TechUpdate Newsletter

Issue 2, 2012

	Building Better Prosthetic Parts

	Saving Space in Space

	Giving and Taking “No” for an Answer

	Extracting Business Success from Materials Research

	Small Sensors Spin Their Way into Common Products

	Hi-Fi Offering

	Secrets of Success

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Building Better Prosthetic Parts

Company applies braiding techniques for artificial limbs.

Mentis Sciences, Inc. (Manchester, NH), has developed procedures to make prosthetic components that weigh less and that require less material than conventional prosthetic parts.
The company, which has developed a specialty in building sockets for prosthetic limbs, now is working with two large prosthetics manufacturers to move its product into the market. Mentis also has started a dialogue with the Department of Veterans Affairs to determine whether its lightweight prosthetic sockets would be useful for providing mobility to wounded warriors and other military veterans.

Saving Space in Space

Technology seeks to bring efficiency to propulsion systems.

Frontier Engineering, Inc. (Simi Valley, CA), has developed a technology that could provide space savings in the propulsion systems used by commercial satellites.
The technology, a system developed with help from an MDA SBIR Phase II contract in 2007, replaces stored pressurized gas on satellites with a warm-gas generator for moving propellants from storage tanks to thrusters.

Giving and Taking “No” for an Answer

Uncovering the reality behind a rejection can help a technology find its proper path.

One of the goals of the Missile Defense Agency Technology Applications program is to help ensure that promising MDA-funded technologies do not wither and die on the vine—that they mature and seek their full potential for use by MDA, other agencies, commercial users, and the public. Small research-oriented businesses and organizations have served as essential engines of new technology creation for missile defense. They can make the big technology breakthroughs that government customers need, but they can’t always deliver products at the “big business” level that Uncle Sam often requires.

Extracting Business Success from Materials Research

MDA-funded company doubles staff, revenues with commercial contract.

Advanced Powder Solutions, Inc. (APS; Houston, TX), has nearly doubled its work force and its revenue during the past two years, thanks in part----- to a contract from a major oil-exploration company that enlisted APS to manufacture a composite product for clearing debris from deep wells.

Small Sensors Spin Their Way into Common Products

NVE builds MDA-funded technology into commercial success.

Nanoscopic sensors that grew out of MDA-funded research have found their way into products as diverse as electric stoves and wind turbines.
The sensor technology was developed by NVE Corporation (Eden Prairie, MN) and evolved from projects funded by MDA and its predecessor, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). The work included various SBIR and STTR contracts—including a 2002 Phase II STTR, with the University of Alabama as a partner. Projects focused largely on the development of technologies involving magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), an NVE-patented technology using electron spin to store data on an integrated circuit board. MRAM has been the basis of the company’s commercial success for more than 20 years.

Hi-Fi Offering

New line of transistors targets audio market.

SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc. (Starkville, MS), a manufacturer of silicon-carbide (SiC) transistor technology for high-power, high-efficiency, harsh-environment power-management and conversion applications, has launched a new family of low-cost SiC junction gate field-effect transistors (JFETs). The new products are targeted at high-end audio applications.

Secrets of Success

Veteran technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist shares lessons for building businesses.

Entrepreneur and investor Milton Chang serves as a panelist for Technology Applications Reviews (TARs) sponsored by the Missile Defense Agency’s Technology Applications program. These free events offer MDA-funded companies an opportunity to receive highly individualized analysis and recommendations from volunteer TAR panelists—who serve as a board of directors for a day. Panelists such as Dr. Chang donate their time to offer management guidance,


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