Caneus 2006 - Short Courses

To help participants understand the key issues and challenges in transitioning proposal concepts into mil-std prototypes. We will share Tanner Research’s best practices and lessons learned, and will discuss the economics of Tanner’s MEMS foundry.

Course Details

One technology application area cannot sustain an R&D effort by itself. To keep R&D going, engineering and marketing groups must propagate key technology for various application areas. For almost 20 years, Tanner Research has sustained development and expansion of its advanced CAD tool, the L-Edit suite, and raised funds for micro-nano-technology (MNT) research.

Tanner Research has faced distinct challenges in each stage of MNT research, including concept design, proposal, initial research (and marketing) to obtain Phase II funding, re-design, process development, fabrication (in-house and external), and application specific marketing for Phase III funds. Each of these stages has required different resources and skills—and sometimes, the research has shown that MNT technology may not be the optimal solution!

This course will examine the case study of Tanner Labs Foundry as a practical “how-to” for successfully going from concept to commercialization. We’ll highlight examples and lessons learned from Tanner’s L-edit layout tool and current Tanner Labs research, and we’ll study challenges from current micro thruster research.

Who Should Attend

Program managers; business development; engineering researchers; small business personnel.

What You Will Learn

Common challenges in transitioning laboratory prototypes into mil-std qualified systems and components.
The economics of a small-volume foundry business.
How to survive the cyclical nature of the MNT industry by using innovative government R&D grants and nurturing a small-volume customer-specific MNT foundry.
How to make the most of Small Business Initial Research (SBIR) grants, particularly in transitioning to Phase III funding.
The benefits of vertical integration—for example, the synergy created between Tanner’s L-Edit MEMS design software and a rapid prototyping MEMS fabrication facility.
How unique experience in micro-energetics has yielded additional benefits and created a knowledge base from which to address the fabrication and integration of MNTs with energetics.
A real-life example of how a DARPA grant was used to advance the specific impulse of miniature thrusters. The 18-month effort uncovered some high specific impulse chemical thrusters—as well as fundamental limitations of small-volume combustion.

Course Handouts

Course materials will be available electronically, upon request, after the conference.

Instructor

Amish Desai, MEMS Product Development Manager at Tanner Research, is currently working with micro thrusters, large displacement MEMS actuators, microfluidic technology, and polymer device packaging. He is also responsible for setting up a $2 million fabrication facility for the company. Before joining Tanner Research, Dr. Desai worked for Rockwell Scientific, where he was involved in the development of MEMS RF switch technology. Dr. Desai received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology. His research at Caltech focused on micro-machined active filters for airborne particle detection, fast mixers for protein folding studies, and micro-nozzles for electro-spray ionization mass spectroscopy. He holds four U.S. patents in micromachining and other areas and has authored articles in several trade publications on the topics of MEMS layout and design.

About Tanner Research, Inc.

Primarily started with a DARPA grant in the late 1980’s, Tanner Research now provides electronic design automation (EDA) software tools for over 25,000 users worldwide, and advanced technology research with focus areas in image processing and MEMS energetics. Tanner Research’s customers include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, NEC, Ricoh Company, Xerox, British Aerospace, the U.S. Department of Defense, and CSR plc, just to name a few. Its tools and resulting products are used in PCs, cell phones, imaging systems, peripherals, and other applications. For example, a designer at JPL used Tanner tools to design the seven imagers used on Mars Rovers.