Enabling technologies for military and aerospace electronics designers
Integrated circuitsDARPA looks to JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography for X-ray lithography workLeaders of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., are looking to JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography Inc. in South Burlington, Vt., to advance the state of the art of X-ray lithography integrated circuit fabrication.Through an unnamed New England-based aerospace firm, DARPA awarded a $1.2 million contract to JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography to conduct semiconductor device demonstrations using point source X-ray lithography technology and other important tasks aimed at advancing the state-of-the-art of X-ray lithography.
The work involves collaboration with the research staff of the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vt.
Under this program JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography experts are to improve the performance of their current Model 5 stepper by adding a new subsystem known as an Adaptive Wavelength Illumination System (AWIS). The AWIS will increase the semiconductor wafer processing throughput rate of the stepper by automating certain stepper alignment functions currently performed manually by the operator.
JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography engineers also will replace critical components on the stepper with those built from composite materials, a move that would further enhance the stepper's manufacturing throughput speed and precision, company officials say.
JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography will work with the University of Vermont team to perform a series of tasks that, collectively, are called "Mask Magnification Correction" a method that provides for controlling X-ray mask magnification and demonstrating it on the manufacture of actual semiconductor devices.
"We have been supporting this X-ray lithography program for several years and look forward to continuing to work side-by-side with these dedicated organizations to demonstrate the full potential of point-source X-ray lithography as the most effective way to produce the high-performance semiconductor devices needed for several critically important military products programs," says Robert Selzer, JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography senior vice president for technology.
"We fully expect X-ray lithography to be able to produce circuits having feature sizes comparable to, or smaller than, those producible by other technologies," says Daniel J. Fleming, president of JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography.
For more information contact JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography by phone at by phone at 802-652-0055, by fax at 802-652-0826, by e-mail at [email protected], by post at 21 Gregory Drive, Suite 2, South Burlington, Vt. 05403-6033, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.nanolitho.com/.
Communications equipmentArmy telemedical teams link microscopes over the InternetU.S. Army doctors needed a way to share microscope images over the Internet to speed medical diagnoses and save on travel expenses. They found their solution from the Trestle Corp. subsidiary of Med Diversified in Andover, Mass.Army leaders are installing microscopes that are connected to the Internet at three important military hospitals to enable Army pathologists in separate locations to examine the same human tissue and work together on diagnoses.
The Internet microscopes are called MedMicroscopy Med Diversified. The MedMicroscopy systems are installed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., and the Ireland Army Community Hospital at Fort Knox, Ky.
"To date, the MedMicroscopy technology has allowed us to expedite diagnoses and efficiently allocate medical personnel, making it very clear that an increased investment in Internet microscopes would benefit the Army and its world class healthcare system," says Dr. Keith Kaplan, telepathology director of Walter Reed Medical Center. "Elimination of the transport of the slides is a true benefit to turnaround time and quality of care, particularly at a time when skilled pathology resources are scarce."
The MedMicroscopy system places images on a computer monitor in real time, and helps users to navigate slides while controlling the object, focus, and illumination — from installed locations around the world. Pathologists using the remote microscope system achieve the same look and feel over the Internet, as they would experience if they were operating a microscope onsite, Med Diversified officials say.
Army leaders contracted with Med Diversified In June 2001 to install the MedMicroscopy platform at four sites, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Fort Knox and Fort Bragg, company officials say.
For more information contact Med Diversified by phone at 978-656-9900, by fax at 978-656-9668, by post at 200 Brickstone Square, Suite 403, Andover, Mass. 01810, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.e-medsoft.com/.
DisplaysSaab chooses cockpit displays from L3 for JAS-39 Gripen jet fighterSystems designers at Saab Avionics in Stockholm, Sweden, needed cockpit displays for the SAAB JAS-39 Gripen jet fighter. They found their solution from the L-3 Communications Display Systems division in Alpharetta, Ga.Saab Avionics awarded a $10 million multi-year contract to L3 Display to provide multifunction, color, high-resolution, 6-by-8-inch active-matrix liquid crystal displays for the Gripen fighter.
"This long-term relationship is one of our most important, since it continues the development of the advanced man-machine interface on the Gripen, which requires high-performance displays with excellent optical features," says Micael Johansson, executive vice president of Saab Avionics.
"Saab Avionics will work together with L-3 Display Systems to ensure that the Gripen program will benefit from current and future display technologies," Johansson says.
The Gripen cockpit has three multifunction displays:
- a Flight Data Display, which presents all flight information necessary to fly and land the aircraft;
- a Horizontal Situation Display, which presents the tactical situation with symbols representing friend or foe, targets, threats, obstacles, and guidance information superimposed on a digital electronic map; and
- a Multi-Sensor Display, which shows radar modes or forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imagery.
These integrated, ruggedized displays meet MIL-STD-810 requirements. The Gripen is a fourth-generation swing-role fighter, designed to meet all known and perceived 21st century defense threats, L3 officials say. It operates with the Swedish air force.
For more information contact the L3 Communications Display Systems division by phone at 770-752-7000, by fax at 770-752-5525, by post at 1355 Bluegrass Lakes Parkway, Alpharetta, Ga. 30004, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.L-3Com.com/.
Computer peripheralsNASA high-endurance balloon experts choose BiTMICRO Networks for solid-state data storageSystems designers at the National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF) in Palestine, Texas, needed rugged and reliable data storage solutions for long-duration balloon flights. They found their solution from BiTMICRO Networks in Fremont, Calif.The NSBF is a NASA facility that launches, tracks, and recovers high-altitude research balloons and the scientific experiments suspended beneath them. NSBF experts are using BiTMICRO Networks flash drive solid-state disk (SSD) solutions for research, engineering, and operational support.
"We have an extremely experienced team. It's a great advantage to have such a team that designs and develops the balloon systems, but also knows how to identify and use new technology to our advantage. When we required a more reliable storage solution for long duration balloon flights, BiTMICRO's E-Disk was our choice," says Bryan Stilwell, NSBF long-duration balloon group supervisor.
"Every design aspect of our systems with BiTMICRO's E-Disks functioned successfully as planned," says Danny Ball, NSBF site manager. "The maximum and comprehensive success criteria for our balloon flights with E-Disks were met and exceeded, including our requirement for 120,000 feet systems operating altitude."
NASA balloons are involved in cosmic ray studies, gamma ray and X-ray astronomy, optical and ultraviolet astronomy, infrared astronomy, atmospheric sciences, magnetospherics, and micrometeorite particles.
BiTMICRO's first generation E-Disk flashdrive SSD offers sustained random read and write transfer rates of as fast as 68 megabytes per second and random access times shorter than 48 microseconds. The E-Disk's flash drive storage capacity ranges between 128 megabytes and 77 gigabytes, BiTMICRO officials say.
For more information contact BiTMICRO Networks by phone at 510-623-2341, by fax at 510-623-2342, by e-mail at [email protected], by post at 45550 Northport Loop East, Fremont, Calif. 94538-6481, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.bitmicro.com/.
Also contact the National Scientific Balloon Facility by phone at 903-729-0271, by fax at 903-723-8056, by post at P.O. Box 319, Palestine, Texas 75801, or on the World Wide Web at http://master. nsbf.nasa.gov/.
ComputersU.S. national imaging authority chooses SGI servers for digital archivingOfficials at the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) are using Origin 2000 servers from SGI in Mountain View, Calif., SGI for their digital imagery archives. The archives are one of the largest for digital imagery in the world and are also used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the intelligence community, SGI officials say.NIMA's National Information Library (NIL), launched in July 2000, will eventually store five years of digital imagery and archive 25 million images requiring 6600TB of storage, SGI officials say. The NIL relies almost exclusively on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software, including SGI Origin 2000 server technology, company officials say.
"Since its start, the NIL program has faced unique computational requirements that stretch the capabilities of available computing technology," says Cookie Watkins, NIL program manager at NIMA. "The NIL has successfully met the challenging needs for large computational performance, scalability, and sustained gigabyte-size I/O by deploying leading-edge SGI Origin 2000 server technology."
The SGITM Origin server family is used for high-performance, computationally intensive applications in business, government, and the scientific and technical communities, SGI officials say. Use of MIPS processors, combined with the SGITM IRIX operating system and the SGI NUMA architecture in a 64-bit scalable server environment, enables the SGI Origin family to scale to thousands of processors, providing the opportunity to seamlessly grow as customer requirements demand, company officials claim.
"NIMA has leveraged SGI's expertise in scalable server architectures and big data problems in order to ensure the reliable and timely delivery of products to NIMA's customers," Watkins says. "To date, hundreds of SGI processors and systems have been deployed at many locations in support of the program's mission. Superior SGI server technology and SGI's strong support have played a major role in our success."
"NIMA has a unique set of processing and solution requirements that has always pushed us to develop capabilities beyond the norm," says John Burwell, senior director for government industry at SGI. "Geospatial information systems, with requirements to acquire, process, archive and exploit large amounts of data, fit the sweet spot of scalable, high-bandwidth SGI compute and collaborative visualization solutions."
The NIL is part of the NIMA library family that includes the Command Information Libraries (CILs) and Image Product Libraries (IPLs). The CILs are smaller sets of the same hardware used for the NIL and provide storage and retrieval of imagery to the military commands, SGI officials say. The smallest member of the library family, IPLs provide seamless ordering, access, storage and dissemination of imagery to the lowest echelons in the services' command, control, communications, computers and intelligence architectures. IPLs are installed throughout the world.
The NIMA libraries are a key element of the U.S. Imagery and Geospatial Information Service (USIGS)-an extensive network of systems used by the DOD and the intelligence community to share and exploit imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information.
For more information on SGI Origin servers contact the company on the World Wide Web at http://www.sgi.com.
