Where Industry and Security Intersect
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Washington, DC 20230
24 April 2007
- The SITAC meeting was held at the Department of Commerce in Room 3884 from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. The meeting began with a brief introduction of the attendees. Mr. Goodrich (Fluke Corporation), chair of the SITAC, provided several handouts including the minutes and membership roster for the meeting. These handouts included the meeting agenda and a list of committee members.
- The open session covered the following topics which was followed by a brief closed session:
- John Goodrich opened the meeting with an introduction of all of the attendees. The general session is normally attended by industry and government members as well as the press. However, the Department of Defense did not attend this meeting.
Note: Four new companies have applied to join the SITAC and are being processed.
- Shortly after the introductions, John Goodrich introduced the Director of the Office of National Security and Technology Transfer Controls Bernie Kritzer who summarized licensing statistics for sensors and cameras. He explained that from FY2006 to FY2007 that there was a 23% decrease in licensing volume which he believed resulted from the 9 hertz decontrol which was published a year ago as well as strong growth in foreign availability of infrared cameras. His office processes approximately 8,100 licenses per year with an average processing time of 32 days. His office also performs approximately 4,000 classifications and 300 commodity jurisdictions per year as well. Very few of the latter actions involve night vision related commodities. They pertain mostly to encryption products.
- Mr. Goodrich next described some of the displays he had seen at the SPIE show in Orlando, Florida. The SPIE show is a major symposium where industry and government present results and commercial advancements in infrared technology. This show highlighted the FLIR Systems incorporation of uncooled technologies in the BMW automobile. Redshift and Multispectral Spectral Incorporated also had display areas. ULIS (France), SCD(Israel), NEC (Japan), Bae Systems (UK), and DRS (US) were highlighting developments in the 640x480 uncooled microbolometer focal plane arrays which are now using 23.5 micron pixels. Dali (PRC) is producing a 160x120 small camera based on the ULIS 160x120 aSi focal plane array and will be releasing a new 320x240 camera this year. Image intensifier based viewers, which usually display their image in standard green, are now moving to color displays.
Note: John Goodrich believes that megapixel IR microbolometers will be available within a year.
- Dr. Valesse of CEO of Electrophysics explained that ULIS used to lag the US in microbolometer technology. However, now they have a full production capability ranging from 160x120 to 640x480 all using 25 micron pitch detectors. The US and France are currently researching 17 micron detector geometries which shows how competitive the uncooled technology has become. He also mentioned that the costs of uncooled focal plane arrays and cameras are coming down. Furthermore, he mentioned that germanium lenses, which are a critical component of uncooled camera systems, are becoming more difficult and costly to obtain. This is because the supply of such lenses are being consumed overseas.
- John Goodrich solicited members to help form a working group to help rewrite the CCL as suggested by Matt Borman earlier in the year.
- John Albert discussed the low light level proposal. He commented that there are a number of competing technologies such as electron multiplied charge coupled devices (EMCCDs), image intensified devices (I 2), 2 dimensional indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) focal plane arrays some of which are produced outside of the US by companies such as Hamamatsu in Japan. He believed that there should be carve outs for certain scientific camera systems such as those designed to operate using pour fill dewars which require liquid nitrogen cooling for operation.
- John Albert also commented that there was a good chance that deletion of a note to control germanium and silicon photodevices would be accepted.
- Les Tack of Intevac mentioned that 300 electron noise floor was being achieved routinely in a number of mass marketed items such as in digital cameras, automotive camera systems, and in other applications driven by low noise CMOS and CCD devices.
- John Varesi commented that traditional foundries are being used to improve performance of low light level devices. CMOS is getting better and competing with EMCCDs. There is a gap within the control text as new technologies emerge. In the past, there were two main categories- image intensification and focal plane arrays being controlled. Recent advancements as exemplified in terahertz and EMCCD devices highlight the need to revise existing control language.
- John Goodrich adjourned the open session and called to order the closed session.