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OPEN SESSION (April 25, 2007):
1. The ISTAC meeting opened with introductions and solicitation of comments from the public. There were no comments from the public. Approximately 30 people were in attendance. New member Jeff Rogers of Applied Materials was welcomed.
2. Maggie Hershey of SEMI provided an informational overview of the export control/trade compliance workshop that was held March 23, 2007 at Semicon China. Key points were there is increasing interest in this workshop is expanding both in terms of number of participants (~80) and subject matter (export control, customs and logistics).
3. Greg Taylor of Intel presented an update in Intel’s processor technology roadmap. The first observation is that the usual trends continue: Moore’s Law still holds; the per-transistor price continues to decrease; feature sizes continue to decrease; and globalization of the marketplace becomes more pervasive. With regard to processing trends, there is still a new process generation approximately every two years. With regard to processor architecture, there is more parallelism (more cores per processor) and more integrated cache memory. This presentation was informational only; no specific ISTAC action is required at this time.
4. As part of the question-and-answer session for Intel roadmap, a lively discussion ensued regarding deemed exports. A wide variety of opinions were expressed on the application process for deemed export licenses; on the supporting documentation required as part of the application process; on the compliance requirements for companies and foreign national employees working under deemed export licenses; and on the implications for US industry. Recognizing the considerable ISTAC interest in this topic, it was agreed to discuss the matter with BIS later in the meeting and at a future meeting.
5. Bernie Kritzer of BIS provided a summary of BIS activity. Key points were:
-A summary of BIS activity and licensing statistics.
-The implementing regulation for the Dec 2006 Wassenaar update is still in interagency review, with only minor issues pending resolution.
-An explanation of the DEAC and its charter. It was noted that the DEAC, being a limited-term committee, is significantly different than the ISTAC.
6. John O’Boyle of QP Semi provided an information overview of counterfeit components. Three causal factors were identified: 1) Users of COTS parts, because their motivation is usually price without regard to long-term availability (lifecycles of COTS components are much shorter than lifecycles of government and military programs). 2) Device manufacturers, because they do not consider customers’ lifecycle issues in their product planning. 3) Government oversight, which is considered inadequate relative to the size of the problem. Several possible solutions were presented, as were several fascinating examples of counterfeit components. Finally, John noted that several groups are actively involved in anti-counterfeiting efforts: the EU-based Components Obsolescence Group; the Union Technique de l’Electricite’s Groupe Obsolescence des Equipements Electroniques; the SIA’s Anti-Counterfeit Task Force; and the US Chamber of Commerce’s Consortium Against Counterfeiting and Piracy.
7. Harvey Trop of JDSU presented on technology issues in Cat 5 Part 1 for which changes to the Wassenaar control thresholds might be considered. Key points were:
-The technology threshold for WDM (5.E.1.c.2.d), currently eight carriers per optical window, is outdated. Technology for 40 carriers per window is widely available, and technology for 160 carriers per window has been demonstrated. There was some discussion as to whether the technology control might more appropriately refer to wavelength (tolerance/drift of the laser, or discrimination of the filters) than to number of carriers, but it was felt that it would be more important to seek relaxation to the number of carriers than to change to control parameter itself.
-The technology control for optical amplification (5.E.1.c.2.b) refers to praseodymium-doped fluoride fiber amplifiers (PDFFA), whereas the corresponding equipment control (5.B.1.b.2.b) refers only to “optical amplification”. The suggestion is that 5.B.1.b.2.b should be modified to limit its scope to only PDFFA.
-The intent of the technology control for optical switching (5.E.1.c.3) encompasses all types of optical switching, but there while optical packet (information) switching might be important to control, a common application of optical switching is wavelength add/drop (wavelength-selective switches) and this is a common technology that might be considered for decontrol
-The technology threshold for data transmission (5.E.1.c.1) is currently 15 Gb/s and this threshold remains appropriate. There is a natural breakpoint at ~10 Gb/s that was appropriately decontrolled when the 5.E.1.c.1 threshold was relaxed to 15 Gb/s. But 40 Gb/s transmission remains a niche market with significant technology obstacles.
It was agreed to include these issues in the CCL Comprehensive Review and to consider the WDM and optical amplification as possible Wassenaar issues for 2008, and to also consider optical switching as a possible Wassenaar although perhaps not until 2009. Jonathan will forward information as appropriate facilitate communication between Harvey Trop and Frank Quick. Jonathan will also work with Harvey to draft Wassenaar proposals to be submitted to BIS for consideration in 2008.
8. The planned presentations on Information System Technology in the MCTL and on Commercial Encryption Technology were postponed to a future meeting.
9. Status reports for each of the sub-categories of the CCL Comprehensive Review were provided by the respective leaders/facilitators.
-Cat. 3A: Major issues under consideration are: 1) rationalization of related control entries across 3A001 and 3A002; 2) identification of possible “empty boxes” in the list; 3) replacement of qualitative control language with quantitative control language; 4) simplification and clarification of the AT controls, with particular emphasis on 3A992.a.
-Cat. 3B: Major issues under consideration are 1) reconsideration of cluster tool decontrol; 2) reduction of ambiguity that results from use of qualitative terms and the lack of definitions for those qualitative terms; 3) recognition that many semiconductor manufacturing processes are probabilistic and revising the control language accordingly to replace deterministic technical parameters with probabilistic parameters.
-Cat. 4: The plan is to write a strawman version of Cat. 4 with particular effort on simplification of the AT-controlled items.
-Cat. 5 Part 1: The plan is to identify entries within Cat. 5 Part 1 that may be in need of change and to try to be forward-looking and identify emerging telecomm technologies that may merit control.
-Cat. 5 Part 2: The plan is to write a strawman version of Cat. 5 Part 2 by inverting the decontrol notes to create a positive list. It is recognized that this would remove the umbrella of automatic control of all cryptographic items and that there is risk associated with this approach. Nevertheless, the decision is to proceed with this strawman approach, as that is considered to be the best way to evaluate its feasibility and desirability.
10. The open session was adjourned.