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For only the fourth time in its history, the branch of the U.S. Defense Department that helped jump-start the microsystems industry is welcoming a new director to oversee its MEMS efforts.
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The changing of the guard is part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s mission to bring fresh ideas and innovation into its research efforts and ensure that a spectrum of technologies gets consideration.
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William Tang, manager of the MEMS program for DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office, will step down July 1 after a three-year stint to take a position in the Center for Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
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Clark Nguyen, an associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan and vice president of Discera Inc., will assume the post after Tang leaves. In the meantime, both Nguyen and Tang share responsibilities at DARPA’s headquarters in Arlington, Va.
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The Defense Department created DARPA in 1958 in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik. The idea was to assure that the United States maintains a lead in military technology. It launched its MEMS initiative in 1992 to capitalize on the technology’s potential to make military equipment smaller, lighter, faster, more accurate and less expensive.
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The program evolved from a research effort to prototypes that include sensors to detect biological and chemical attacks and accelerometers for precision-guided missiles. As a funding agency, DARPA and its MEMS program provided critical support to a fledgling industry, allowing companies such as Analog Devices Inc. and Cepheid Inc. to refine manufacturing techniques and develop MEMS- and microsystems-based products. Managers play a critical role in selecting academic and industrial partners for projects and guiding them toward their goals.
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“It exposed me to the entire MEMS community, or at least the part funded by DARPA,” said Tang, an electrical engineer with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and holder of several MEMS patents. “I got an in-depth picture and broad perspective of the community,” including overseas efforts, he said.
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Tang’s legacy includes the transition of MEMS from standalone technologies to components integrated into products under development for DARPA.
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“DARPA decided MEMS was no longer a project but a core enabling technology,” Tang said. “My contribution was to see that bear fruit.”
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DARPA recruits scientists and engineers from industry, academia and government laboratories to serve as managers for three- to five-year stints. It looks for people with research, business and management skills and innovative ideas to fulfill its mission of nurturing bold and potentially revolutionary technologies. It lists the creation of the Internet and stealth aircraft among its successes.
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Tang offered DARPA a mix of industrial and academic experience. He worked as a researcher for Ford Motor Co. in the early 1990s and supervised the MEMS Technology Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory starting in 1996. He joined DARPA in 1999 and created two projects, the chip-scale atomic clock project and nanomechanical array signal processors, miniature and low-power devices designed to improve communication and global positioning systems.
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Through DARPA, Tang also helped create the MEMS Industry Group, a trade association launched in 2001. DARPA funding in 1999 allowed the then-informal group of industry leaders to meet and outline industry needs and directions.
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DARPA’s sponsorship offset expenses and gave the group legitimacy, said Ken Gabriel, a founding co-director of the MEMS Industry Group, founder of the MEMS-based startup Akustica Inc. and DARPA’s first MEMS program manager.
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Gabriel was followed at DARPA by Albert Pisano, director of the Electronics Research Laboratory and the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center at University of California, Berkeley.
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“The support of the DARPA manager opens many doors,” Gabriel said. “DARPA is looked on as a fair and honest broker.”
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Nguyen is expected to bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the MEMS program, Tang and Gabriel said. While an engineer at the University of Michigan, Nguyen developed low-power MEMS-based communication subsystems such as signal filters for cell phones and wireless data networks. He helped create Discera to commercialize the technology. Ardesta LLC, parent company of Small Times Media, is the lead investor in Discera.
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Tang said he selected U.C. Irvine to rejoin former DARPA colleague Abraham Lee, now a professor in the engineering school. Tang’s varied experiences at DARPA made him want to try his hand in regions where information, biotechnology and nanotechnology intersect. California’s recent funding of research centers devoted to those fields appealed to him.
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“I want to branch out from electrical engineering and go into something challenging,” he said. “This area is very exciting to me.”
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CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Candace Stuart at [email protected] or call 734-528-6290.