ATP project awards in 1996 - so far

Electronic News, March 25, 1996

Washington--With the mandate to provide cost-shared funding to industry for "high-risk R&D projects with the potential to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the U.S.," the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Program (ATP) funding so far for 1996 includes the following:

* Advanced Process Control Framework Initiative. (Honeywell Technology Center, Minneapolis; Advanced Micro Devices, Sunnyvale, Calif.) The award is to develop "the basic framework for an integrated factory-level production control environment for the semiconductor industry that will control lot production across the factory and enable real-time, automated feedforward and feedback refinement of individual process steps." Requested ATP funds: $4.9 million; estimated project budget: $10.1 million.

* Solutions for Manufacturing Execution System-Adaptable Replicable Technology (SMART). (National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols Consortium, Stamford, Conn. Consortium members include GM North American operations, Warren, Mich.; IBM, Stamford, Conn.; MESA International, Pittsburgh.) The funding is expected to provide for "the integration and interoperability of the present generation of piecemeal and customized MES applications into a generalized manufacturing framework for the optimization of efficiency and agility in a large diversity of factory settings." Requested ATP funds: $12.8 million; estimated project budget: $26.2 million.

* Model-Driven Application and Integration Components for MES. (Vitria Technology Inc., Palo Alto, Calif.) The mandate is "to develop an MES architecture based on a small set of software 'engines' to provide general solutions for major tasks, which are then tailored to specific user applications by writing an application model to drive the engine." Requested ATP funds are $2.0 million, with an estimated project budget of $2.4 million.

Generally, the requested funds "come close to being fulfilled, except for minor adjustments," a NIST spokesperson said.