&M Technologies in

1993, they took a risky move from

being oil-field service entrepreneurs

to manufacturers of a commercial

lawn mower used in the landscaping

industry. The company, since

renamed Dyna Mow, Inc., had a winning product—but was in organizational chaos.

After tapping into the resources of the NIST Oklahoma Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence, Inc., the Goods were able to turn the company

into a rapidly growing business that is making a name for itself worldwide

and is spinning off other businesses to support it.

Before buying Dyna Mow, located in Gushing—halfway between Tulsa

and Oklahoma City, the Goods had

owned a number of other businesses,

mainly in the oil-field service

industry. Dyna Mow, however, is

their first experience running a manufacturing company.

Ronald Good knew the inventor of the mower, a low-maintenance,

all-hydraulic riding mower model

controlled by a single joystick. After a three-hour test. Good was convinced

that the hard-working device had

market potential, and over time

decided to purchase the company.

"When we took over, the intemal

paperwork was a shambles—they

didn't really know how much it cost

to manufacture each mower," Good

says.

Knowing they needed help, the Goods

contacted the Oklahoma Department

of Commerce and the Oklahoma

Department of Vo-tech. A meeting was

arranged that included Sandy

Conner, broker/agent for the Oklahoma Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence.

Unlike many of the centers affiliated with the NIST Manufacturing

Extension Partnership, the Alliance is independent of the state's higher

education system and other state

agencies, says Edmund Farrell, the organization's executive director.

After tapping into

the resources of the

N16T Oklahoma

Alliance for

Manufacturing

Excellence, Inc., the

Goods were able to

turn the company

Into a rapidly

growing business.,. .

The Alliance's network of broker/agents work directly with

companies to help them identify

consultants and other resources in both the public and private sectors to

solve their problems. The

manufacturers pay the Alliance no fee

for its services but have to pay the

private consultants for theirs.

"The help I provided the Goods was

multidimensional," says Conner. The new owners requested marketing

assistance, help with plant layout and

process design, help in locating a

larger building, help in finding new

technologies to use in their mowers, and even help in modernizing the

firm's computer system. In all cases, the Goods were put in touch with

consultants—such as industrial

39
engineers and marketing and finance

experts—who were able to help in

specific areas.

One result of this help is that the city

of Gushing is in the process of

constructing a 2,789 square-meter

(30,000-square-foot) building that Dyna Mow will lease-to-buy as a replacement for its existing 1,486

square-meter (l6,000-square-foot)

plant. That plant, a former truck line

service building, has become

increasingly cramped as production

of mowers grew from about 20 a year

in 1993 to 120 a year by the end of

1994. Last November the company

celebrated the shipping of its 100th

machine in 1994.

The Alliance continues to help Dyna

Mow, Conner says. Most recently, the

Alliance assisted them in getting a

U.S. General Services Administration

listing as an approved supplier.

Without the help

provided by the

Alliance, the

eucceee of

Pyna Mow would not

have been possible.

Good is proud that since he took over

the company, it has launched a

second mower line and is about to begin producing a third, smaller line.

Sales are booming, and employment

has gone from six to I6—and is expected to double again as orders

continue to increase.

"We have dealers talking to us about

ordering 100 at a time," says Good.

"And three major mower

manufacturers have approached us to do private label manufacturing for them." In addition, Dyna Mow has

been able to break into the European

market and recently shipped several mowers to customers in Israel.

The success of Dyna Mow is breeding

success for other small firnis in Oklahoma. Two of the company's

original employees left, with Good's

help, to start up shops to build the metal frames and fiberglass bodies for Dym Mow products. Other parts

manufacture has been farmed out to small manufacturers and job shops in

the region, he says.

"It's been tough, but it's tuming

around," says Good. Without the help

provided by the Alliance, the success

of Dyna Mow would not have been

possible, he says.

40
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company.

HJE Co. Inc.

Watervliet, New York

business:

Manufacturer of gas atomization

systems and metal powders

Number of Employees:

4

The National Institute of

Standards and Technolo^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

A<dministration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

June 1994

As one of only four companies of its kind in the world, and the only one in

the United States, HJE Co. Inc. is a big

fish in a very, very small pond. And

company president Joe Strauss likes it

that way.

Strauss's company manufactures gas atomization systems specially

designed to produce ultrafine metal

powders from molten metal. These

powders are used, for example, in

solder and braze pastes and dental

alloys. The particles also are used to coat base metal such as jet turbine

blades. HJE also produces and sells the metal powders.

HJE is now a thriving business with

sales in the United States, Europe,

Asia, and the Middle East. But it

started almost as a hobby, says

Strauss, and may not have developed

at all without some assistance from

the NIST New York Manufacturing

Extension Partnership (MEP).

A materials engineer with a Ph.D.

from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,

Strauss first seriously considered the

gas atomization technology as a money-making venture after attending a seminar in 1987

and realizing that no one was

commercializing it. "Many people,

including myself, were interested in

the 'gee whiz' aspect of turning liquid

metal into a powder as fine as talcum

powder. But very few people were manufacturing equipment that could

do this or exploring ways to use the

powder," says Strauss.

Although still a student at the time,

the idea stuck and eventually Strauss

started designing equipment to produce very fine powder. In

particular, he had an idea for a

special nozzle design that can handle

high temperatures and a very reliable

control system.

But he was having difficulty

translating what was in his head to mechanical drawings that could be

understood by a parts manufacturer.

"I was spending lots of time, money,

and energy and still not getting it

quite right," he says.

What he found was

a gold mine of

manufacturing

ec^uipment, ideas,

and expertise.

After struggling for several months,

he eventually heard about the NIST

New York MEP. "I wasn't quite sure what they had to offer and, to be

honest, if I had found a good drafting

shop along the way I probably never would have made it to their door,"

says Strauss.

But he did, and what he found was

a gold mine of manufacturing

equipment, ideas, and expertise.

"I was like a kid in a candy store,"

says Strauss.

The NIST New York MEP and its Manufacturing Technology Resource

Facility (MTRF) provided Strauss the opportunity to learn about modem

manufacturing technology,

explore "hands-on" a variety of computer-aided design and

manufacturing equipment and

software, and get tips from experts.

"When Joe first came to us he had lots

of good ideas and some sketches and

rough drawings," says Sam

41
Chiappone, manager of the MTRF.

"But he did not have the basic set of blueprints that he needed to get parts

machined," he says.

Chiappone and others at the MTRF

did more than help Strauss figure out how to design the equipment he

needed. "They also made sure that what I was designing was practical to manufacture and helped me find

machine shops to make the parts,"

says Strauss.

Strauss spent about 6 months at the

MTRF and eventually purchased his own computer-aided design and

manufacturing equipment and

software. "The people at the MTRF

were extremely helpful and patient,"

he says. "With the information I gained I was able to dramatically

"The people at

the MTRF were

extremely helpful

and patient," he

says. "With the

information I gained

I was able to

dramatically

streamline my

operations and

improve the equality

of my product

as well."

streamline my operations and

improve the quality of my product

as well."

Strauss still occasionally seeks some

guidance and vice versa. "They often

call on me when they need a

materials expert," says Strauss.

Today, Strauss is looking for a larger

facility and is trying to market his gas atomization technique to a new

industry—jewelry manufacturing.

"They are not comfortable, yet, using

a powder to make jewelry, but I'm

working on it," says Strauss. And, if he does decide to jump into a larger

pond and needs some assistance, he

knows he can turn to the NIST New

York Manufacturing Extension

Partnership.

42
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company:

Spartanburg Steel Products Inc. Spartanburg, South Carolina

Buelneee:

Manufacturer of stamped metal parts

Number of Employees:

600

Company:

Coastal Technologies Inc. Vam\1Ile, South Carolina

business:

Manufacturer of mist ehminators

Number of Employees:

15

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's 'Xecy\no\o^

Administration. N15T promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technologic, measurements,

and standards.

March 1994

Through the NIST Southeast

Manufacturing Technology Center (MTC), manufacturers of products

ranging from fishing rods and

baseboard heaters to parts for cars and pressure vessels for geothermal

power plants are taking advantage of computer-aided techniques that can

speed product design and

development.

One satisfied customer is the engineering department at Spartanburg Steel Products Inc., a South Carolina supplier of stamped

automobile parts that employs about

600 people. With a technical assist from the Southeast MTC's

Computer-Aided Design Laboratory,

Spartanburg Steel successfully

responded to a challenge by one of its major customers and thereby

strengthened their relationship.

Specifically, Spartanburg Steel faced the task of developing a lighter,

lower-cost alternative to the metal

brace used to secure the dashboard

to the frame of an automobile made

by the customer. The company

developed a new design, but, then,

its engineers hit a snag: Because of

the part's complex geometry,

conventional, manual methods of

stress analysis were not a practical,

cost-effective option for determining

whether the design would satisfy

the load conditions and other

stmctural-integrity requirements

specified by the customer.

A possible solution emerged when

Spartanburg Steel engineers attended

a "CEO breakfast" on predictive

engineering technology, which was

arranged by the Greenville Technical

College, an affiliate of the

Columbia-based Southeast MTC.

Recognizing that the technolog}'

might serve its needs, the company

requested an in-depth seminar on a

particular technique, known as finite- element analysis.

Presented with the challenge facing

the company's engineers, senior

specialists from the Southeast

MTC proposed a computer-based

approach that could be used to conduct the essential stress and

weight analyses. Using the center's coordinate measuring machine, the

specialists measured 10,000 different points on the surface of the part

supplied by Spartanburg Steel. The

digital data were used to create a graphic model, permitting reliable simulations of stress tests with the

With a technical

assist from the

Southeast MTC's

Computer-Aided

Design Laboratory,

the company

successfully

responded to a

challenge by one of

its major customers.

finite-element-analysis technique.

The analysis of the new design

revealed the distribution of stresses over the surface of the part.

The findings confirmed that a part

based on the new design, which

would reduce the weight of the brace

by nearly a pound, would satisfv' the customer's structural requirements.

43
Now in full production, the part is being used daily in a popular,

high-volume vehicle.

Curtis Rhodes, one of the Southeast

MTC specialists who worked with

Spartanburg Steel, says that

finite-element analysis is a valuable

tool for evaluating designs. But, he

adds, most small and medium-sized

companies cannot justify investing in

the technology and in training a staff member to apply it.

"Companies will have only an

occasional need for finite-element

analysis," Rhodes explains. "When

you need the technology, it's more

efficient to go outside the company

and acquire this capability as a

service."

Most small and

medium-sized

companies cannot

justify investing

in the technology

and in training

a staff member

to apply it.

Rhodes and his colleagues have a

steady stream of customers who are doing just that. For example, Coastal

Technologies, of Vamville, S.C.,

recently used the Southeast MTC's

service during the design phase of an ongoing project to build a 40-foot-tall

pressure vessel, or cyclone separator,

that will be packaged with one of

Coastal's mist eliminators, the company's main product. When

completed, the equipment will be

supplied to a Japanese construction

company building a geothermal

power plant in Asia. It will be used to remove potentially destructive

particles from underground steam

that will drive the plant's turbines.

Harry Wechsler, president of the 15-employee firm, explains that, because of an unusual feature

specified by the customer and

unaddressed by engineering codes. Coastal was required to do a thorough mechanical analysis of

the design. "We didn't have the

resources—hardware, software, or

expertise—but we knew the MTC

did," he says, noting that Coastal has

used the center's services on several

occasions. "Our relationship with the MTC has been very beneficial. We

make use of them whenever we think

they can help us."

44
NIST

Induetrial

Impact

Company.

Thomson Bern' Farms

Duluth, Minnesota

Business:

Manufacturer of jams, syrups,

dressings, and \inegars

Number of Employees:

20

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Tec\r\r\o\o^

Administration. NiST promotes

U.S. economic growth l7y working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

February 1994

In less than 2 years, the business

outlook for Thomson Berry Farms, a

Duluth, Minn., manufacturer of jams,

syrups, dressings, and vinegars, has

changed from glum to glowing. A

50-percent increase in productivity

and an anticipated 100-percent

increase in sales can lead to that kind

of transformation.

And, in turn, a boom in business can

save jobs. To keep up vv'ith increasing

demand, Thomson's management

has retained all 20 positions in the company.

Some of the credit for the change in fortune goes to the NIST Upper

Midwest Manufacturing Technology

Center (MTC), which linked

Thomson Berry Farms with the manufacturing expertise it needed

and then served as technical adviser

as the company revamped its processing operations.

Thomson's new management, which

took over the company in 1992,

recognized market opportunities for

the company's specialty products, but

it lacked experience in automated

manufacturing. "My background

is wholesale and retail food

distribution," explains Paul Leonidas,

Thomson's chairman and chief

executive officer. "The only thing I knew about jam was that you put it on your toast in the moming."

By hooking up with a regional

office of the Upper Midwest MTC,

Thomson's management remedied

this shortcoming. Using the services

of an engineering consultant secured

with the assistance of the MTC, the

small company began to automate

manual processes that drove up

production costs and, in effect, were

forcing Thomson to price its products out of the market. The engineering

consultant designed a new plant

layout, helped the company draft equipment specifications, and then

located sources of that equipment.

"Our changes

allowed us to

cut our labor

costs in half,"

without eliminating

any jobs,

explains Leonidas.

The answers to Thomson's

manufacturing needs already

existed—in the form of used

equipment. For an investment of

$32,000, the company secured

jar-cooling equipment, conveyers, and a filling machine, all of which

were incorporated into the new plant

layout. The company estimates that, within a year, waste reduction and

other cost savings will pay for the

entire investment.

"Our changes allowed us to cut our labor costs in half," without

eliminating any jobs, explains

Leonidas. "They also helped us go out and seek more business. We have

almost quadrupled the production

capabilities of the plant"—to more

than 3-5 million units a year.

"Plant improvements, together with

tighter controls, have tumed our company—in 1 year—into a

profitable enterprise," he says.

45
In the year since it was established

in August 1992, the Upper

Midwest MTC, which is based in Minneapolis, provided services to nearly 1,100 small and medium-sized

manufacturers. Though the center's

principal customers are firms in the

computer, machinery, metal

fabrication, and plastics and

composites industries, the MTC serves a diverse clientele as the interaction

with Thomson Berry Farms attests. And like Thomson, the vast majority

(more than 80 percent) of Minnesota's 8,700 manufacturers

employ fewer than 50 people.

"Small businesses like ours need the kind of help you [MTCs] provide,"

says Leonidas, "because we don't

have the resources of the larger

companies."

"Small businesses

like ours need

the kind of help

you [MTCs] provide!

says Leonidas,

"because we

don't have the

resources of the

larger companies."

46
Laboratory

Impacts

47
\
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Industry:

Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration

Institute Arlington, Virginia

due'meee:

Designing, manufacturing, installing,

and maintaining residential and

industrial cooling and refrigeration

equipment

Size:

S20 billion in shipments

The National Institute of

Stan^iards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

A^i^lministnation. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

July 1994

In 1937, before a rapt crowd at a meeting of the American Chemical

Society, Thomas Midgely, Jr., filled

his lungs with vapors of dichlorofluoromethane, the world's

first chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) -based

refrigerant, and then extinguished a

candle as he exhaled. He convinced

the audience that this chemical,

which he had come up with 7 years

earlier at the Dayton Engineering

Laboratories Co. (Delco), was neither

flammable nor toxic. Had he tried the

stunt with the standard refrigerants of

the day—ammonia, methyl chloride,

and sulfur dioxide—the outcome

ultimately would have included some mix of choking, fire, bums, cancer, and death.

CFCs, which became well known

under the DuPont trade name Freon,

quickly grew into a massive

commodity chemical used not only

for refrigeration but also for

industrial solvents and foaming

agents for insulation, cushions, and

packing material. When he died in

1944, Midgely had no idea that CFCs

already had begun wending their way

into the upper atmosphere where they were initiating the destmction of

stratospheric ozone molecules, which

shield life from dangerous ultraviolet

portions of solar radiation. Nor did he

know that four decades later the

industrial world would agree to cease producing CFCs altogether by 1996 in an effort to stave off the ozone kill.

That dramatic multinational

agreement has forced a number of CFC-dependent industries to enter an

innovate-for-your-life phase in which

they need to come up with CFC

substitutes if they expect to remain in

business in the next millennium. One

of those industries is represented by

the Air-Conditioning and

Refrigeration Institute (ARI). "We

had been using CFCs forever, and now

we have to get rid of them on short

order," says Mark Menzer, vice president of research and technology

for ARI, noting that researchers at the National Institute of Standards and

Technology (NIST) are playing a

critical supportive role in this

transition.

Researchers at

NIST are playing

a critical

supportive role

in this transition.

The challenge resides in the chemical

virtuosity of CFCs, save for that fatal flaw of destroying stratospheric ozone

molecules. Before that revelation,

CFCs were wonder chemicals—safe, non-toxic, stable, easy to handle,

inexpensive, and useful in many

ways, including refrigeration. The

refrigeration value resides in their

ability to undergo countless cycles of volumetric expansion into a gaseous

state—during which the CFC gas draws heat from its surroundings

such as a refrigerator's interior—and

condensation, during which a compressor forces the refrigerant back

into the liquid state ready for the next

cycle.

Any CFC replacement must come

close to matching CFCs virtues while

lacking its vices. "We have not found

any drop-in replacements" that can

simply take the place of CFCs like one

cola for another, Menzer says. HCFCs,

49
in which hydrogen atoms replace one

or more of the chlorine atoms in CFCs, are excellent refrigerants but

are not a long-term solution since

they too can destroy ozone molecules;

by 2010 at the latest, HCFCs also will be off limits in new equipment.

That has pushed air conditioning and

refrigeration companies to look

toward more complicated refrigerants,

including blends of two or more

components, an exercise that entails redesigning new cooling and

refrigeration systems and testing

blends for a long list of physical

properties. "We knew we would need

data, high-quality data, since small

design errors based on the data can

lead to big miscalculations" about a cooling unit's efficiency and cost, Menzer explains. Multiply each

cooling unit by the many thousands

that would be sold and the importance of good engineering data

magnifies. That is where data

generated and compiled by NIST

researchers into a user-friendly

personal computer program, called REFPROP, have been coming into the

picture of ARI's members. "We have

used NIST data and the REFPROP

program as the standard," Menzer

says.

"Without NIST,

we would have

gotten \eee detailed

data, which would

have meant a lot

more expensive,

time-consuming

engineering work to

produce hardware. It

would have cost us

millions more."

Soon after the 1987 signing of the Montreal Protocol, which provides for the phaseout of CFCs by 1996,

researchers at NIST began a major

effort to measure thermophysical

properties of individual

environmentally acceptable

refrigerants and mixtures involving

up to five components. Accurate information about these properties is

critical for engineers who aim to design the most energy-efficient air conditioning and refrigeration

systems.

"We have used this information for making important decisions," Menzer

says. It has helped companies quickly zero in on blends worth testing in

their engineering labs. "Without

NIST, we would have gotten less detailed data, which would have

meant a lot more expensive,

time-consuming engineering work to produce hardware. It would have cost us millions more." Moreover, he adds,

without NIST and REFPROP serving

as a common source of data for the

industry, each company probably

would eventually make different choices about refrigerants, a scenario

that would lead to a technical Tower

of Babel for the maintenance and

repair community. NIST has sold over 500 copies of REFPROP, whose latest version includes data for 38

refrigerants and many of their mixtures.

In a letter to R.F. Kayser, chief of the NIST Thenmophysics Division,

Donald Bivens, an engineering

fellow in DuPont's Fluorochemicals

Laboratory, echoed Menzer'

assessment of NIST's contribution.

"All of this work by NIST has

permitted the U.S. refrigeration and

air conditioning industry to accurately design equipment for the

alternative fluorocarbons, resulting in

efficient operations."

50
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Companies:

Amersham/MediPhysics, Illinois

Bristol-Myers Squibb, NewJersey

Du Pont Merck Pharmaceutical,

Massachusetts

Mallinckrodt Medical, Missouri

Nordion International,

Ontario. Canada

Packard Instruments, Illinois Syncor Intemational, California

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commence's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measunsments,

and standards.

April 1994

Inventing ways to see inside bodies

without cutting into them is one of the medical community's shining

successes. Radioactive isotopes that can be injected safely into patients'

bloodstreams and tissues get a lot of

credit for that success. These so-called radiopharmaceuticals work like transient spies sending diagnostic

signals from inside the body to extemal detectors and computers,

which construct images of intemal

body structures from those signals.

Like good spies too, the isotopes

quickly disappear once their job is done, either by transforming into non-radioactive products or by

passing out of the body.

If they know precisely how much

radioactivity each dose harbors,

doctors can confidently inject patients

with radioactive drugs such as thallium-201 for heart scans. Determining the exact amount of

radioactivity is an especially

demanding measurement task,

however, since radioactive isotopes

are produced at private or govemment facilities, made into radiopharmaceutical preparations by

a number of different companies, and

then put to diagnostic use at thousands of hospitals. All the while,

the radioactivity contents to be

measured are changing. Unlike the weight of a pill, which remains

constant from maker to patient, the

activity of radiopharmaceuticals

continually decreases over time.

Regardless of the challenges, each

radiophannaceutical handler must

have a way of assuring that their own

radioactivity measurements are

accurate. Nuclear Regulatory

Commission rules, for one, require

such measurements. Good business

and good medicine also critically

depend on the quality of these measurements.

Assurance of that quality stems from

the National Institute of Standards

and Technology', remarks

Tibor Schubert, manager of radiodiagnostics at Bristol-Myers

Squibb. For the past 20 years, NIST

and the Nuclear Energy Institute (formerly the United States Council

for Energy Awareness), which

represents the nuclear power and

nuclear medicine industries, have

collaborated to provide the industry

with standards that everyone can use

as benchmarks. "It helps make sure

that everyone is on the same

wavelength," says Schubert, who

"It increases the

confidence for

everybody" who

makes and uses

radiopharmaceuticals.

chairs a NIST/NEI steering group that

sets the agenda for the collaboration.

"It increases the confidence for everybody" who makes and uses radiopharmaceuticals, adds Michael

S. Mosley, a quality control and

govemment affairs specialist at Syncor Intemational Corp., the country's fastest growing "nuclear

phamiacy."

That confidence level has contributed

to the ascent of radiophannaceuticals

both as a standard part of medical

practice and as big business, say Schubert, Mosley, and others

51
in the industry. Each year, U.S. doctors perform over 7 million

diagnostic procedures using

radiophamiaceuticals. About one

out of every four patients entering

hospitals undergoes some fonn of

radioactive diagnostic or therapeutic

procedure. Many cardiac patients

undergo the thallium-201 stress test, which allows doctors to image the damaged heart for guidance in

treating heart patients. The market

for radiophannaceutical preparations now approaches $1 billion.

When the NIST/NEI collaboration

began in 1973, there were no

standards for three out of four

radiopharmaceuticals then available, nor were there uniformly adopted

protocols by which instruments in

different places were calibrated even when standards were available. These

and other measurement problems

slowed Food and Dmg Administration

approval of new drugs and led to disputes between vendors and buyers

"F^rticipation in

the program

and having

radiopharmaceuticals

[whoae activities

are] traceable to

NI5T standards

gives member

companies a

competitive

advantage"

of radiopharmaceuticals since prices are determined not by weight but by

the amount of radioactivity sold.

Out of the collaboration so far have come more than two dozen new

Standard Reference Materials (SRMs),

which are distributed as small sealed ampoules containing specific

radiopharmaceuticals with

NIST-certified amounts of

radioactivity. Vendors and buyers use

these to calibrate their own

measurements. Among these SRMs,

which are prepared and certified by

three scientists at NIST who are supported by a fee paid by member

companies, are standards for thalhum-201; iodine- 131, an agent

for diagnosing and treating thyroid

problems; and technetium-99ni,

which is used in procedures such as imaging brain tissue.

Besides the collaboration's intangible

payoff in the form of product and

industry confidence, the NIST-made

SRMs have a more direct impact on

companies' bottom lines. "If a company went out and developed

these on its own, you are talking

maybe $1 million," estimates Felix

Killar, manager of Non-Utility

Programs for NEI. "Participation in the program and having

radiopharmaceuticals twhose

activities are] traceable to NIST

standards gives member companies a

competitive advantage."

52
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company.

Analog}- Inc. Beaverton, Oregon

3uemeee:

Makers of simulation software tools

for designers of electronic circuitry

Number of Employees:

120 worldwide

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology \e an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's '^ecVtr\o\o^

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to (develop and apply

technology, measurements,

an^;! standar^is.

May 1994

Using tools to make better tools has been standard practice since

Paleolithic times. Now, engineers even use the silicon-based brains of computers as simulation tools for designing next-generation silicon

chips, a practice that streamlines the

costly trial-and-error cycle of making,

testing, and redesigning actual

prototypes. Problem: Simulation has

yet to play a major role in the growing niche of "power electronics,"

which control voltages and currents

in millions of appliance motors,

automotive ignition systems, and

electric vehicles that are often millions of times higher than the voltages and currents in integrated

circuits.

That design limitation is in the midst

of becoming history. A chain of events

that began with a chance 1989

meeting between Allen Hefner, an

electrical engineer at the National

Institute of Standards and

Technology', and Daniel Diebolt of Analogy Inc., an Oregon software company, led to new simulation tools

that already are changing the way

Motorola makes some of its electrical products and the way Ford Motor Co. makes cars. These tools are helping to bring power electronics technologies

to larger U.S. markets and are putting

the United States in a better competitive position in the global

power electronics market, says Dan

Artusi, director of operations for power

transistors at Motorola's Power

Products Division in Phoenix, Ariz.

One of the obstacles has been that power electronics are more difficult

to simulate than standard

microelectronics because the physics

describing their operation is more

complicated. That is partly because

they generate much more heat, which

in turn affects the electrical behavior

of their components, notes Peter Decher, Analogy's director of modeling. Without reliable simulation tools, makers and users

of power electronics have had no

recourse but to make actual devices,

test them, and then redesign them

based on the test results—an

expensive and uncertain process that

These tools are

helping to bring

power electronics

technologies to

larger U.S. markets

and are putting the

United States in a

better competitive

position...

.

has limited the power electronics market. It also has meant that the

power electronics now in use are not

controlling the motors, engines, and

other downstream components as well as they could.

The 5-year-old NIST/Analogy

collaboration seems to be smoothing

the way for power electronics. It began at a technical conference of

electrical engineers where Diebolt

heard Hefner give a talk on power

electronics focusing on an important,

relatively new component called an

Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor

(IGBT). It struck a chord. Earlier,

engineers working on ignition

systems at Ford Motor Co. had told engineers at Motorola that new

53
generations of semiconductor power

electronics would be more than

welcome since they could lead to cars

that burned fuel more efficiently.

That message naturally ended up

reaching Analogy, since its Saber

simulator, a software tool which is used mostly by large corporate chip

designers, often was central to the design of Motorola's electronic

systems.

Within months, Analogy and NIST

drew up a Cooperative Research and

Development Agreement. By the end

of 1989, their collaboration had

yielded a preliminary computer

model that would clearly work as part

of an upgraded Saber simulator. By

mid- 1991, the model had proven itself

in principle for a variety of circuit design applications. Before the year was up, Alan Mantooth, a senior

engineer at Analogy, had further developed the model to the point that

the company could include it in its commercial simulation packages. In Hefner's words, "He bullet-proofed it

in the Saber context," and it has

become a standard part of the commercial program. Adds Decher:

"We view this as a strategic

collaboration, and we want to continue down this path."

The initial commercial payoff of the work was an upgrade in 1992 of

Saber, Analogy's bread-and-butter

simulation package. Now, in addition

3y the end of 1969,

the NIST/Analogy

collaboration had

yielded a preliminary

computer model

that would clearly

work as part of

an upgraded

Saber simulator.

to simulating standard integrated

circuits with low-voltage, low-current

components. Saber incorporates an IGBT model. At the same time in

1992, Motorola, whose engineers used

the Saber IGBT model, announced a new generation of automotive

ignition coils that rely on an IGBT to control the electrical pulses going to a

car's spark plugs. One good thing

leads to another. In February 1994,

Ford Motor Co. announced plans to use Motorola's IGBTs in ignition

systems during the 1995 model year.

As Artusi sees it, that is just the

beginning for Motorola. "We intend

to establish a strong capability in power semiconductors in the United

States," he says, adding that such

technologies will be a key to higher

efficiency machinery, appliances,

lamps, and vehicles. That would

cascade into the additional benefits

of reduced energy needs and less pollution production. He credits Hefner's IGBT model as a springboard

for such visions.

There's more than handwaving for arguing that such visions could

become reality. In August 1993,

Motorola's Semiconductor Products

Sector and Analogy signed a $3 million, 3-year pact whose goal is something that Artusi calls "virtual prototyping." More specifically, the two companies aim to produce

simulations of IGBT-based devices,

which it will send to clients such as car companies who plug the models

into their own simulated products to

get an idea of how an actual power

electronic component will behave.

"This will allow customers to do a

first-pass design very quickly,

determine if the characteristics of the

initial [modeled] device are correct, and give us high-quality feedback,"

Artusi told the trade publication

Electronic Engineering Times.

Hefner is pleased by the steam that industry is getting out of his work.

He also supplies free versions of the model that academic researchers can

plug into SPICE (Simulation

Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis)—software developed in the early 1970s at the University of Califomia at Berkeley—that has

become a standard for simulating

integrated circuits. As Hefner sees it, the more you increase the number of people thinking about power

electronics the more innovation is bound to happen.

54
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company.

The Automotive Composites

Consortium:

Ford Motor Company

Dearbom, Michigan

General Motors Corporation

Detroit, Michigan

Chrv'sler Corporation

Highland Park, Michigan

business:

Automotive manufacturers

Number of Employees:

Approximately 1,240,000

The National Institute of

Stan^lards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. N15T promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measunsments,

and standards.

March 1994

Pressure to substitute traditional materials with others that are cheaper, stronger, lighter, or better by some measure than the originals is a fundamental driver of technological

change and adaptation. The risks and

rewards are largest for industries like the car industry, which rely on vast amounts of materials.

The availability of inexpensive steel

early in this century made mass

production of cars more

technologically and economically

sensible. "It replaced wood in auto

bodies and enabled [the car industry]

to make larger, more rehable, higher

performance products," says Carl Johnson, a product engineer at Ford's

Scientific Research Laboratory

in Dearbom, Mich. In 1991, the automotive industry used 10 million

tons of steel.

The material virtues of strength,

durability, and manufacturability

that have m.ade steel so critical to car makers may no longer be enough to

offset a drawback—its heaviness—that has become a

critical liability in today's ever more

environmentally minded context. Every extra pound in a car translates

into higher fuel consumption and

pollution output. The search is on for

lightweight, environmentally sound

substitutes that can be integrated into

the manufacturing process and

provide the necessary strength, crash

worthiness, and durability.

Composites, which are combinations

of two different materials that each

contribute desirable traits normally

not found combined in any one

material, are a leading candidate for

substitution. That is why the big three

automakers—Ford, General Motors,

and Chrysler—joined forces in 1988

to form the Automotive Composites

Consortium (ACC) and sought the

assistance of the National Institute of Standards and Technology with their

efforts.

Composites have a long history.

One of the earliest examples still in use—straw mixed into a mud

base—yields a building material that

That is why

the big three

automakers

Ford, General

Motors, and

Chrysler—joined

forces in ^93&

to form the

Automotive

Composites

Consortium and

eouqht the

assistance of the

National Institute

of Standards and

Technology with

their efforts.

is stronger and more crack resistant than mud alone. The higher tech automotive composites now being

developed through the ACC are made

from polymers such as urethanes (the

mud) and glass fibers (the straw),

which are either pressed into random

mats like the filters of home heating

fumaces or woven or braided into

fabric-like mats. Experimental

55
composite parts weigh up to 40 percent less than their steel counterparts and could shave

hundreds of pounds from each car.

The challenge for the ACC (in 1992

the ACC became part of US CAR,

a broader based private-sector/

govemment program with the goal of producing high-quality,

high-efficiency cars) is to develop a

practical, affordable composite

technology that can meet some of the most demanding manufacturing

specifications on the planet. For example, "the front rail of the car holds the engine up, takes all road

loads, and must handle the crash

energy" to meet specifications, points out Elio Eusebi, head of the polymers

department at General Motors Research and Development Center in Warren, Mich.

The composite-forming method most

likely to end up on production lines probably will go something like this: A fiber mat is placed into a two-part,

beatable mold, which is then shut,

imposing the shape of the car component onto the dry mat. Liquid

resin, polymerization agents, and

other ingredients then are injected or drawn into the closed mold where

they permeate the mat like water through a dry sponge. The high

temperature in the mold initiates a chemical curing process resulting in a fiber-reinforced polymeric part in the desired shape. All this has to take

place reliably and nearly flawlessly in a matter of seconds. "I don't want to build a mold and discover that I can't

get resin into the comer," Eusebi says.

"NI6T has saved

us the entire

expense and time

rec^uired to make

accurate models,

which is several

man-years of work."

He, Johnson, and others working in the consortium say that the way to preempt the time and expense of that kind of unwelcome surprise is to

create computer models that engineers can use to predict how

variations in a part's shape and size

will affect the composite-making

process. The models ought to give

engineers the power to quickly modify

the process for each part, rather

than having to go through a trial- and-error process each and every time

to determine processing details such

as how fast the liquid resin ought to be injected or what kind of fiber mat

to use.

That's where researchers at NIST are making unique contributions to the composite R&D project, say industry

consortium participants. Frederick

Phelan, who was hired at NIST soon

after the ACC began, has been

developing computer models that

predict critical process conditions

such as how quickly liquid resin will flow into fiber mats in various shapes

and the pressure generated during

injection. To ensure that the models

are realistic, Phelan's colleague,

Richard Pamas, has developed

protocols and materials, such as standardized fiber mats, that he and

ACC members can use to measure the permeability into fiber mats under

different conditions. "Without

experimental permeability data,

everything is hypothetical," Johnson

says.

Though industry insiders are

optimistic about composites, no one

yet can say just how extensively the materials might substitute for steel.

At the moment, the composites

remain too expensive to design and

manufacture. Also, their properties

are still not understood with enough

confidence, and recycling issues need

to be resolved. NIST is helping with

these problems, say industry

researchers, by leveraging company

research to demystify the material.

"It is extending what we can do,"

says Douglas Denton at Chrysler's

Materials Engineering facility in Aubum Hill, Mich. Adds GM's Eusebi:

"NIST has saved us the entire expense

and time required to make accurate models, which is several man-years of work." With input from all of this

effort, it is likely that historical

industrial decisions about millions of tons of steel and resin and about

automotive design will be made.

Postscript: Aerospace companies,

including Grumman and Boeing,

which also see a future for strong,

lightweight composites as substitute materials for heavier metallic alloys,

have initiated collaborations with the same composites experts at NIST. The same kind of process understanding

and predictive abilities that the ACC

needs to make composites work in the automotive context is an absolute

requirement in the aeronautics

context, notes Lyle Schwartz, director

of NIST's Materials Science and

Engineering Laboratory.

56
NIST

Indudtrial

Impact

Company:

CEM Corporation

Matthews, North Carolina

3ue'meee:

Manufacturer of microwave-based

analytical instrumentation

Number of Employees:

130

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commences Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

February 1994

By the late 1970s, the CEM Corp. had

begun eaming a name for itself in the new arena of microwave-assisted

chemical analysis. At the time, the standard way to analyze mgged,

hard-to-dissolve metallic, soil, and

other inorganic samples was to dump

the samples into a strong mineral

acid and heat it up on a hot plate.

Then researchers would wait, and

wait, and maybe wait some more,

until the hot acid digested the sample

enough for analysis by spectroscopy

and other standard methods. Many

jobs also required some kind of

specific fiddling—maybe a stint on a shaker table or a more rigorous

heating regimen. As a result, analysts

had to know and use a variety of protocols that could take anywhere

from hours to several days.

Word about CEM's apparently simpler

microwave altemative spread quickly

to companies in the oil, chemical,

mining, and environmental

monitoring industries where analysis

of metal-containing soil and sludge,

ceramic powders, and minerals was a

daily need. With the microwave

technique, the sample and acid go

into a closed Teflon container, which

is then heated in the microwave for a few minutes, 30 at the most. The

sample comes out ready for analysis.

"When people became aware of our microwave work, they came to us asking about it," recalls CEM CEO

Michael Collins.

That was just fine, but Collins knew

CEM (which stands for Chemistry,

Electronics, and Mechanics—the

disciplines that CEM's three founders

brought into the company) could not

yet offer customers a ready-to-go

system. The specific microwave power.

time, and other factors required for each type of sample could only be

determined by a time-consuming,

trial-and-error process. There was no

recourse for a new user but to go

through that process. Moreover, since no one knew exactly how microwave

energy was digesting the samples, no

one could say just how the method

worked.

"When people

became aware of our

microwave work,

they came to us

asking about it,"

recalls CEM CEO

Michael Collins.

Despite drawbacks of the traditional open-beaker, hot-plate methods,

analysts understood them, knew they

worked, and knew how to do them. It would be hard for CEM to break

through into bigger markets unless

the company could tell its customers

both how the microwave methods

worked and precisely which protocol

worked for a given type of sample.

"We didn't just want to ship our

customers a box and then leave them

on their own to make it work,"

Collins says.

With that goal on their minds,

Collins received a fateful call in 1983

from NIST chemist Skip Kingston, now at Duquesne University. Kingston was doing some research on

microwave-assisted chemistry and

became convinced that the techniques had good potential to

simplify many chemical procedures.

57
He wanted to learn more about the

physical mechanisms underlying the

process and to develop the kind of

theoretical understanding that could

add microwave chemistry to the generally accepted corpus of chemical

knowledge and techniques.

Kingston knew that CEM had been

selling microwave instrumentation

for a few years so he gave them a

call. Collins was interested. Within

a month, he had spent a day in Kingston's Gaithersburg, iMd., laboratory to discuss the possibilities

in more depth. A collaboration

seemed right for both parties. "Within

a few months, we had set up and

funded Lois Jassie as a research

associate at NIST," Collins recalls. As

part of this, Jassie enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the nearby

American University, and this microwave work became the basis for her research and thesis. So, as CEM

was finalizing the design of what

would become production models of a microwave digester, the collaboration was developing application protocols

CEM found the

NIST connection so

valuable that the

company kept

Jassie on at

NIST as a research

associate until

1993, nearly a

full decade.

for specific sample types as well as fundamental studies into the physics

and chemistry of the process. In short

order, these studies suggested to CEM

that a sealable Teflon container

would allow microwave energy to penetrate to the contained sample

while enabling pressure to build up

inside without exploding.

By the end of 1984, CEM was selling a

closed-vessel microwave system. Sales went up considerably following a seminal paper by Kingston and Jassie in the Oct. 12, 1986, issue of Analytical Chemistry. "That paper

educated the technical community in microwave-assisted chemistry,"

Collins says. By 1990, the microwave

digestion system had grown into

CEM's major product, with sales to both domestic and foreign customers. The company now is the industry

leader. "This year we expect to have

$30 million in sales and 40 percent

will come from our microwave

digestion products," Collins says.

CEM found the NIST connection so valuable that the company kept Jassie on at NIST as a research associate

until 1993, nearly a full decade. That

human connection enabled CEM to

benefit from NIST's strength in protocol development, and NIST

researchers were able to keep abreast

of what users and makers of microwave-based instruments were doing and what they needed.

The future still holds plenty of promise for the microwave-assisted

chemistry that CEM and NIST helped

shepherd into respectability and into

instrumentation that analysts can

buy. Says Collins: "We see this as an

emerging field, which is still in its

infancy."

5&
NIST

Indudtrial

Impact

Company:

Coming Inc. Coming, New York

business:

Makers of consumer housewares and

specialty materials including optical

fibers Company:

AT&T Bell Laboratories

Atlanta Works

Norcross, Georgia

business:

Providers of communications services and products, computer systems, and

network equipment including optical

fibers

The National Institute of

Stanclards and Tecy\no\o^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

March 1994

As you read this, the world is becoming ever more wired with

optical fibers. Growing networks of millions of kilometers of glass fibers

cross continents and oceans linking

millions of people and computers

worldwide with pulses of informationladen light. Without optical fibers, any talk of a National Information

Infrastructure would be little more

than a pipe dream.

With all of this growth, the need for

optical fiber makers and users to standardize products, manufacturing

processes, and installation procedures

becomes critical. Lacking that,

technical incompatibilities that would

stunt growth of these networks, hinder

their maintenance and repair, and

thereby erode the international

competitiveness of the U.S. telecommunications industry could

emerge. This challenge is a classic

call to arms for researchers at the National Institute of Standards and

Technology.

Since 1981, NIST has been working

closely with the Telecommunications

Industry Association to advance both

standards and technology for the

optical fiber industry. A 1992 report

prepared for NIST by an independent

economist estimated that NIST's aid

in the development of standards and

measurement protocols had by then

been responsible for annual savings

of $9.5 million in the optical fiber

industry, which was more than four

times the cumulative cost of the

collaborative work throughout the

entire 1980s.

A recent NIST contribution that has

been getting particularly high praise

from the industry goes by the

unassuming name of SRM 2520.

SRM stands for Standard Reference

Material, and SRM 2520 is one of about a thousand different SRMs

that NIST prepares for hundreds of

industries that need reliable benchmarks by which they can

calibrate their own tools, instruments,

chemical analyses, and other

measurement protocols.

At the heart of each SRM 2520, which

companies can purchase from NIST

for about $1,000, is an optical fiber whose diameter has been more

accurately measured and certified than any other fiber in the world. To

certify each standard, NIST metrology

expert Ted Doiron designed and built an exquisitely sensitive and accurate micrometer that could measure fiber

NIST's aid in the

development of

standards and

measurement

protocols had by

then been

responsible for

annual savings

of $9.5 million in

the optical

fiber industry.

diameters with an uncertainty of about 50 nanometers or the width of about 100 molecular layers of the

glass. In the hands of the engineers at an optical fiber plant, an SRM 2520

serves as the most reliably calibrated mler by which they can monitor the uniformity of their own commercial

59
fibers, explains Matt Young, who

developed SRM 2520 with Steve Mechels, Paul Hale, and other NIST

researchers.

SRM 2520 has become a necessary

tool in the production of optical fibers even though the standard only

became available in 1993, according

to Jan H. Suwinski, an executive vice

president of Coming Inc. At the center

of the standard fiber is a glass core about 10 micrometers in diameter

surrounded by a thicker glass

cladding whose outer diameter is about 125 micrometers, or about two

hair-widths. (The cladding is coated

with a tough polymer to protect the

glass from environmental

degradation and breakage.)

The particular value of SRM 2520 is emerging as optical fibers reach from

major optical cables to individual

buildings, homes, and offices. This

phase of network growth entails massive amounts of splicing and

matching of fibers, which can be more expensive than stringing fibers longer distances, a procedure

requiring fewer splices. Industry

experts say that variation in fiber

"The opportunity to

work with NIST on

this project gave

Corning and other

American fiber

manufacturers a

clear competitive

advantage."

diameters would be calamitous

because, if the diameters differ, the inner cores probably would fail to

align precisely when joined, resulting

in degraded light signals. And that

spells "disaster" for an industry whose

raison d'etre is transmitting signals

reliably and clearly. By using SRM

2520 to calibrate the fiber-making

process, the optical fiber industry can

increase the likelihood that its fibers

will align. According to Department of Commerce statistics, the U.S. optical

fiber market amounted to $2.1 billion

in 1992, which was 40 percent of the world total. That translates into a lot

of splicing.

"Another industry-wide study found

that the main problem in controlling

the cladding diameter was having a

reference," notes William Gardner,

who specializes in fiber measurement

standards at AT&T's optical fiber

plant in Norcross, Ga. With SRM

2520, he says, uncertainty in the measurements of fiber diameters now

vary within about one-tenth of a micrometer (about the width of a cell nucleus), which is about one-tenth of

the uncertainty that was typical before SRM 2520 became available. Both

AT&T and Coming now use SRM

2520 routinely for quality control.

In a letter to Judson French, director

of NIST's Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory, Coming's

Suwinski wrote that "the opportunity

to work with NIST on this project gave

Coming and other American fiber manufacturers a clear competitive

advantage."

For NIST, that kind of industry

feedback translates into a mission

accomplished. But not completed,

notes Young. NIST and the optical

fiber industry now are planning to work on other standards, including one for measuring the tiny diameters

of ceramic fermles that are used to connect fibers into continuous

pathways of light.

60
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company.

Crucible Compaction Metals

Oakdale, Penns\'lvania

business:

Producer of high-performance

materials and parts for aerospace and

other applications

Number of Employees:

65

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commence's Technoloq^

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

tednno\o^, measurements,

and standards.

February 1994

The inside of a working jet engine is a

hellish place. Hour after hour, day

after day, hot, corrosive combustion

gases flow over its intemal parts at hundreds of miles per hour. Many of these parts also rotate hundreds or thousands of times per minute,

creating intemal strains that would

shred most materials in short order. Yet those parts have to withstand the punishment. There are no shoulders

for repairs in the jet stream.

William Eisen thinks about these facts with more gravit}' than most people.

He is president of Crucible

Compaction Metals (CCM), an

Oakdale, Pa., company, one of the few

manufacturers of metal disks that

rotate at high speed at elevated temperature to move gas through the

jet engines on military and civilian

aircraft. Given their hostile venues,

these disks and other parts that Cmcible makes have to be made of

the toughest, strongest, most reliable,

and most temperature-tolerant

material that his company can make

at a price that jet engine makers are

willing to pay. Moreover, with global

competition in both the aerospace and advanced metals business on a

rapid ascent, Eisen can never afford to

coast on the quality and efficiency of

today's manufacturing processes.

Cmcible's process starts with molten

metal of the proper chemistry that

will produce an alloy with the desired

materials properties. But, instead of

casting these parts by pouring molten

metal into molds, or first forming

billets that are shaped and processed

later, CCM converts the liquid metal

into fine powder using the so-called

inert gas atomization process. This

powder is then loaded into metal

containers (molds) and consolidated

into solid parts by hot isostatic

pressing. Very little machining and

finishing work is required afterward.

"You can make materials this way

that you can't forge or roll or make in any other way," notes long-time NIST

metallurgist John Manning, director

of NIST's in-house powder metallurgy

research group, which operates a

The disks and

other parts that

Crucible makes have

to be made of

the toughest,

strongest, most

reliable, and most

tern peratu re-tolera nt

material.

powder making facility rigged with

sophisticated sensors and valves that can monitor and control exactly what

occurs as metal powders are made. It was a setup that no company had in place or could afford.

For Crucible, the complex process

yields engine parts that fit the bill, Eisen says, but its efficiency was

disappointing. NIST was soon to become part of the solution. The

problem had to do with the particles

in the metal powder. To create

parts with the range of properties

needed for jet engines, the particles

have to start out very small

with a maximum size about

0.076 millimeter (0.003 inch) in diameter—and extremely uniform.

The small sizes of the particles help

61
produce uniform properties in the finished parts and also reduce the

sizes of voids or other imperfections,

which are the seeds of material

failure. If the company could reduce

the amount of oversize powder

produced, the process would become more efficient, operating expenses would decrease, and the company

would become more competitive.

With that chain of events never far from Eisen's mind, he was especially

receptive in 1982 when he heard

about, and subsequently attended, a powder metallurgy conference in Gaithersburg, Md., at the National

Institute of Standards and Technology

(then called the National Bureau of Standards). "I had no idea of the extent of work going on there," Eisen

recalls, adding that he hadn't

previously thought of NIST as a place

for getting answers to industrial process problems.

After the meeting, he remained in touch intermittently with the metallurgy group. In 1986, Crucible was invited to join a research

consortium with NIST and other

powder metallurgy companies. The

consortium's goal would be to develop more detailed knowledge

about how metal powders form and to use this knowledge for making the process more of a science. In 1987,

Crucible, General Electric Corp., and

The computer

model guided the

company in the

redesign of its qae

delivery system,

thereby increasing

"the percentage of

usable powder

produced during

the atomization

process by over

40 percentr

Hoeganaes Corp. joined NIST to form

the consortium. It was renewed in 1991 with two of the old partners

and four new players and will end

after 6 years in 1994.

The half-decade involvement paid off

for Crucible in higher efficienq and

lower costs. One crucial part of this gain was a computer model developed

by the NIST fluid flow group. It enabled Crucible engineers to simulate accurately what was

happening as particles formed rather than having to guess what happened

by examining finished particles. The

model had a lot to consider. The

powders are made in an atomization

process by letting the molten metal

fall through a nozzle at the end of which a high-velocity stream of inert gas blows the liquid metal stream into

a fine mist of tiny spherical droplets.

These cool and solidify almost

instantaneously and are collected downstream.

"We suspected that if we could

understand the gas dynamics, we

could control our process more

successfully," Eisen says. They were

right. The model, which the fluid flow

group was able to develop using data

obtained from NIST's supersonic inert gas metal atomizer, was designed to help CCM and other consortium

members optimize their processes without having to tell each

competitive details. "We now use this model the way other manufacturers

rely on computer-aided design,"

Eisen says.

In a 1992 letter to Lyle Schwartz,

director of NIST's Materials Science

and Engineering Laboratory, Eisen

noted that the computer model

guided his company in the redesign of

its gas delivery system, thereby

increasing "the percentage of usable

powder produced during the atomization process by over 40 percent." Efficiency gains of just a few percent usually are enough to get

congratulatory memos flying around.

At the same time, Eisen added, the new process consumes less argon gas, "helping to decrease Crucible's

operating costs." That's just good

business.

62
NIST

Indu6trial

Impact

Company:

Gas Processors Association

Tulsa, Oklahoma

3uemeee:

Represents member companies who

produce, process, and distribute natural gas and natural gas products

Size:

Approximately 60 member companies

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commence's Technologic

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

When Kepler came to the startling

conclusion that planets rotate around

the sun in elliptical orbits, not

circular ones as everyone had

believed, he owed plenty of thanlvs to

his employer Tycho Brahe. Brahe had

spent years measuring planetary

positions with unprecedented

precision. Had that precision been a

fraction of a percent less, Kepler

almost certainly would have failed to discem the unexpected orbital shape.

Now, there are countless

down-to-earth reminders of how

important precision can be, including one that has brought the Gas

Processors Association's (GPA)

member companies into alliance with

researchers at the National Institute

of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The collaboration, which began in

1989, goes by the descriptive title of Volume Correction Factors Project.

The industrial problem that brought

the two organizations together

originated with disagreements

between the companies that sell

so-called liquid natural gas products

such as ethane, propane, butane,

pentane, isohexane, and their blends

(which condense into liquid when

extracted from natural gas) and those

who purchase often huge amounts of

these to use as fuel or chemical

feedstocks. Says Dale Embry, a senior

engineering specialist with Phillips

Petroleum Co. in Bartlesville, Okla.,

and GPA liaison on the project: "The

settlement of disagreements between

the buyers, sellers, and regulators were tying up resources that could be

better spent on other projects." By the

late 1980s, the problem was getting

expensive enough to move the GPA

into action.

The technical basis of the discrepancy

resides in calculations used to determine the quantity of the liquid

product, which for practical reasons is always metered by volume, rather than mass. But since the density of

liquids varies with the temperature,

which means that a gallon of the same product packs a different mass

of product on a hot day than it does

The financial

coY\eec\uer\cee are

^reat because the

<\uaY\t\t\ee of

material produced

and eold are eo

on a cold day, the metered volumes

need to be corrected to a standard set

of conditions that everyone agrees to. Though actual corrections are

relatively small, the financial

consequences are great because the

quantities of material produced and

sold are so large.

Members of the GPA decided they

needed to re-evaluate the correction

tables they had been using since the 1950s when they were compiled by an

engineer at Gulf Oil Co. Doing that meant preparing liquid product

samples of precisely known

compositions and then carefully

measuring their volumes and masses

in the range of temperatures at which

these liquids might be pumped into a

buyer's tanker. In the late 1980s,

when they contacted NIST, they

believed the corrections carried a

1 percent uncertainty. To halve that

uncertainty, they needed

measurement experts, which they

03
knew they could find at NIST.

Moreover, since many GPA member

companies are multinational, they

wanted to develop correction

standards that would stand up to the

scrutiny of foreign standards

organizations. "This was another

crucial reason to work with NIST,"

Embry says.

Beginning in 1989, the company

contracted with a team of researchers

at NIST's Boulder, Colo., facility

to measure the density of liquid

natural gas components and their mixtures. Collaborators at the

Colorado School of Mines have used

the detailed data, which even account

for the portion of material that vaporizes into the free space of a tank,

to generate sophisticated

The data "have

resolved many

discrepancies in

the [previously]

available data "

mathematical models that GPA

members can use to calculate

corrections with a maximum

uncertainty of 0.5 percent. That is a

factor of two to four improvement

when compared to the previous

methods. The new lower uncertainty

translates into annual savings of tens

of millions of dollars due to reduced

claims tracking and settlement,

Embry says.

In a letter to W. Mickey Haynes, a NIST researcher who had worked on

the project since its inception, Embry

wrote that "we have gotten a bargain

from your laboratory in terms of the

quantity of data measured for the money that we have contributed." In

the letter, he points out that the data

"have resolved many discrepancies in the [previously] available data." Moreover, he says, the improved data

and correction calculations even have

allowed companies to keep open some

operating stations that would have

required costly upgrades in metering

systems to improve measurement

accuracy. "With the new data, we will be able to continue to use less expensive metrology with reduced

uncertainty," Embry says.

Precise measurement, it seems, is the key to discovering the cosmic paths of

planets, cost-saving methods for major industries, and, undoubtedly,

a few other things in between.

64
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company:

Hewlett Packard Company

Greeley Hardcopy Division

Greeley. Colorado

3ue'meee:

Manufacturer of high-tech

measurement, research, and

business instruments

Number of Employees:

750

The National Institute of

Standards and Techno\o^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

February 1994

In January 1 992, engineers at Hewlett Packard (HP) Co.'s Greeley

Hardcopy Division detected some

disturbing signs in one of their product lines. Five months earlier,

they had stunned the electronic communications community with a new and uncommonly affordable color scanner, an instrument that could convert a color image, or

regular text, into a digital format.

Once digitized, images or texts can be

fed into electronic publishing

software, multimedia packages, or whatever else the electronic communications moguls might come

up with.

"This kind of product had been

available for $30,000 to $50,000, and we brought it down to the $2,000

range," notes Virgil L. Laing,

manager of reliability engineering

in Greeley's Hardcopy Division. Moreover, HP was then, and still is,

the only U.S. company to have

successfully entered the scanner

market, which had been totally

dominated by companies in Japan

and Singapore.

HP's role as the lone Western player

in the field only amplified the unnerving news trickling in from a small proportion of scanner

customers. After several months of

trouble-free operation, one or two out

of a hundred users found that the

copyboard glass—the pane of glass on which scanned material is placed

like a page to be photocopied

suddenly cracked, from one comer to

the comer diagonally across.

The news—both alarming and

puzzling—was a call to action to

Laing and a colleague who took on

the unexpected challenge full time.

"At first we thought our packaging

might have been inadequate and that

the cracks were occurring in shipping," Laing recalls. The natural

incHnation to wishful thinking, in

this case, that a simple packaging fix was the solution, helped favor this

hypothesis. But it also was reasonable

In January 1992,

engineers at

Hewlett Packard Cole

Greeley Division

detected some

disturbing signs in

one of their

product lines.

because it just wasn't easy to break

the copyboard glass. "We dropped it and we shocked it, but we didn't see any breaks," Laing says. "We literally

couldn't break the glass unless we

treated it so badly that it shattered."

Developing and evaluating the next

tier of hypotheses took the special

knowledge of a mechanical engineer

especially familiar with glass and that meant going outside the group that had designed the scanner. The

company hired a consultant in nearby Boulder who had designed

spacecraft windows, which have to be

as rugged and fracture resistant as

glass can get. The consultant didn't

solve the problem, but he suggested

they call Harry McHenry, chief of the NIST Materials Reliability Division. They did. McHenry listened to the problem and then connected Laing

65
with Robert Walsh, a specialist in materials fracture at the NIST lab.

On March 12, 1992, Laing, two other

HP engineers, and a few scanners

traveled to Walsh's laboratory where

James Dally, a mechanical engineer on sabbatical from the University of Maryland, happened to be working as

j a guest researcher. In less than a day,

the ad-hoc trouble-shooting caucus

found the root of the problem.

Measurements with strain gauges

indicated that the design of the top, which has to secure the glass in the machine, unexpectedly had

introduced damaging levels of stress

into the glass. Instead of a safe level of 200 pounds per square inch (psi), some parts of the glass were under

2000 psi. With that information in hand, "we did more research, got

engineering manuals from Dow

Coming [a glass manufacturer],

and checked with Dally some more,"

Laing recalls.

In little more than a month after the NIST visit, the designers at HP learned

what gremlin had caused the cracking. The original design

included a molded plastic pari: that

He estimates that

their visit to the

NIST lab and access

to top experts in

the field of fracture

mechanics saved

them 4 months of

time and expense.

put pressure on the comers of the

glass to secure it in place. It seemed a reasonable way to meet the

company's stringent shock and

vibration specifications to prevent

damage during shipping or

intermittent rough treatment by

users.

A consequence of this design decision,

though, was to set the stage for a

subtle kind of failure mechanism in

glass that begins with what engineers

call "static fatigue." At the comers of

the copyboard, the extra pressure designed into the machine elicited microscopic cracks that, over time,

merged into a single crack that ultimately sliced across the copyboard. The result: glass that breaks slowly rather than shattering

instantaneously.

The solution was simple, clear, and

inexpensive. "We redesigned the cover

plastic, and the problem went away,"

Laing says. He estimates that their

visit to the NIST lab and access to top

experts in the field of fracture mechanics saved them 4 months of time and expense. Luckily, the

fracture problem only affected a small

percentage of the machines. But the scanners were selling well enough

that Laing estimates the 4-month

head start on the solution saved the company at least $500,000. The static

fatigue flaw was an unexpected

difficulty, but it is the type of problem

likely to arise as companies develop more sophisticated and complicated

instruments that demand more and more of the materials used to make

them. The key to success, Laing says,

rides both on preempting problems

before they happen and, if that fails, on finding good solutions quickly.

66

i
NIST

I nduatrial

Impact

Company,

mTRES Inc. Eimsford, iNew York

Custom Microwave

Longmont, Colorado

High Precision Device Inc. Boulder, Colorado

RMC Inc. Tucson, Arizona

business:

Makers and users of high-precision

electrical calibration equipment and

standards

The National Institute of

Standards and Technolo^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

January 1995

In early I962 at Cambridge

University, Brian Josephson made an

arcane prediction that would eam his name a peraianent spot in the

scientific lexicon. By 1983, HYPRES,

Inc., a small company in Eimsford,

N.Y., was building a business around

Josephson's prescience, and in 1990,

RMC Inc., in Tucson, did the same. And they're only a sampling of what

Josephson's prediction has wrought.

Josephson started it all when he

predicted that a tiny electrical current would alternate back and forth between two patches of superconductive material separated

by a thin layer of insulating material.

All it should take, he suggested, was some electrical incentive in the form

of a small voltage across the sandwich

stmcture, which is now known as a Josephson junction. Also, according to Josephson's quantum mechanical

calculations, the voltage across the junction ought to be precisely

controllable by subjecting the

structure to an extemal altemating

current. It is. That controllability

attracted electricity researchers at the National Institute of Standards and

Technology like moths to light since

it presumably would provide them

with a means for building the world's

most precise voltage standards. It did.

The seed for RMC and HYPRES's

commercial entry into the Josephson

junction voltage standards business was first sown in the early 1980s at

NIST's facility in Boulder, Colo.

There, Richard Kautz, together

with researchers from Gennany's

counterpart to NIST, the Physikalisch-TechnischeBundesanstalt, adapted

microfabrication techniques from the

electronics industry to link thousands

of Josephson junctions into miniaturized arrays. "By putting

thousands of junctions together, we made a device that produced voltage

at practical levels," Kautz says.

Once word got out, the world came

knocking at the NIST researchers'

door. Perfecting the device for widespread use was taken up by Clark

The eeed for RMC

and HYPRES's

commercial entry

into the Josephson

junction voltage

standards business

was first sown

in the early 1950s

at NI5T.

Hamilton, who now has been working on the project for a decade. "In the beginning we gave away devices to learn from others' experience with

them," Hamilton recalls. These

so-called Josephson Junction Voltage

Array Standards now serve as the world's most precise voltage standards

by which all other electrical equipment ultimately is calibrated. By

the late 1980s, NIST had begun

selling them; by 199i it had shipped

nearly 40 to standards facilities around the world, businesses, and

several military facilities. As flattered

as Hamilton, Kautz, and their

colleagues were that their voltage

standard was in demand, they never

perceived their mission as a manufacturer and supplier of the

standard. This is where RMC and

HYPRES come in.

67
RMC was the first to pick up the baton. Starting with NIST-developed

chips, the company commercialized

a voltage standard system, which

includes cryogenic components for cooling the chip to nearly absolute

zero, an instrument for monitoring

the chip's electrical behavior, and a computer to control the system and

record data. Since 1990, RMC has

sold about $2 million worth of voltage standard systems and

components—about 10 percent of the company's total revenue during

that time—to both foreign and

domestic buyers, according to David

L. Swartz, founder and CEO of the company. "This is a case of technology transfer that has gone very

well," Swartz says.

Elie Track, president and CEO of HYPRES Inc., in Elmsford, N.Y., says the same thing. "We took NIST's

design, which was completely

optimized, adapted it to our

fabrication processes, and the outcome has been some of the best voltage standard chips that anyone

has ever produced," Track states proudly.

To actually make their voltage

standard chips, HYPRES engineers

use microlithographic techniques,

which they had developed specifically

for working with superconductive

niobium metal, to create tiny arrays

of 3,600 or 20,208 Josephson

junctions for their 1-volt and 10-volt

standards, respectively. When chilled with frigid liquid helium and driven

with microwave radiation (the

external source for an altemating

current), the chips generate specific

voltages accurate to one-billionth of a

volt.

"This is a case

of technology

transfer that has

Qone very well."

Track assesses his company's

achievement so far as an "excellent technical success." HYPRES has sold about 10 voltage standard chips,

mostly to foreign metrology labs, for a

total gross revenue of roughly

$150,000. A portion of this comes

from RMC, which now buys the standard chips from HYPRES instead

of NIST. Track says that commercial

success for his 11 -year-old company now hinges on penetrating larger

markets. The most likely, he adds, will involve the U.S. Army, which provided

funding and research support to develop the standard.

The Army's precision weaponry and

other state-of-the-art instrumentation

need to be precisely and confidently

calibrated since uncertainties can

translate into a missed target, inaccurate transmission of data, or a

failure to detect threats. The Army now has its own Josephson voltage

standard (manufactured by RMC) in Alabama, which means that all of its secondary voltage standards in the

field must be periodically taken to Alabama for calibration. "Instead of having to take all of those secondary

standards to Alabama, they envision

installing primary standards into

their equipment to begin with,"

Track says. The Army estimates an

easy-to-use standard system could

save them $3 million per year.

Other companies also have been

feeling some commercial energy

coming from Hamilton's lab. After High Precision Devices Inc. of Boulder

had built a cryoprobe (a component

that holds and shuttles the chips into

the refrigeration system) for Hamilton's group, the company won

similar contracts from a handful of

clients including TRW, IBM, and

HYPRES. In ajune 1994 letter to Hamilton, the company's president

Bill Hollander wrote that "This family

of products has become a significant

portion of our business." Astro Endyne Co., also in Boulder, and

Custom Microwave in Longmont,

Colo., wrote Hamilton with similar

expressions of gratitude.

Josephson may have been able to

predict a remarkable property in

superconducting materials, but he

probably had no inkling of the technological and commercial

consequences that would unfold from

its application.

6&
NIST

I nduatrial

Impact

Company:

Intel Supercomputer Systems Division

Beaverton, Oregon

business:

Develops and sells supercomputers

Number of Employees:

Several hundred

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

May 1994

People who use supercomputers are speed freaks. When a program mns

more slowly than they think it should,

they quickly want to uncover and overcome the computational

bottlenecks. Is the problem in the way

the software is written? Or is the hardware simply pushed to its limits? Answers to questions like these are at the heart of business decisions such as whether to buy new computers or

invest in software engineers.

Sniffing out the source of a computer's perfonnance snags is

especially tricky when it comes to

parallel processing supercomputers,

says Wayne Smith, a software designer

working at Intel's Supercomputer

Systems Division in Beaverton, Ore. To help its customers through the

thicket, Intel began shipping its new line of Paragon parallel

supercomputers in 1993 with a

built-in "performance monitor"

based on work by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and

Technology (NIST). Says Smith:

"Without the NIST effort, we wouldn't

have had this in our machines so soon."

Measuring perfomiance in a conventional serial processing

computer such as a PC is relatively

straightforward. These computers

usually have a single microprocessor

that takes one line of a program at a

time and does what that line commands—retrieve data from

memory or plug data into a mathematical expression, for example—before moving on to the

next program line. If operators want

to speed things up, they might find

the computational slow points by

checking the computer clock from

time to time and noting how the computation is proceeding. They

might learn, for example, that the computer is not getting data out of memory as fast as the processor can work on the data. If they can't circumvent the problem by doctoring

the program to shunt data around more efficiently, then they would have

to decide between patience and

purchasing a new computer with

faster retrieval from memory.

"Without the

N16T effort, we

wouldn't have

had this in our

machines so soon."

When it comes to parallel processing

supercomputers, uncovering

bottlenecks is much more difficult. Instead of the neat linear process going on inside of a serial supercomputer, a dizzying

computational orchestration

unfolds when a parallel computer

runs programs. Each of dozens,

hundreds, or even more processors simultaneously receives input from

other processors or from memory,

transforms data in accordance with

the part of the overall program it happens to be running, and sends

output to different processors, memory, and other components.

This frenetic activity might cycle an

indefinite number of times. Moreover,

these events often do not occur during

the same time intervals in each

processor.

In this far more complicated arena, finding out where bottlenecks arise

69
has been virtually impossible, Smith

says, partly because no single clock was available that was universally

applicable to all of the processors as a program ran. That is why he saw

good prospects in the "MultiKron

Project" of Alan Mink and colleagues

at NIST. The MultiKron is a chip (or

system of chips) that collects perfonnance data as directed by

processors as they compute and shunt

data around. One of its functions is a

universal clock that can effectively track program progress and compare

perfonnance of all processors in a computer. Says Smith: "You need

global counters and time stamps to know when and where things are occurring" in a parallel processing

computer.

NIST has been developing MultiKron

technology at relatively low

manufacturing cost by relying on

small batches of prototypes made on a nationwide chip fabrication resource known as MOSIS, which enables chip

designers to pool the cost of

manufacturing if each participant can live with only a few dozen copies

of its respective chip.

That's where the

design concepts

behind NIST's

MultiKron may

well come into

his company's

maiden product.

That wouldn't work for Intel, which

would need many chips for each of its Paragon supercomputers. Intel found

that the lowest cost way to provide the MultiKron functions they desired in the high volumes that they needed was to hire a contractor to adapt an

off-the-shelf programmable chip.

"Now all new machines [Paragon

supercomputers! have a performance

monitor."

Newcomers to the parallel

supercomputing field also have their eyes on the NIST MultiKron Project.

Tera Computer Co. in Seattle expects

to launch its own supercomputer late

in 1994, says Tera systems designer

Allan Porterfield. "We believe that to make the impact on the market that we would like, we have to make it easy

to program our machine," Porterfield

says. That's where the design concepts

behind NIST's MultiKron, if not

actual MultiKron chips, may well come into his company's maiden

product. That companies so far seem

to be opting for the brainwork behind

MultiKron rather than the chip itself

is just fine to Mink, who continues to develop MultiKron concepts with

input from computer scientists at

universities as well as companies. It's

getting out there and seems to be

helping the parallel supercomputing

industry. And that is precisely the kind

of technology transfer we like, he says.

70
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company:

Intelsat Washington, D.C.

business;

International communication

satellite organization

Number of Employees:

133 member countries

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

To spacecraft designers, any visible amount of unidentified gunk

showing up in development and

testing phases has a knack for sending blood pressures to orbital heights while keeping would-be

satellites down to earth. Better to get

to the bottom of the problem when

the spacecraft is in reach instead of anxiously wondering, perhaps for

years, if the same dirt-making process

will eventually tum a multimillion

dollar spacecraft into a useless assemblage of high technology.

That is why engineers at Intelsat, an international organization with

133 member countries and

21 communications spacecraft in

orbit, were mightily concemed when

they noticed a brownish

contamination on "reaction

thmsters" of a few yet-to-be launched

spacecraft. Flight controllers fire these small thrusters to fine tune the orbital

orientation of deployed spacecraft.

Without working thrusters, the

spacecraft's communications

performance could be impaired at

least or entirely muted at worst.

The problem surfaced in ground tests

as a "brown goo" corrosive to steel

valves on the thmsters. The corrosion,

in tum, was causing volatile

propellant to leak around the

thmsters' Teflon seals, says Andrew

Dunnet, a principal scientist at

Intelsat. Before the problem was

noticed, one satellite was launched

into orbit, which means it may have

contaminated valves. "We have seen no problems as yet," he notes, adding

that his organization now wants to leam as much as possible about the contamination to help them predict

what the orbiting satellite might do in

the future and to help their engineers

prevent future contamination

problems.

This is no easy task since the amount

of the brown goo is small despite the

potentially catastrophic scenarios it

elicits for those who depend on the

spacecraft. To help out, Intelsat hired

Tom Kirkendall, an independent

The data proved

quite instrumental

in the making of

engineering and

management

decisions which

materially affected

the reliability of

many spacecraft.

consultant with decades of experience

in spacecraft materials. He knew

about NIST's sophisticated

instmmentation and expertise in

analytical techniques (partly because

he used to work for COMSAT, which is a short distance up the road from

NIST's Gaithersburg headquarters)

and suspected that researchers there could help decipher the nature and

cause of the contamination.

In mid-April 1994, he met with Edgar

Etz and Robert Fletcher of NIST's

Surface and Microanalysis Science

Division and Bmce Benner of the Organic Analytical Research Division. Within a month, these researchers had supplied Kirkendall with a number of preliminary results.

The data proved quite instmmental in

the making of engineering and

71
management decisions which

materially affected the reliability of many spacecraft, Kirkendall says.

Based on 30-year-old reports in the

scientific literature about similar

contamination on spacecraft

materials, Kirkendall suspected that the brown goo might form from

chemical reactions between the

thruster fuel (mono-methyl

hydrazine) and a chlorofluorocarbon

(CFC) that the manufacturer of the

thruster had been using to clean out

the thruster assemblies after test firing

them. To test the theory, Kirkendall

needed data. He had some, but not enough.

Intelsat previously had hired

commercial analytical laboratories to help determine the source and effect

of contamination on other thrusters. While those analyses revealed the elemental composition of

contaminants, they did not pinpoint

the specific corrosive species or

reactions at work on the thrusters.

Intelsat needed more detailed

information to decide if they could

use the existing thrusters after cleaning them or if they needed to

replace them with never- contaminated versions.

Models of the chemistry occurring at a CFC-cleaned valve suggested that both hydrogen fluoride and

"With Ni5T as part

of the effort, we

were able to decide

that we had to

change attitude

thrusters and we

were able to do

that in a minimum

of time."

hydrazones, which contain carbon

atoms that are bonded to nitrogen

atoms, likely would form on the steel

surfaces. The chemistry perpetrated by

these molecular species is thought to be capable of corroding some steel

' alloys. Without data to back them up

though, such models do not impress

aerospace engineers in charge of keeping real satellites healthy for

their projected 17-year lifetimes.

Getting that data is where Kirkendall

1 hoped the NIST team could came in.

"I don't know where else I could have

tumed," he says. In one analytical

1 technique known as laser microprobe mass analysis (LAiMMA), Robert

Fletcher repeatedly blasts micrometer-sized samples with a

finely focused laser beam, each time

creating a miniature plume of

material. The molecular debris is then swept after each blast into an

instrument that measures the masses

of each molecular fragment by

measuring how long the fragments

take to reach a detector.

In another technique, infrared

microspectroscopy, data about the

types of chemical bonds present in the goo were collected without even having to remove sample particles

from the contaminated thruster components.

"We now have inforaiation on the

chemical groups present and these data have essentially confirmed our

hypothesis" that residual CFC and

propellant react to fonn the brown

goo, Kirkendall says. "With NIST as part of the effort, we were able to decide that we had to change attitude

thrusters and we were able to do that

in a minimum of time," Dunnet

notes. Moreover, the thruster manufacturer no longer uses the CFC

to clean components after test firings,

he notes. Now, Kirkendall and Dunnet

hope that the NIST analysts can help answer more specific questions about

exactly what chemical compounds

are present and whether this type of corrosion process will continue in a

space environment, or if it requires

oxygen.

"Contamination is always a nightmare" in the space industry,

Dunnet says. It would seem that NIST

has gotten into the business of helping some members of the space

industr}' sleep a little better.

72
NIST

Induetrial

Impact

Company.

Lake Shore Cn'otronics Inc.

Westerville, Ohio

business:

Manufacturer of measurement and

control instruments for research,

medicine, and industn*

Number of Employees;

90

The National Institute of

Standards and TechnoloQ^ is an agency erf the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

February 1994

In 1987, the term superconductivity

became part of the household lexicon. Coming in by radio, newspaper, and

television were visions of a new

technological era ushered in by

breakthrough materials called high-temperature superconductors.

If these strange ceramic materials

could be developed into forms such as wires and coils, they just might

supersede and surpass the copper and

silicon-based electrical and electronic technologies that have come to characterize these times.

Insiders knew even then that the new

materials were far from a sure bet, and realistic projections had scientists and engineers taking a decade or two

before any part of the technovision

stood a chance. Still, no company

that had the potential to be involved

could afford not to pay attention. Lake Shore Cryotronics (LSC), a small

finn in Westerville, Ohio, that makes

and sells a variety of sensors and

specialty electronic components, was

one of them.

Right in the middle of those heady

days in 1987, company employees Jeff Bergen and Warren Pierce were

setting out on a multistop trip to find new and future markets relevant to

LSC's strengths. That's also when LSC

president John Swartz received a

call from a colleague at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

suggesting that the trip itinerary

include Fred Pickett's research group at the NIST Boulder facility. It tumed out to be a key stop.

When the LSC team got into the

laboratory, they saw an experimental

instrument that the NIST group was

using to measure electrical and

magnetic properties in the new

superconducting materials, recalls Bergen. Nothing came of the visit immediately, though Bergen and his colleagues cataloged the instrument

in their memories since they knew

that superconductivity, and sensors

for studying the phenomenon, were

probably going to be growth fields.

A few months later during a phone

conversation between LSC and NIST

scientists, the commercial possibilities

of the instrument that the LSC troupe

had seen, called an AC susceptometer, came up. The NIST group was finding

their instrument so useful in their experiments that they suspected

others studying and developing the new superconducting ceramics would

The NIST group was

finding their

Instrument so

useful in their

experiments that

they suspected

others studying and

developing the new

superconducting

ceramics would feel

the same way.

feel the same way. Moreover, a number of groups, mostly in Europe, were already putting their own homemade AC susceptometers to work. The instrument uses an

altemating electrical current (AC)

to impose a magnetic field on a sample while monitoring how the sample responds to, and interacts

73
with, the field. The data from these experiments reveal electrical and

magnetic features of the sample,

including its superconducting and

non-superconducting properties.

After studying the possibilities, and

drawing heavily on the experience of

the NIST group, the LSC staff concluded that AC susceptometers

"could be built and sold at more

accessible prices than anyone could

build themselves in the laboratory,"

Bergen says. LSC scientists and

engineers conferred with the NIST

group regularly and within

1 year—by mid-1988—LSC had

built and sold the first commercially

manufactured AC susceptometer. "We

tumed it into a tum-key instrument,"

Bergen says. The company followed

LSC scientists and

engineers conferred

with the NIST

Qroup regularly and

within 1 year, LSC

had built and

sold the first

commercially

manufactured AC

susceptometer.

that in 1991 by unveiling an AC

susceptometer combined with a DC

magnetometer, a related instrument

that the U.S. research community is more familiar with.

These instruments since have been

sold to many labs around the world

and have contributed greatly to the

rapid growth of Lake Shore's

magnetic measurements product

lines, Bergen notes.

As it tums out, the more sober

projections for high-temperature

superconductivity remain on target, Bergen says. A few small applications

of the materials in products

such as magnetic field sensors (superconducting quantum

interference devices, or SQUIDS for

short) for oil prospecting and medical

imaging could emerge before 1997 comes around, but widespread and

large-scale use remains uncertain.

That uncertainty has changed the business context for LSC, notes Bergen. "The cryogenic market [for instmments that work at extremely

frigid temperatures] is having a lesser

rate of retum," Bergen notes.

"We are now looking beyond

traditional markets," Swartz adds. It

is that kind of adaptive behavior that could well transform business

uncertainty into opportunity.

74
NIST

Induatrial

Impact

Company.

Lockheed Missiles & Space

Company Inc. Sunnwale, California

business:

Designers of aerospace technologies

and vehicles

Number of Employees:

15,600

The National Institute of

Standards and Technolo^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with indiustry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

Sometimes researchers at the National Institute of Standards and

Technology (NIST) get letters fit for

their mothers' refrigerators. Charles

Tilford, an expert in measuring

extremely low pressures, and his vacuum metrology group received

such a letter in May 1994 from a team

of measurement specialists at Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. Inc.

in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The company has wanted to develop

a confident in-house means of

certifying ultralow pressure measurements of their vacuum

chambers in which they routinely

observe and test components, even

entire spacecraft, under pressure conditions similar to what the hardware would encounter in orbit and outer space—about

1 ten-billionth the pressure on Earth.

To make sure the readings of their hundreds of pressure gauges are accurate (the gauges read the correct

pressure) and precise (the variation

range from measurement to measurement is very small),

Lockheed has a strictly enforced

policy to send their in-house

calibration instrumentation to the vacuum group's laboratory at NIST's

Gaithersburg facility twice each year where // can be calibrated with

unsurpassable confidence.

For Lockheed, an aerospace company,

the initial push for in-house pressure

standards, which would enable more

frequent and convenient calibrations,

arises mostly from design and

engineering requirements imposed by

the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration for certifying space

station components. But calls for ever

more reliable pressure measurements

also are coming from several other

industrial sectors, including the vast

microelectronics industry, notes Klaus

Jaeger, manager of metrology for Lockheed.

The technical challenge is to develop

a standard source of low pressure, which then can serve to calibrate the gauges used to monitor the tiny

amount of gas in the company's

Calls for ever more

reliable pressure

measurements also

are coming from

several other

industrial sectors,

including the vast

microelectronics

industry.

vacuum chambers. The strategy is similar to a company that makes

rulers. To make sure the marks on the

ruler actually correspond to centimeters or inches, the manufacturer relies on length

standards that ultimately are

traceable to standards maintained at national standards facilities such as NIST.

The vacuum metrology group

developed its pressure standards by

designing and building devices that

deliver precisely known flows of gas through apertures of known area. Under proper conditions, the pressure throughout each chamber becomes

equal to the pressure at the aperture,

which is calculated by dividing the measured flow rate by the known

75
area. Researchers at Lockheed and

elsewhere regularly send vacuum

gauges to the vacuum group. Flight

hardware now in place aboard the Hubble Space Telescope,

communications satellites, and other

spacecraft have been certified in vacuum chambers whose pressures were measured with gauges whose

calibrations are traceable to the NIST

standard.

Now, Lockheed is about to wean itself from this ultimate reliance on NIST.

In a letter to Tilford dated May 9, 1994, Jaeger and two Lockheed

co-authors, Paul Levine and

L. Kasturi Rangan, reveal that their company is now poised to cut the umbilical cord and in a way that could well open up important new

business for them.

"Lockheed is in the process of commissioning an ultrahigh vacuum

primary calibration system, designed

after the NIST system," they wrote in

the letter. "Without the drawings,

technical specifications, and details of

the process used to fabricate critical components provided by your

[Tilford's] group, our system could

not have come together and reached

testing phase in the relatively short time it has taken." Many of the important details, which never show

"The entire vacuum

group is a jewel in

the U.S. crown"

up in written documentation for any

high technology, were transferred during visits to NIST and multiple

off-the-cuff calls. "Chuck [Charles

Tilford] was always more than willing

to give me advice," Levine notes. Lockheed engineers working on the

project "have always received a warm

welcome, in-depth help and advice,

and cooperation as though we are all partners in the same business," the

letter states.

Indeed, the company foresees several business benefits emerging from all of

this interaction. Since their new

calibration system can serve as a means of "primary calibration," the Lockheed engineers no longer will have to send their vacuum gauges to NIST's Gaithersburg facility every 6 months. That will amount to an

annual savings of $40,000 for the company, notes Levine.

That cost saving could well become

incidental to a much larger benefit

that the engineers expect from their in-house calibration system. "It will

afford us the capability of providing

calibrations of [ultralow] vacuum

gauges on a commercial basis,"

Levine says. Such certifiable

measurements are important not only

for aerospace companies but also for chip makers and others who deposit

thin layers of materials under highly

controlled temperatures in vacuum

chambers. "This will put us in an enhanced competitive position," says

Jaeger.

Tilford notes that the microelectronics

industry also is getting much more

serious about accurately measuring

the conditions in their manufacturing

processes. These processes can involve

hundreds of steps to produce

chip-filled wafers, each of which

represents tens of thousands of dollars of presale investment. When problems

arise, many wafers are discarded

before the solutions are found, and

that costs plenty. Getting more

understanding and control over the

process steps, many of which are at low pressures, is a route to fewer

losses, less downtime, and better products. Tilford is not surprised

that much of his team's efforts now

focus on helping chip companies

develop more sophisticated

pressure-monitoring protocols.

"The entire vacuum group is a jewel

in the U.S. crown," Jaeger says. Adds

Levine: "I cannot say enough good

things about them." That's definitely

commentary fit for the fridge.

76
NIST

Indu6trial

Impact

Company:

Maxtor Corporation

Longmont. Colorado

3usiness:

Specializes in producing data

recording products

Number of Employees:

6,200

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with Industry to develop and apply

techno\oa[^, measurements,

and standards.

July 1994

Virtually every byte of data in all of the computers in all of the homes, offices, laboratories, and

manufacturing floors in the world is stored on exquisitely thin magnetic

films. These films most often are

frosted atop palm-sized aluminum

disks that subsequently become the organs of memory in computer hard

drives. In 1992, the hard disk drive market amounted to $24.5 billion,

according to statistics from the Department of Commerce.

Since an individual byte on a typical

disk resides on an area roughly the

size of a red blood cell, any

manufacturing defect big enough to be seen with the naked eye is a red

flag to anyone in the business of

selling the disks. And that is just what

happened in early 1993 to engineer

Michael Montemorra of Maxtor Corp., one of the country's "Big 5"

producers of hard disk drives. While

visiting the company's facility in Singapore where disks, heads, and

other components are assembled into "plug-and-play" hard drives, he

leamed that some of the disks

arriving at the factory from suppliers

had clearly visible ring-shaped defects

circling through the disk's data

storage areas. The disks should have

appeared perfectly smooth and shiny.

Though the problem was neither

widespread nor catastrophic, "it gave us a small yield problem," notes Montemorra. It was a glitch familiar

in the industry and one that had been

insidiously eating into profits.

Montemorra decided to get to the

bottom of the problem and hopefully

solve it. First he questioned the disk

suppliers, but they couldn't pinpoint

where the problem resided. So when

he got back to Maxtor engineering

offices in Longmont, Colo.,

Montemorra and co-workers began

examining defective disks with

conventional analytical tools, including scanning electron microscopy for looking closely at surface texture of the disks and

electron diffraction for examining the

crystal stmcture of the magnetic

films. Still, nothing obvious was

showing up.

At about the same time, Jim Lytton, a

senior materials scientist at Maxtor,

had established a research agreement

with a group of researchers at the National Institute of Standards

and Technology, just 32 kilometers

(20 miles) down the road in Boulder. He and others at Maxtor had known

about NIST for awhile, but when

Maxtor would ^et

access to new tools

for equality control

and basic research

that could help

them to improve the

equality of their

products and to

remain competitive.

Lytton heard that NIST mechanical

engineer Paul Rice was using an

atomic-force microscope (ATM) for looking at magnetic materials, he

decided the time was right to initiate a collaboration. Maxtor would get

access to new tools for quality control and basic research that could help

them to improve the quality of their products and to remain competitive.

77
At the same time, NIST researchers would leam more about the technical

problems of data storage technology

and could better assist U.S. players in an important global industry.

Montemorra hoped that access to an AFM and to an expert user might help

solve the defect problem. The AFM

held that kind of promise because it can create renditions of sample

surfaces down to the atomic scale. It does this by dragging an extremely

fine stylus across the surfaces like a

blind man sweeping a cane back and

forth to determine the lay of the land. In the NIST AFM, a laser beam

trained on a flat reflective plate on the back of the stylus deflects into a

detector as the stylus follows the microscopic hills and valleys on the sample surface. From those

deflections, a computer constructs an image of the surface. None of the

analytical techniques in Maxtor's own

labs could reveal the surface structure with as much detail as the AFM.

"We asked them [Rice and NIST

colleague John Moreland] if they

could see anything funny about the

defective disks with their AFM,"

Montemorra recalls. In short order,

I The AFM images

that Rice produced

at NIST's Moulder

' facility were pivotal

in helping Maxtor's

suppliers uncover

where their

processes had been

falling short.

I Rice produced revealing AFM images

j of the defective disk surfaces. When

! Montemorra sent these to the

suppliers who actually made the disks

for Maxtor's Singapore factory, the

defects soon began disappearing.

"You had to go right to the

people who were involved in the manufacturing process," Montemorra

notes.

The problem, it tums out, resided in an intermittent failure to meet the

specific conditions under which the magnetic films are deposited onto

! the nickel-plated aluminum disks.

I The deposition occurs inside a vacuum chamber. There, a strong

electromagnetic field transforms a cloud of gas atoms into minuscule

bullets that slam into a piece of metal

whose composition is the same as the magnetic alloy needed to coat the

disks. The sputtered metal atoms then

reassemble onto the blanks in thin

magnetic films that can store data

when a magnetic field is applied to them.

Getting the process to work

consistently as part of a commercial

manufacturing process begins as a maddening empirical exercise of varying the chamber temperature, the strength of the electromagnetic field, and other conditions until good . magnetic films are produced. Once

found, that hard-won set of conditions then serves as the key to the manufacture of high-quality

magnetic films. In Maxtor's case, those films translate into millions of

dollars worth of disk drives each year. Montemorra and Lytton say that the

AFM images that Rice produced at NIST's Boulder facility were pivotal in helping Maxtor's suppliers uncover where their processes had been falling

short.

With that win in the track record,

Maxtor engineers say they are looking

forward to continuing work with

NIST. The NIST researchers also have

plenty of experience with a magneticforce microscope (MFM), which they

have been using for an even longer

time than their AFM. The MFM can image a material's magnetic

landscape on the same fine scales

that the AFM can image a material's

topography. With these dual windows on magnetic materials, NIST

researchers believe there are prospects

for additional payoffs for Maxtor and

other companies.

70
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company:

optical E.T.C. Inc.

Hunts\ille, Alabama

business:

Developer of infrared-based

technologies for military and

commercial applications

Number of Employees:

The National Institute of

Standards and Techno\o^ is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's lecy\no\oq^

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

March 1994

Networking works, sometimes when

you're not even trying. R. Barry

Johnson, a former professor of

electrical engineering who now calls himself an infrared technologist, can

tell you so. The results so far from an unexpected collaboration with

researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, he says, are accelerated progress for his company's R&D and $3 million of research funding from the Navy.

What Johnson and his main NIST

collaborator, Michael Gaitan, are developing might be thought of as minuscule stoves having hundreds of burners and made out of tiny silicon

chips, aluminum, and a few other

ingredients. Their experimental

models today consist of square arrays

of "microheating elements," together

with microcircuitry that controls the pattem and intensity of heating,

all on a chip about the size of a

telephone number button. Johnson,

Gaitan, and other collaborators expect to make much larger arrays involving more than 1 6,000

individually controllable heating

elements. The tiny devices are made

by adapting mature microfabrication

techniques developed originally by

the microelectronics community.

The initial goal of all of this

microstovery, Johnson explains, is to

develop an inexpensive, versatile, and

reliable technology for "dynamic

themial scene simulation," which is

the art of emulating the themial

energy emissions of objects or even complex scenes like tanks on patches

of desert. The Department of Defense,

which has supported both Johnson

and Gaitan's work for years, is moving more and more toward

simulation and emulation

technologies like this one as a

hopefully cheaper and less risky means of testing equipment and

training personnel.

Johnson and Gaitan both envision

using their microfabrication skills

for non-military uses as well

sensors built into wings, bridges, and

even shipping crates that monitor,

locate, and record damaging

vibrations; chip-sized sensors that simultaneously sense the presence and amounts of many different pollutants in the air; or accelerometers for mechanisms that control and trigger air bags in cars.

These possibilities

are accelerating

along the R&P

process faster than

would have been

possible had they

not been networked

several years ago.

Gaitan and Johnson say these

possibilities are accelerating along

the R&D process faster than would

have been possible had they not been

networked several years ago by an Army contract officer working at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. The Army

happened to be supporting both

researchers for different projects.

When Gaitan traveled to Alabama to

discuss his project, the Army contract

officer arranged for Gaitan to meet

Johnson, intuiting that the two might

cook up good ideas relevant to the

Arniy's needs. Who could predict what

79
could emerge by mixing people with

expertise in infrared optics, electrical engineering, and microfabrication?

Plenty, it seems. For the first 2 years

after their initial meeting, Johnson

and Gaitan maintained informal

contact by phone, e-mail, occasional

visits, and the like. It was during that time that they began developing and

testing their ideas for mass-produced,

microfabricated thermal arrays. In

1992, Johnson and NIST made their connection somewhat more formal by

signing a Cooperative Research and

Development Agreement (CRADA)

which Johnson and Gaitan say has led

to several tangible benefits. As a result

of their joint work on thermal

displays, NIST is in the process of applying for a patent, an involved and

tedious process that Johnson says he

"This relationship is

in principle what

Congress intended"

with its legislation

to make the federal

government's

research assets

more accessible to

private companies,

Johnson notes.

and his company. Optical E.T.C., would not have pursued on its own.

I Moreover, Johnson credits his

association with Gaitan as a major

I factor in a Navy decision to fund a

project in which the two are co-principal investigators in an effort

to take their thennal-imaging

prototypes to the next stage of

development. The funding will span

3 years beginning in FY 1995 and will amount to about $3 million. Johnson

notes that his company already has an agreement with a California

company, Santa Barbara Infrared, to

distribute commercial products that may come out of the collaboration.

"This relationship is in principle what

Congress intended" with its

legislation to make the federal govemment's research assets more

accessible to private companies,

Johnson notes. "With this type of

assistance and motivation, I think we

will have a much stronger country."

&0
NIST

Induetrial

Impact

Company.

RolfJensen and Associates

Deerfield, Illinois

State Fire Marshal

St. Paul, iMinnesota

Donald Belles and Associates

iMadison, Tennessee

business:

Fire protection

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

August 1994

Every year fire wages war on the United States. In 1992 alone, nearly

2 million fires killed 4,730 people and

injured 28,700. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which

releases grim statistics like those each

year, estimates the property damage

caused by these 1992 fires at well over $8 billion.

Yet these numbers only hint at the

full cost of fire. Business interruptions

and closings, insurance and

litigation, fire protection and fighting,

adhering to construction and

manufacturing codes and standards,

and disaster recovery sum into a national cost that one recent govemment-commissioned report

estimates to be over $100 billion each year.

That is a compelling incentive for fire researchers and fire protection

engineers to develop tools for predicting the outcome of fires, says Tom Brace, Minnesota's State Fire Marshal. He says that predictive tools,

if used properly, can save lives, save money by giving more latitude to building designers, and save

businesses millions of dollars in

liability suits, which are traditionally

hard to defend against.

One of the tools that Brace uses more

and more is called Hazard I, a fire simulation program developed by

researchers at the National Institute

of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Into the model go data about a

building's design, materials,

furnishings, occupancy, and the nature of the fire. Out come

predictions about the temperature,

smoke and toxic gas concentrations

in each room, and the likely loss of

life and injuries. The development

team even included a psychologist to help with the human behavior

components of the model. Since 1988

when the original version of Hazard I was released, over 500 copies have

been sold to fire marshals,

engineering firms, consultants, and

others in the fire research, litigation,

prevention, and fire fighting

communities. The program—now

sold in its second upgrade—never

Programs like

Hazard I and

FPEtool ... have

become Important

components of big

dec\e\one that

Influence court

settlements, liability

claims, and

even entire

state economies.

will replace the judgment and

experience of human beings. Brace

stresses. But he adds that programs

like Hazard I and FPEtool, another

NIST production, have become

important components of big

decisions that influence court

settlements, liability claims, and even

entire state economies.

One high profile case in point is the new and enormous Mall of America

in Bloomington, Minn., which

opened in 1992- According to the mall's publicity office, more people

will visit the Mall of America each

year than Disney World, and it is expected to be a major source of
revenue for the state. Since tens of millions of people will be visiting the

facility each year, Brace wanted to be

extra sure that everything about the

mall was as safe as possible and

complied with regulations. That is why in late 1993 he sought out Jack

Snell, deputy director of the NIST

Building and Fire Research

Laboratory, at an NFPA meeting in Phoenix. Brace needed an objective

second opinion on the calculations

and simulations used by RolfJensen and Associates (RJA) of Deerfield, 111., whose fire protection engineers

worked on the design and fire modeling of the Mall of America.

Snell asked Richard Bukowski, a fire protection engineer at NIST, former

firefighter, and co-author of Hazard I,

to help out.

A key question for Brace was whether

people on the mall's fourth level, which hosts a l6-screen cinema and

many large restaurants, would have

enough time to evacuate the building

if a fire began, say, on the second

level. From their analyses using the NIST prediction tools, RJA was

confident that the answer was yes, but Brace wanted to make sure that the assumptions and data RJA engineers

put into their computer models were

appropriate and that RJA's

interpretations were sound. He also wanted to check out a few more

scenarios without having to do fullscale smoke tests in the mall, which

Brace says are "pretty disruptive and

may not be an accurate indicator

anyway." The models helped Brace to

validate RJA's work and deem the

Mall of America fit to be occupied.

NIST predictive

models are helping

the company

capture bi^ jobs on

high-rise buildings in

Singapore, Hong

Kong, and Jakarta.

"I didn't base my decision on the

model, but it was a key element that had to come up positive."

As for RJA, the prediction and analysis

tools are helping the company

capture big jobs on high-rise

buildings in Singapore, Hong Kong,

and Jakarta where Bukowski says

"designers, owners, and regulatory

officials recognize the fire safety

record of U.S. high-rise buildings."

RJA engineer Bill Webb concurs. "Anyone [in the building engineering

and design] business who wants to claim they are current with design

technology would have to have a knowledge of these tools."

The NIST fire prediction tools also are changing the context of product

liability litigation stemming from

fires. Claims that a particular product

or material present at a fire scene

contributed to an injury or death, for example, are difficult to confirm or

refute based on investigations that

rely entirely on human judgment.

The NIST fire models have made it

possible "to assess the relative role of a specific material or product in the

loss, freeing those whose product had

no impact and limiting the liability

for those whose role was small

compared to other factors," Bukowski

says.

Several small carpet firais that had

been caught up in such suits owe

their continued existence in part to Hazard I and FPEtool, claims Donald

Belles, a fire protection consultant in Madison, Tenn. He says he has

successfully absolved several carpet

mills from liability using NIST's

predictive models. The models have

become an integral part of the way

Belles does business.

Jon Nisja, one of Brace's deputies,

points to yet another important role that predictive tools are beginning to

play. Safety officials are slowly

moving away from rigid, prescriptive

building codes that stipulate in detail

precisely where electrical outlets,

lighting fixtures, vents, and other

building components have to be

placed during constmction. Better, Nisja says, are the more flexible "perfonnance- based codes" that consider the hazards unique to each

building. This approach ought to lead

to buildings that are safer, less expensive to build, and make more

sense for their occupants and users. It

also requires more skilled analysis by

code and safety officials since they no

longer can simply pull out a book of

specifications. "This is where models

developed primarily by NIST have a

great deal of advantage for code

officials," Nisja notes. What's more, when he has problems with the program he knows where to tum for

help. "NIST is extremely customer

oriented," Nisja notes. "I have called

for help on numerous occasions and

my experience has always been very

positive."

&2
NIST

Indudtrial

Impact

Bue'meee:

The steel industrv' Number of Employees:

180,000

The National Institute of

Standarcls and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with in^lustry to cievelop and apply

technology, measurements,

anii stan^lar<5ls.

March 1994

Steel. It is the strength and stability of skyscrapers and bridges spanning

miles. It is the stuff of machine tools and mass manufacturing. It is the material of this century's two gargantuan war efforts. It is big, big

business. In 1991, the U.S. steel industry sold $27.3 billion worth of material and, even after dramatically

paring back its workforce, employed

over 180,000 at 83 companies that shipped 78.8 million tons of steel.

From the early years of the century, the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (known as the National Bureau of Standards until 1988) has been woven intimately into the evolutionary process by which

steel has become one of the most

reliable, most used, and most

important materials of the age. Basic

steel is made from iron whose nonnal

carbon content of 4 percent or so by

weight is reduced to usually less than

1 percent and whose properties are extremely sensitive to precise

differences in composition. Special

alloys depend on specific additions

of other elements such as chromium

for stainless steel, or chromium,

tungsten, and vanadium for

particularly hard tool steels. The

central challenge of the industry is to produce the desired amount of steel with the specified properties with the

greatest possible efficienq.

To some industry representatives, the most consistent and crucial kind of

assistance that NIST has lent comes

in the fonn of Standard Reference

Materials, or SRMs as they are known

in the trade. NIST ships over 125

steel-related SRMs that manufacturers use for calibrating

instruments and validating in-house

measurements of their products'

chemical composition and physical

properties such as hardness and

electrical resistivity. Most of the

steel-related SRMs are chips, disks,

powders, or rods of steel alloys whose

chemical composition has been

measured with exceptional precision

and accuracy.

In 1993 alone, NIST shipped 5,963

SRMs related to the chemical

composition of steel alloys. These

SRMs are as central to a steel company's operations as a tape measure is to a carpenter. "We use

these things [SRMs] every day," says Thomas Dulski, a senior analytical

chemist at Carpenter Technologies

Corp., a century-old specialty steel company in Reading, Pa., which

"It would be a

different and lesser

industry if it had

not been for NIST."

supplied steel cables to the Wright

Brothers and now specializes in high-end steel alloys for such things

as surgical implants and parts for air bag systems. "I have worked in the industry for 30 years and I could not imagine the last 30 years without

[SRMs and] interaction with NIST. It would be a different and lesser

industry if it had not been for NIST."

Makers of huge volumes of basic steel

rely just as heavily on NIST's SRMs,

notes Dulski, who also is chairman of

the steel analysis committee of ASTM

(American Society for Testing and

Materials), a voluntary standards

organization through which

53
industries develop consensus on technical issues such as manufacturing and testing practices.

"Without those SRMs, their operations would be virtually

impossible," Dulski notes.

The NIST connection with the steel industry reaches nearly as far back as NIST's creation by Congress in 1 901

when the steel industry was still maturing from its industrial roots a few decades earlier.

At the time, railroad accidents were

occurring at a rate of over 4,000 each

year, causing an annual average of almost 13,000 deaths and injuries

between 1902 and 1912. The blame, it seemed, rested with broken rails, wheels, flanges, and axles pushed to

failure by a combination of excessive

loads, inadequate maintenance, and

The steel industry

now regularly

interacts with

NI6T via cooperative

research

arrangements,

consortia,

workshops, troubleshooting sessions,

and other

collaborative

mechanisms.

inferior iron and steel. Besides

subjecting specimens from railroad

disasters to chemical, mechanical,

and microscopic investigations to uncover the bases for good and bad

metal, NIST began supplying the

steel industry with some of the first "standard materials," which

companies used to better control the

properties of their products. That was

the start of an extended relationship

between NIST and the steel industry,

which Dulski says only becomes more

critical and diverse today. Besides

using SRMs, the steel industry now

regularly interacts with NIST via

cooperative research arrangements,

consortia, workshops, trouble- shooting sessions, and other

collaborative mechanisms whose

common goal is to improve existing

technologies and to develop new ones.

It would seem that this NIST-industry

connection is as strong as steel.

64
NIST

Industrial

Impact

Company:

U.S. industry'

Buelneee:

Everything from steel making to ice cream production

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

March 1995

Do not let the title fool you. Temperature-Electromotive Force

Reference Functions and Tablesfor

the Letter-designated Thermocouple

Types based on the ITS-90—also mercifully dubbed "Monograph

175"—is near, if not always dear, to the hearts of most industries in the United States and, for that matter, the world.

Produced by a multidisciplinary team

of engineers, physicists, and

mathematicians at the National

Institute of Standards and

Technology, it is a Rosetta stone by

which sense is made of literally

billions of electrically based

temperature measurements carried out every year using a ubiquitous type of themiometer known as a

themaocouple. The technical data

and formulas in Monograph 175 are

to thennocouples what graduation

lines are to an archetypal

mercury-filled glass thermometer.

Without these guideposts, neither type of measuring instrument would be

able to provide precise and reliable measures of temperatures.

"Monograph 175 is the global

authority" for those who make and

use thermocouples, says Richard

Park, chief engineer of Marlin

Manufacturing Corp., a company in

Cleveland, Ohio, that makes and sells

several million dollars worth of thermocouples each year. Published

in the fall of 1993, Monograph 175

replaces the previous version,

Monograph 125, printed in 1974. The new tome incorporates an updated

technical definition of the volt that

renders the data more accurate. Also,

it is based on the new International

Temperature Scale of 1990, or ITS-90.

What are thermocouples that they

need such attention by a federal laboratory? For one thing, they

constitute big business. Nothing is more basic and critical for many

industries than accurate measurements of the temperature of

their processes, materials,

instmments, and machinery.

According to estimates cited by

"Monograph 175

is the global

authority" for those

who make and use

thermocouples.

industry members, each year in the United States alone, up to 100 million new thermocouples begin service in venues as disparate as metallurgical

fumaces, residential kitchen ovens, food processing vats, jet engines,

chemical plants, medical clinics, and

the many fabrication chambers of the microelectronics industry. The

annual U.S. thermocouple market

alone extends into the hundreds of millions of dollars range; its reach is much wider.

Thennocouples serve the same

function as glass thermometers, but

they cover a far greater range—from

a frigid -270 X to a searing 1820 X.

Rather than relying on ups and

downs of a mercury column,

a thennocouple responds to temperature by producing a voltage

across its metallic components. At the

core of every thenmocouple is a couple

of wires or strips, each made of a

different metal. Platinum and

platinum/rhodium alloys are

&5
expensive materials well suited for measuring the temperature of molten

steel in a steel-making fumace.

Another example, a copper/

copper-nickel alloy thermocouple, is

less expensive and better for lower

temperature venues such as a medical

freezer.

The physical principle underlying a thermocouple's thermometric talent

is that a temperature-dependent

voltage forms between dissimilar

metals that are touching each other if a temperature gradient exists. As the temperature changes, so too does the

voltage. To make a practical device,

manufacturers join the two metals to form the basic couple and then

encase the assembly in a housing,

such as a small tube of steel or within a ceramic matrix. Leads from the couple then feed into a voltmeter and

from there into other electronic

components that process the thermocouple's raw voltage signals

into easily interpretable temperature

readings.

Therein lies the connection between

thermocouples and Monograph 175. Reading a thermocouple in the field

requires prior knowledge of precisely

what temperature each measured

voltage of the working thermocouple

ought to correspond to. It has been

NIST's responsibility for decades to make the required series of voltage

and temperature measurements to determine these correlations for each

of eight standard types of thermocouple. This validation

exercise is too time consuming,

technically difficult, and expensive for most individual companies to afford.

"The service your

group provides is

invaluable to the

equality of our

industry and its

continuous pursuit

of consistently

reliable and

more accurate

temperature

sensing devices."

From the resulting data come look-up

tables as well as mathematical

formulas that enable users to

translate and interpret the signals

from their thermocouples and to recognize and diagnose problems in

I the instruments when they do arise. The data in Monograph 175 also serve

as the ultimate standards for the metal suppliers and thermocouple

makers whose materials and products

need to perform within accepted

tolerances of the values.

Monograph 175's authority is global,

as Park pointed out, but he and others

in the U.S. thermocouple industry say

that they feel its value most right at home. Frank L.Johnson, president of the temperature measurement

company JMS Southeast, Inc., of

Statesville, N.C., expressed his company's view in a letter to George

Bums, one of the lead NIST scientists

on the project. He put it this way:

"The service your group provides is invaluable to the quality of our

industry and its continuous pursuit of

consistently reliable and more

accurate temperature sensing

devices."

Metallurgist B. Forrest Hall, director

of Research and Development at Hoskins Manufacturing Co. in Hamburg, Mich., says his company

derives another value from the thermometry efforts at NIST. The

90-year-old company has been a dominant U.S. player in the business

of making the metal wires for thermocouples—a task that requires

precise metallurgical control. Hoskins

traditionally has sold its metal

components to other companies that assemble them into thermocouples.

In May of 1994, however, Hoskins

launched a new thermocouple

product of its own. Prior to the launch, the company sent a prototype

to NIST where members of the thermometry group subjected it to a

1,000-hour, high-temperature

stability test. It remained within

specifications cited in the monograph.

"These data are key for us in introducing this product," says Hall.

Monograph 175 need never become a household reference, but in its own

hidden way, it is very much that.

&6
3a\dr\Qe National

Quality Program

Impacts

&7

NIST

Industrial

Impact

3a\dr'iQe National

Quality Program

The National Institute of

Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce's Technology

Administration. NIST promotes

U.S. economic growth by working

with industry to develop and apply

technology, measurements,

and standards.

March 1994

By the 1980s, many industry and

govemment leaders in the United

States firmly believed that a renewed

emphasis on quality was no longer an

option for American companies but a

necessity. An ever growing world

market was, and is, demanding

quality goods and services. But many

American businesses either didn't

believe quality mattered for them or

didn't know where to begin.

To accelerate a small, slowly growing

U.S. quality movement, the Malcolm

Baldrige National Qualit}' Award was

established by Congress in 1987 to promote quality awareness, to recognize quality achievements of

U.S. companies, and to publicize

successful quality strategies.

The Baldrige National Quality

Program, developed and managed by

NIST with the cooperation and

financial support of the private sector, has proven to be a highly successful govemment and industry team effort. Over the past 6 years, the award

program has encouraged thousands

of U.S. companies to adopt quality

improvement strategies. According to a recent report by the Conference

Board, a private business membership

organization, "A majority of large

U.S. firms have used the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality

Award for self-improvement, and the evidence suggests a long-term link between use of the Baldrige criteria and improved business performance."

While quality management cannot

guarantee success, the Baldrige award

winning companies and many others

believe that investing in quality can

lead to outstanding retums, both for

individual companies and the

country.

For example, Thomas N. Kennedy, an

executive with Solectron Corp., says, "We embraced the Baldrige criteria in 1989 and continue to use it as a

template for process improvement as well as for driving leadership and

employee involvement in all aspects

"The evidence

suQQeete a

long-term link

between use of the

Baldrige criteria

and improved

business

performance.*'

of quality. As a result, annual revenue has increased over threefold in the

last 4 years, from $130 million to $407 million. ... Net income has

increased from $4.3 million to $14.5 million ... jobs have increased

from 1,500 to over 3,700 and

Solectron's customer satisfaction index grew to 93 percent." Based in Califomia, Solectron, a 1991

Baldrige Award winner, provides

manufacturing services to the

electronics industry.

In the early 1980s, senior

management at Ames Rubber Corp., a 1993 Baldrige Award winner, realized

that the intemational marketplace was changing dramatically. The

New Jersey company of about

450 employees produces mbber

rollers for office machines and highly

specialized automotive parts. Even

though the firm was doing well both

69
in Europe and the United States, its customers were demanding products

that met more exacting quality

requirements at lower prices. Offshore

competition was emerging, and it became evident that business as usual

would not suffice.

With help from Xerox Corp., its prime

customer, Ames Rubber instituted a new work process in 1987 based on

quality management. Their success can be measured by a 3-year,

48-percent increase in productivity, a

defect rate that has plummeted from

30,000 parts per million in 1989 to

just 11, and savings from teammate

ideas of over $1.2 million in 1993

alone.

Another 1993 Baldrige Award winner,

Eastman Chemical Co., also looked to

quality management as a way of

getting back on track after losing

market share of a major product in

the late 1970s. Employing over

17,000, the company used the Baldrige Award criteria to help define

its quality culture and regain its competitive edge.

Eastman Chemical is indeed

competitive. For the past 4 years, over 70 percent of its worldwide customers have ranked Eastman as their number one supplier. Of the five

factors customers believe are most

The three publicly

traded whole

company Baldrige

winners

outperformed the

Standard & Poor's

500 from the time

they won through

Sept. 30, 1993, by a

factor of 5.6 to 1.

important—product quality, product

uniformity, supplier integrity, correct

deliver)^ and reliability—Eastman

has been rated outstanding for

the past 7 years. And, quality

management helped the company

reduce the time to bring a new

product to market by 50 percent

since 199O.

Says company president Eamie

Deavenport, "Eastman, like other

Baldrige winners, didn't apply the concepts of total quality management

just to win an award. We did it to win

customers. We did it to grow. We did it

to prosper and to remain competitive

in a world marketplace."

Other Baldrige winners have similar

stories:

At Federal Express Corp., a 1990

winner, ideas from Quality Action

Teams have saved the company

almost $29 million.

At 1988 winner Globe

Metallurgical, exports have grown

from 2 percent to 20 percent of sales from 1988 to 1992, while overall sales grew by 24 percent.

Customer accounts at Granite

Rock Co., a 1992 winner, have

increased 38 percent from 1989

through mid-1993-

Since 1987, Motorola Inc., a 1988

winner, has increased its sales from

$6.7 billion to $17 billion. In

addition, the company has added

18,000 employees and productivity

has increased 126 percent. Also, by

reducing manufacturing defects. Motorola has saved $4.6 billion since

1987 in manufacturing costs.

According to an article in the

Oct. 18, W\Business Week, the

three publicly traded whole company

Baldrige winners outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 from the time they won through Sept. 30, 1993,

by a factor of 8.6 to 1.

90
Index of Companies

3M 27

Accuwave 9 Air-Conditioning and

Refrigeration Institute 49

AlliedSignal Inc 23

Amersham/MediPhysics 51 Ames Rubber Coip 89

Analogy Inc 53

Aphios 11 APX International 13 ASC 13 AT&T 23

AT&T Bell Laboratories 59 Auto Body Consortium 13 Automotive Composites Consortium . 55

Bristol-Myers Squibb 51 Carpenter Technologies Corp 83

CEMCorp 57

Chrysler Corp 13,55

Classic Design 13

Clipper Diamond Tool Co. Inc 35

Coastal Technologies Inc 43

Coming Inc 59

Crucible Compaction Metals 6I Custom Microwave 67

Dee Inc 37

Detroit Center Tool 13 Diamond Semiconductor Group ... 15 Donald L. Belles and Associates .... 81

DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical .... 51 DynaMow 39

Eagle-Picher Research Laboratory . . 17 Eastman Chemical Co 89

E.Ldu Pont de Nemours & Co 49

Engineering Animation Inc 19

Federal Express Corp 89

Ford Motor Co 55 Gas Processors Association 63

General Motors Corp 13,55

Globe Metallurgical 89

Granite Rock Co 89

Hewlett Packard Co 65

High Precision Device Inc 67 HJE Co. Inc 41 Hoskins Manufacturing Co 85

HYPRES Inc 67

Illinois Superconductor Corp 21

Intel Supercomputer Systems Division . 69

Intelsat 71 Intemational Business Machines Corp. 23

ISI Automation Products Group .... 13 JMS Southeast inc 85

Lake Shore Cryotronics Inc 73

Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. Inc. . . 75

Mallinckrodt Medical 51 Marlin Manufacturing Corp 85 Maxtor Coip 77 Minnesota State Fire Marshal 81

Modem Engineering 13 Motorola Inc 89

National Center for Manufacturing Sciences 23

Nonvolatile Electronics Inc 25

Nordion Intemational 51

Optical E.T.C. Inc 79

Packard Instmments 51 Perceptron 13 Progressive Tool 13 RMC Inc 67

Rolf Jensen and Associates 81 SAGE Electrochromics Inc 27

Sandia National Laboratories 23

SDL Inc 29

Solectron Corp 89

Spartanburg Steel Products Inc 43

Syncor Intemational 51 Tera Computer Co 69 Texas Instmments Inc 23

Thomson Berry Farms 45

United Technologies/

Hamilton Standard Corp 23 Xerox Corp 29

X-Ray Optical Systems Inc 31

91

U.S. DEPARHVIENT OF COMMERCE

Ronald H. Brown, Secretary

Technology Administration

Mary L. Good, Under Secretary for Technology

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Arati Prabhakar, Director

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001

(301) 975-2000

Boulder, Colo. 80303-3328

(303) 497-3000

September 1994; reprinted with revisions March 1995

NIST Special Publication 872

Prepared by the Public Affairs Division SP 872 Staff: Ivan Amato, Michael Baum,

Mark Bello, Virginia Covahey, Susan Ford,

Jan Kosko, Sharon Shaffer, and Sheila St. Clair

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 diat the products

mentioned are necessarily the best available for the purpose.
Nisr