By John Rhea
GAITHERSBURG, Md. - Officials of the U.S. Commerce Department`s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are initiating two new competitions for cost-sharing research projects in microelectronics and photonics manufacturing as part of their 1998 Advanced Technology Program (ATP).
The two, for which proposals are due at NIST by April 8, are among eight initiatives (most of them outside the electronics area) due to begin this year and funded at $82 million. NIST officials have established a threshold of $2.6 million a year for large companies, whose leaders must supply at least 60 percent of the total project costs.
The purpose of the microelectronics ATP is to develop an infrastructure in materials, design, manufacturing, and testing across the spectrum from chips to board interconnections. The program manager is Michael Schen; contact him by phone at 301-975-6741, or by e-mail at [email protected].
The photonics ATP aims at the tools that manufacturers need - such as packaging technologies, simulation and modeling, processing, and instrumentation - to get into volume production of photonics-based products. The program manager is Philip Perconti; contact him by phone at 301-975-4263, or by e-mail at [email protected].
