RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT ON STANDARDS, MEASUREMENTS AND TESTING
IN THE USA
Robert E. Hebner
National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA
Introduction
It is with great pleasure and humility that I accepted the invitation
to speak at the 25th anniversary conference of the BCR (Bureau Communautaire
de Reference). The BCR, as part of the European Commission, and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), as part of the U.S. Department
of Commerce, each recognize that measurement capability is an essential
ingredient of trade and regulation. Consequently, both organizations are
directing research toward assuring that an adequate measurement base will
exist to support efficient trade and regulation as products and processes
grow in technological sophistication and complexity. I am pleased to learn
about what you are doing and to share with you this brief summary of our
work.
We in the U.S. Department of Commerce are particularly comfortable with
the theme of this conference, Measurements: a key to competitiveness.
There has never been a time in which measuring accurately has been more
important to a nation's economic health. This is an age in which semiconductor
devices shrink to half their previous size every 18 months and measurement
advances depend on microscopes that "see" individual atoms. The longevity
and reliability of car engines depend upon manufacturing tolerances of
micrometers - about the width of a single bacterium. Our global communication
systems rely on accurate clocks synchronized to within a millionth of a
second. Treatment of many diseases relies on carefully quantified doses
of radioactive drugs. A nation's measurement infrastructure is growing
in strategic importance. It's easy to understand why. Global market competition
is becoming more technology intensive, and trade -- especially, exports
of high-technology products -- is becoming a more significant determinant
of economic health.
NIST performs cutting-edge scientific research to provide the measurements,
standards, and metrology systems needed by industry to develop and trade
in new products and by government to support intelligent regulation. Of
NIST's appropriated annual budget of about $650 million, $275 million supports
standards and measurement-related research and services. Outputs of these
activities include: 2,000 technical publications, nearly 9,000 user-paid
calibrations and tests, and sales of 38,000 Standard Reference Materials
(SRMs) and 5,300 Standard Reference Data database units. These are needed
to support one of the largest and most technically advanced economies in
the world.
Further, NIST has two programs designed to accelerate technology development
and improve business performance. The Advanced Technology Program (ATP)
is a unique partnership between government and private industry. The ATP
accelerates the development of high-risk enabling technologies that are
essential to the development of new products, processes, and services that
are still years away from the market or from industrial practice. Research
priorities for the ATP are set by industry, but the program only selects
projects that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits
for the economy. Small and medium-sized manufacturers are given the help
they need to succeed through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).
In the United States, the closest parallel to this outreach system of technical
assistance is the model of U.S. agricultural extension centers that help
farmers to learn about and adopt modern agricultural practices. MEP centers
are located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. They provide even the smallest
firms with access to more than 2,000 knowledgeable manufacturing, business,
and trade specialists. Each Center has the ability to provide technical
and business solutions to help businesses improve performance and increase
sales and exports.
Quality
In the late 1980's, NIST was given responsibility for establishing a
national quality program, including the annual selection of companies that
win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The program's approach
is nearer to measurement than to prescription. We worked with industry,
in the U.S. and around the world, to understand ways to determine the degree
to which an organization has achieved quality business processes. The results
of this research have been translated into the Baldrige Award criteria,
which are regularly reviewed and updated. About 40 companies have won the
award, but more than a million copies of the criteria have been distributed
worldwide. Many companies use the Baldrige criteria to improve their operations,
and to evaluate their quality improvement efforts. NIST also uses the criteria
in its own activities. As for the award process, up to two Malcolm Baldrige
National quality Awards may be given each year in each of three categories:
1) manufacturing companies, 2) service companies, and 3) small businesses.
As a result of recent legislation, the 1999 awards will be expanded to
five categories, including education and healthcare organizations. Seventy-eight
percent of CEOs recently surveyed found the program either "extremely valuable"
or "very valuable" in stimulating improvements in quality in businesses.
The most visible indicator that the criteria are measuring quality in a
way that has a positive effect on the bottom line, however, is the fact
that the winners' stock has outperformed the Standard and Poor's 500 by
a factor of three.
NIST Measurement Support for Trade
International Standards
Trade policies and agreements are vitally important to efforts to create
a world market with a "level playing field." Increasingly however, sophisticated
measurements, conformity tests, normative standards, and reference materials
and data are required to trade successfully in the world market. To meet
these needs, the U.S., with support from NIST, is working to enhance and
strengthen its voluntary standards system so that it may provide input
into international standards development and to streamline its development
process to meet rapidly changing industrial needs.
On September 23, 1998, in conjunction with the U.S. celebration of World
Standards Day, NIST and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
co-hosted a summit to discuss issues in developing, supporting, and using
national and international standards, especially those that significantly
affect U.S. manufacturers and exporters. Representatives from standards-developing
organizations, industry, government, consumer, and other stakeholder groups,
participated in discussions to develop a more effective national standards
strategy that will meet the needs of both the private sector and the government.
Standards development processes will benefit from a careful self-examination.
Many of today's processes were developed during an earlier time when business
practices were much different. Today, standards must not merely cope with,
but actually enable change. Standards are vehicles for reducing cycle times;
fostering new methods, such as rapid prototyping, virtual and distributed
manufacturing, and enabling rapid, effective introduction of new technology
into products and processes. Moreover, small companies develop much of
the newer technology, and the system must assure that they have the same
real opportunity to influence international standards as do multinational
corporations.
While industry is examining its standards system, NIST is helping the
existing system to be as effective as possible. For example, STEP, the
international Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data, provides
the standardized representations of product information needed for electronic
communication between engineering and manufacturing. To move STEP to an
international standard in a timely manner, the ISO STEP Committee changed
the normal ISO procedures and approved electronic distribution of the draft
standards and electronic submission of comments. NIST has served as the
secretariat of this subcommittee since its inception, and has experimented
with methods to expedite STEP's development and adoption.
Another example of a new standards development process is the Versailles
Project on Advanced Materials and Standards (VAMAS). Its purpose is to
stimulate advanced materials trade through pre-standards research. This
is a highly successful ongoing cooperative effort among the original G-7
countries and the European Community to draft guidelines, codes of practice,
and specifications to harmonize materials test methods. The result of this
pre-standards work has been to accelerate the adoption of harmonized international
standards, eliminate technical trade barriers in new technologies incorporating
these materials, and help to set research spending priorities in cooperating
nations.
International Metrology
To continue global trade expansion, it is necessary to increase the
involvement of regional metrology organizations to assure uniform and accurate
measurements globally and in a cost-effective manner. Comparisons between
individual nations for all quantities and ranges of interest would be prohibitively
time consuming and expensive. Rather, traceability between individual laboratories
can be assured through a system of regional organizations linked through
key comparisons.
Laboratory accreditation, product certification, and management systems
are too often used as non-tariff trade barriers. Where one or more of these
processes is needed to improve confidence between buyers and sellers or
by regulators, NIST is working to assure that the systems are open and
add value, rather than cost. They must be a stimulus to get innovative
products to market faster and cheaper than if these processes were not
in place.
SIM - NET will be a step toward establishing mutual confidence in a
less costly and faster manner. This network, which is currently under development
in the Americas, will provide a method for remotely collaborating, in real-time,
on the calibration of electrical standards using transportable digital
multimeters. This system, if successful, will be expanded to accommodate
more types of measurements and to include all nation's participating in
the Inter-American Metrology System. It will allow metrologists from all
over the Americas to work together efficiently to assure a common measurement
base.
NIST Measurement Support for Society
Safer radiometry, more confidence in nutritional labeling, reduced fire
damage, and speedier product development are some of the practical advantages
to society of NIST research. Several hundred laboratory projects are under
way at NIST during a single year. Some examples described below illustrate
how measurement capability helps to ensure the health and safety of the
public, protect the environment, and advance the work of the criminal justice
community.
Health
NIST provides standards to assure the safety of the patient and operator
for all aspects of the mammography procedure. Optical-density, step-tablet
standard reference materials (SRMs) measure film performance; a "kVp" standard
ensures proper spectral distribution of x-rays, and a new national standard
for mammography radiation dose can be used with all 17 different types
of machines now in use.
Working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NIST established
a system for accrediting companies and interested states to provide NIST-traceable
proficiency testing for regulated chemical, microbial, radiological, and
toxicological parameters in drinking water and wastewater. Since the 1970's,
EPA has conducted semiannual proficiency testing of more than 4,000 public
and private sector laboratories. Now, in addition to EPA, an expanded network
of companies and states will be able to conduct proficiency testing, greatly
increasing the number of laboratories that can be accredited.
Screening of new materials for longer-lasting orthopedic implants has
been improved because NIST and four companies have teamed up under cooperative
research and development agreements to construct an apparatus to study
how potential, alternative implant materials hold up under the effects
of motion, environment, and a variety of stress-loading cycles. The old
testing process, which hampered the search for better materials, took about
six months, as compared to one week with the new apparatus.
The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (U.S. Public Law 96-359) requires
that nutritional information be provided for all packaged foods sold in
the U.S. In addition, the Infant Formula Act (U.S. Public Law 101-535)
requires that specific nutrients contained in infant formula fall within
a specified range or above a specified range or above a specified minimum.
NIST is in the process of certifying a number of natural matrix SRMs for
selected vitamins, cholesterol, fatty acids, and minerals as well as for
toxic trace elements to improve business and consumer confidence in the
measurement process.
Safety
America's nuclear power reactors were in danger of being shut down prematurely
because of inaccurate estimates of radiation embrittlement of the reactor
vessel. NIST researchers found that reactor vessel embrittlement can be
characterized by nondestructive nonlinear ultrasonic and micromagnetic
measurements made directly on the vessel. With these methods, NIST determined
that copper-containing welds have little effect on the lifetime and performance
of the steel. The result is an improved assessment of radiation embrittlement
and better predictions of crack-arrest toughness, thus providing critical
information on reactor safety and preventing premature closure of eleven
nuclear facilities at a cost of more than $3 billion.
The cost of full-scale fire tests on industrial facilities can run to
millions of dollars. NIST has developed methods to measure the performance
of fire-control technologies. It has coupled these with a new computational
method to assess the performance of fire-protection systems in industrial
facilities and to improve the accuracy of fire simulations. As a result,
the performance of sprinklers, draft curtains, and vents can now be simulated
as accurately as conducting a full scale test costing upwards of $50,000.
Environment
In conjunction with the EPA, NIST has initiated a new quality assurance
activity to assist the Aluminum Manufacturers' Association in the monitoring
of gases that may contribute to global warming. These gases are emitted
from aluminum processing plants when the extraction process has become
inefficient.
NIST, through the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program,
accredits laboratories for asbestos analysis in public buildings. This
10-year-old program has set up a suite of reference materials and reference
methods for characterizing materials, and it has specified quality and
technical requirements for the laboratories. Two programs have been instituted,
one for analyzing asbestos in building materials, (e.g., wallboard, floor
tile, etc.) and the second for analyzing asbestos in air.
Monitoring networks have been established by a number of government
agencies to measure the solar ultraviolet radiation that may be associated
with changes in atmospheric ozone, the incidence of skin cancer, changes
in the growth patterns of crops and forests, and other effects. Significant
variations, as large as 10 percent, have been observed between the spectral
irradiance scales used by the networks and the scale maintained by NIST.
A recent comparison, sponsored by NIST and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), was held to characterize parameters that affect
the accuracy of instruments deployed in solar UV monitoring networks. The
collaborative effort also made synchronized solar scans to compare the
performance of different instruments.
Criminal Justice
The NIST Office of Law Enforcement Standards applies science and technology
to the needs of the criminal justice community, including law enforcement,
corrections, forensic science, and the fire service. While the primary
focus is on the development of minimum performance standards, which are
promulgated by the sponsoring agency as voluntary national standards, the
office also undertakes studies leading to technical reports and user guidelines.
A small sample of the over 50 projects currently under way is described
below.
During the past several years, the office has funded fundamental research
and development on DNA forensic testing, with the goal of providing NIST
traceability to all U.S. crime laboratory measurements of DNA for human
identification. This work has culminated in two SRMs for nuclear DNA testing
and a soon-to-be-released SRM for mitochondrial DNA testing. These NIST
reference materials are now included as part of the FBI's Quality Assurance
Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories.
Studies have shown that crime laboratories are using a variety of approaches
for extracting drugs-of-abuse from hair. Although the laboratories can
successfully detect and quantify drugs that are present with good accuracy,
there is a significant level of false positives. Current research is exploring
new, potentially more reliable, techniques, such as the use of saliva as
a diagnostic sample medium, correlating drug concentration in saliva with
that in blood, and using electrophoresis for the rapid separation and determination
of drug concentration. In addition, a program of continued quality assurance
is under deployment to forensic laboratories.
As part of an update of the existing National Institute of Justice standard
for body armor, NIST is determining methods and protocols for testing contemporary
protective materials used for armor protection. This includes determining
an analytical technique for evaluating and ranking the threat ammunition
poses to individuals, and developing new measurement techniques to estimate
the protection provided by armor with respect to blunt trauma.
NIST Measurement Support for Industry
NIST was established to assist industry in the development of technology
needed to improve product quality, to modernize manufacturing processes,
to ensure product reliability, and to facilitate rapid commercialization
of products based on new scientific discoveries. It does this by providing
technical leadership for the vital base measurement units that support
the nation's technology infrastructure as well as derived units that are
more directly applied to industry measurement problems. Examples of some
of these applied measurements are described below.
National Semiconductor Metrology Program
Fast-paced development in the semiconductor industry requires dramatically
improved measurement tools to keep advanced microelectronic manufacturing
competitive. The National Semiconductor Metrology Program (NSMP) conducts,
often with industrial collaborators, projects associated with chip lithography,
interconnectivity, materials and bulk processes, and packaging. NSMP draws
on a full range of NIST expertise in semiconductor metrology to meet the
metrology needs of materials, equipment, instrument, and device manufacturers.
Projects focus on mainstream silicon CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor)
technology addressed by the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.
Some example projects are described below.
The scanning electron microscope (SEM) has become the instrument of
choice for in-line process inspection and metrology. Scanning probe instruments,
such as the atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopes, have recently
emerged to both complement and extend the capabilities of SEMs. NIST is
exploring potential by means of a tool that is unique. The tool is the
marriage of a compact scanning probe instrument with a high-resolution
field emission SEM. The combination of these two techniques is expected
to yield an instrument with superior qualitative and quantitative capabilities,
which will be a great aid in the development of standards for semiconductor
manufacturing.
Improvements in our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for
the formation, transport, and growth of particles are necessary to minimize
microcontaminants in semiconductor processing. NIST is using both measurement
and modeling techniques in order to gain an understanding of these physical
and chemical particle growth mechanisms in the gas phase in order to develop
microcontamination standards for the industry.
As semiconductor gate dielectrics reach atomic dimensions, their electrical
performance will become more difficult to predict and control with traditional
optical tools used during fabrication. There is a critical need for reference
materials and an accurate knowledge of layer structure so that optical
measurements will be better predictors of the electrical properties of
the films. NIST is developing more effective traceability mechanisms for
reference materials, developing accurate optical function data at processing
temperatures for crystal silicon and critical dielectric films, and improving
the understanding of structural properties of gate films.
Thin-film conductors are an essential component of all advanced electronic
devices. NIST is developing the metrology for evaluating the reliability
of electrical interconnects, for measuring pertinent mechanical properties
of thin metal films, and for understanding the microstructural processes
that affect reliability. Two reliability test patterns have been designed
to evaluate the major failure mechanisms of thin-film conductors. A third
is under way.
Polymers are widely used in electronic packaging in many applications.
Often, the polymer is in the form of a thin film on another material with
significantly different physical properties. Knowing and predicting the
dimensional changes of these films with temperature and humidity are important
for modeling the performance and reliability of complex assemblies. This
work is providing industry with robust measurement tools and data for characterizing
the dimensional stability of thin-film polymers.
NIST has developed a testbed for validating the performance of models
for widely used power transistors (insulated-gate bipolar transistors,
IGBT). This testbed has been used to evaluate the component libraries in
commercial circuit simulators. As a result, a major circuit simulator software
vendor has made changes that substantially improve the accuracy of its
IGBT component library.
Applied Measurements to Support Industry
The semiconductor industry is not the only high technology industry.
In fact, technology is improving nearly all industrial activities. For
example, NIST is developing measures and models that increase the accuracy
and productivity of high-speed machining processes for a wide range of
tools, workpiece materials, and configurations. Sample cost savings that
can be achieved by industry are $65,000 for an aircraft brake using a single
aluminum part to replace the expensive composite part. Ultimately, entire
aircraft wings could be machined in only two parts using these techniques.
Through a NIST-led national and international effort, the quality and
consistency of hardness testing for advanced ceramic materials has been
improved by a factor of four. Hardness testing procedures can now be reliably
used for specifications for critical applications, such as surgical implants,
heat exchangers, and engine components.
NIST is quantifying the error in dimensional measurements made with
laser tracker systems to decrease tolerances in large-part manufacturing.
Many large-scale parts lack interchangeability due to dimensional variation.
Large commercial aircraft may require more than one ton of shims, which
results in additional operational costs of nearly $1 million per year per
plane and requires custom-made replacement parts. NIST is participating
in national and international standard bodies to ensure that domestic manufacturing
needs are met.
The computer magnetic hard disk drive industry is increasing drive size
by 60 percent per year and will need recording heads with nanosecond switching
times within the next decade. However, using optical sampling and inductive
techniques with unprecedented temporal, spatial, and dynamic resolution,
NIST is now able to measure subnanosecond-switching times in magnetic recording
head material, five times faster than any previously measured switching
time. NIST also has measured critical processing parameters for creating
giant magnetoresistance, a technology that will be the basis for the next
generation of disk drive read heads.
Software quality is an increasingly visible problem. NIST is actively
working to develop tests and standards to measure software performance.
At the request of the Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronics
(IPC), NIST has developed a software program to test whether software complies
with an IPC standard designed to improve the transfer of information from
computer-aided-design (CAD) tools, to computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM)
tools. IPC views this software test program as a key element needed to
decrease the critical time-to-market for electronics manufacturers.
Conclusions
Rapid changes in technology and the globalization of commerce have put
traditional measurement systems under pressure to change. No longer can
we afford to select which comparisons to conduct between national laboratories
based on ad-hoc experiential data. We need to use the latest information
technology tools to acquire reliable comparison data. The data must be
accessible to all in a usable fashion. We must use reliable, rigorous methods
to determine whether we are, or how we can, meet international traceability
requirements to ensure free-flowing global trade in all goods and services,
but especially high-technology products. Finally, we must do all of this
at a cost commensurate with the benefit and at a speed that accelerates,
not impedes, time to market.
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