To this date, product development has been conducted in a heuristic manner. In order to shorten the product development cycles, there is a need to reduce the search space and optimize data collection and analysis. To meet the prescribed objectives, there is certainly a need to understand the behavior of this process in more definite terms in other words, how the microwave interacts with various products under different conditions. However, thus far there is not sufficient data available to answer this question intelligently. This is mainly because of the difficulty of measurement in a microwave field and in the vacuum condition.
Temperature measurement is a critical variable for microwave power control and recipe conformance.
A preliminary comparison between an IR detector and a fiberoptic measurement also showed similar differences. However, those tests were conducted under atmospheric pressure. The discrepancy may be attributed to the fogging effect on the IR detector in the presence of steam. Nevertheless, it does raise concerns as to how reliably the IR detector measures under a vacuum. Infrared technology allows temperature sensing from a distance.