In This Issue
- ITAR / EAR
- Photonics West 2009 & 2010
- Report from the APOMA Meeting
- Qipotiq Pay Fine (ITAR)
- STTR Solicitation Opens
- New Product Announcements
- Conferences and Events
ITAR / EAR Export Compliance
Call For Action
The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report: Beyond Fortress America: National Security Controls on Science and Technology in a Globalized World. A summary in news release form is here: "National Security Controls on Science and Technology Are Broken and Should Be Restructured"
Many U.S. export and visa controls, developed during the Cold War era to prevent the transfer of technological and scientific advances to our enemies, now harm U.S. national security and economic prosperity, says a new report from the National Research Council. The current regulations were designed for a world that no longer exists and are unsuitable for today's adversaries. Immediate executive action is needed to restructure this system to prevent further declines in U.S. scientific and technological competitiveness.
"In the modern globalized world of science and technology, restrictions on the flow of information, technology, and scientists can negatively impact both U.S. competitiveness and security," said John Hennessy, president of Stanford University and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report.
The current system of export controls and visa regulations uses a series of lists to inform the licensing decisions of the departments of State and Commerce, including the United States Munitions List and the Commerce Control List. Items are regularly added to the lists but rarely taken off. According to the report, this list-based system has become a "technological Maginot Line."
Due to restrictions on the transfer of military technology, current export controls slow maintenance of military equipment, discourage foreign defense contractors from purchasing U.S. equipment, and hamper international trade that could provide valuable information on the technical capabilities of foreign militaries.
In business, U.S. restrictions provide a road map for foreign competitors, highlighting the specific technologies and products in which other countries should invest research dollars. Visa controls and "deemed export controls," the transfer of dual-use technology or source code to foreign nationals within the U.S., have made U.S. laboratories and universities less attractive to foreign researchers and have helped drive knowledge-intensive jobs overseas. Significant changes are needed to create a system that is protective of both national security and economic prosperity.
"[The United States] needs to change to a philosophy that everything is open and restricted only when it is demonstrated that it needs to be," said committee co-chair Brent Scowcroft, president of the Scowcroft Group and former U.S. national security adviser.
To ensure that the U.S. has access to the most talented scientists, the visa application process should incorporate skills-based preferential processing and should be streamlined so that legitimate foreign researchers and students have an easier time entering the United States. Student visas should be extended so that recent graduates have time to find work with U.S.-based employers, and qualified U.S. scientists should be allowed to vouch for the technical credibility and legitimacy of visa applicants in their field as a means of aiding consular officials and expediting the application process.
Rather than abandoning all export controls on goods and technologies, the report recommends retaining the controls that work and eliminating those that do not. There should be specific principles to determine which goods or technologies are placed on the export control lists, and attempts to regulate the export of dual-use items should be cautious, with the burden of proof placed on those attempting to restrict access.
The report also recommends the creation of an economic competitiveness exemption that would eliminate export controls on dual-use technologies legally available on the global open market. A "sunset" rule should be put in place so that items on the export control lists are removed after a specified amount of time unless a justification is presented for maintaining their restriction.
The report recommends the creation of two new entities to make the export control process run more smoothly and to resolve disputes when they occur. A Coordinating Center for Export Controls would coordinate interactions with businesses or universities seeking export licenses and manage agency processes with respect to granting or denying export licenses. An Export License Appeals Panel, comprised of active or retired federal judges, would hear disputes on licensing decisions and "sunset" requirements. The report suggests placing both entities within the National Security Council structure, with the director of the Coordinating Center reporting to the national security adviser.
These changes should occur at the presidential level via an executive order, ideally early in the next administration, the committee said. Once implemented, they could quickly begin to reverse the damage that has been done to U.S. national security and economic competitiveness.
These recommendations are first steps in a process that will eventually require legislative reform.
The study was sponsored by the National Academies -- the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council -- which are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
Copies of Beyond Fortress America: National Security Controls on Science and Technology in a Globalized World are available from the National Academies Press. You may also read the entire report on line.
Thanks to Mike Mandina for calling this to our attention.
Company News
New Scale Technologies
New Scale Technologies announced a technology partnership with EPCOS AG (http://www.epcos.com), a EUR 1.48 billion global manufacturer of electronic products including piezoelectric ceramics. The cooperation agreement will further the development of innovative ultrasonic motors, leveraging EPCOS’ expertise in manufacturing of multilayer piezoelectric ceramic elements and New Scale’s excellence in creating miniature piezoelectric micro motors, micro actuator modules and motion systems.
The partnership has resulted in a reduced-voltage version of New Scale’s smallest linear SQUIGGLE® motor, incorporating four multilayer piezo plates from EPCOS in New Scale’s patented direct-drive motor design. This next-generation motor is powered directly by a battery voltage of less than 3 V, about one tenth of the voltage requirement of the current motor.
At 1.82 x 1.82 x 6 mm with 0.5 µm resolution, the reduced-voltage motor has the same size, resolution and power draw of New Scale’s curent-generation SQL-1.8 SQUIGGLE motor. However, the lower voltage operation of the EPCOS material eliminates the need for a voltage boost and therefore enables New Scale to shrink the size of the motor drive circuit by 75%.
“Achieving the absolute smallest complete motion system is huge for makers of ultra-miniature products such as mobile phone cameras,” said David Henderson, CEO and CTO of New Scale Technologies. “The reduced voltage requirement made possible by EPCOS’ multilayer piezo technology is a major breakthrough in overall system miniaturization.”
New Scale’s current SQL-1.8 SQUIGGLE micro motor is driven by the NSD-1102 motor driver ASIC and an external boost circuit, for a total drive circuit area of approximately 6 x 9 mm. New Scale is developing a drive ASIC for the reduced-voltage motor that is expected to measure less than 3 x 3 mm.
The new reduced-voltage SQUIGGLE motor and ASIC driver will be available in Q3 2009 to selected system development partners. The company is initially targeting the phone camera market. New Scale works with its partners to incorporate its SQUIGGLE motors, drive ASICs and position sensors into complete motion systems for customer-specific applications such as autofocus and optical zoom.
Additional cooperative development projects for New Scale and EPCOS include a new family of ultra-thin motors even smaller than the SQUIGGLE motor. The first prototypes in New Scales’ new Ultra-Thin Actuator Family (UTAF) of custom piezo motors measure less than 1 mm thick. “We achieve this dramatic size reduction by integrating multiple actuator functions and independent electrical connections into a single co-fired ceramic component,” explains Dr. Justinus Slakhorst, CTO of the Ceramic Components Division at EPCOS.
EPCOS is the global market leader in piezo actuators for automotive fuel injection systems, and expects the cooperation with New Scale to extend their presence into other growing markets. For New Scale, EPCOS’ global significance in products for mobile communications and expertise in piezo technology make them a natural partner in the development of next-generation piezo motors, modules and systems.
Autofocus and optical zoom cameras are just two examples of the many possible applications for SQUIGGLE and UTAF motors. They can be used wherever miniature size, low voltage and high precision are the defining parameters, such as drug pumps and micro fuel cells, toys, precision alignment systems, and many more.
QED
It is paradoxical that a high precision industry that uses measurement units such as nanometers, angstroms, and fractions of waves of light to describe surfaces should be willing to settle for uncertainty and low levels of accuracy in many of the parts it produces.
And yet today, most optical shops can only measure 60-70% of their optics over a full aperture and the optics industry has tolerated this level of uncertainty for many years. There is no other high-tech industry that would accept this incomplete level of workpiece
For the first time, optics manufacturers can measure a wide range of steep, complex aspheres with up to 1000 waves of departure, without relying on dedicated, expensive null-optics. QED's new Aspheric Stitching Interferometer (ASI™) system has been designed to accurately test mild to steep aspheres with one fast, easy-to-use, accurate system. This breakthrough capability makes new things possible for optics systems designers and manufacturers alike.
The ASI is a critical metrology innovation that will have an immediate impact on the applications and industries that currently are forced to accept high precision spherical optics in system design instead of reaping the inherent benefits that aspheric optics can offer.
Furthering QED’s introduction of its SSI-A® metrology system in 2007, which provides metrology capability for mild aspheres (up to 200 waves of departure), QED’s new ASI takes asphere metrology to the next level of performance and flexibility. The ASI is based on QED’s subaperture stitching technology and is complemented by its patent pending Variable Optical Null™ technology. The variable optical null is a programmable opto-mechanical sub-system that generates a wavefront that closely matches the surface of the asphere subaperture being measured. The system takes high resolution subaperture measurements over the entire optical surface and the results are stitched together to form a full aperture map of the asphere being tested.
Semrock
Semrock announced that Robert Wick, Ph.D., has  joined the company as Vice President of Marketing, with principal responsibility for the marketing and sales of its broad range of catalog products. Dr. Wick brings more than 25 years of experience in management, marketing, and sales of instruments and technology for optical microscopy and imaging in the life sciences.
Wick was a product and then marketing manager for Carl Zeiss. He has held numerous marketing, sales, and general management roles at companies including Hamamatsu Photonics, Promega, and Applied Spectral Imaging, where he successfully brought products to market and built sales domestically and internationally. Most recently Dr. Wick served as Vice President of Microscopy for Leica Microsystems, with full P&L responsibility for Leica’s U.S. Microscopy business.
Sydor Instruments
Sydor Instruments has added two brand new products to its product line. The Vacuum Compatible X-Ray CCD Camera and 8 GHz Laser Optical Comb Generator are the latest innovations available from Sydor Instruments, the leader in diagnostic instrumentation.
The new Sydor 8 GHz Laser Optical Comb Generator delivers 60ps pulses at speeds ranging from 2 GHz up to 8 GHz of operation. It is ideal for accurate, time base calibration of electro-optic instrumentation, sensors, detectors, and streak cameras.
Sydor’s new Vacuum Compatible X-Ray CCD Camera is capable of operating completely in a vacuum. With flexible binning and ROI readouts, the Sydor X-Ray Camera is capable of performing in many different applications such as plasma physics, deep UV lithography, x-ray microscopy, and x-ray spectroscopy.
“Sydor Instruments continues to build on its world class ROSS (Rochester Optical Streak System) streak camera products and delivers the best in single photon counting cameras, image intensifiers, photomultipliers, and detectors for aerospace, energy, and life sciences,” said Michael Pavia, President of Sydor Instruments.
For more information on the Sydor Vacuum Compatible X-Ray CCD Camera and 8 GHz Laser Optical Comb Generator contact Sydor Instruments at 585-278-1168 or visit them online at www.sydorinstruments.com.
Events and Conferences, by
University of Rochester
Optics Colloquia (ongoing)
Defense,
Security & Sensing
13 - 17 April, 2009
Orlando World Center
Orlando, Florida
Optifab
Call for Papers here
11
- 14 May, 2009
Rochester, NY
CLEO / IQEC 09
May 31 - June 5, 2009
Baltimore, Maryland
World Science Festival
11 - 14 June, 2009
New York City
Photonics Festival in Taiwan 2009
OPTO Taiwan / OPTICS Taiwan / LED Lighting Taiwan / SOLAR Taiwan / Display Taiwan
10 - 12 June, 2009
Taipei World Trade Center
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Photonics West: Up in a Down Year
Record numbers at San Jose Conference
At the exhibitor breakfast on Thursday morning, SPIE's Peter Hallet said it best, "Flat is the new up."
Most exhibitors at Photonics West 2009 had their contracts in by March 2008, before the economic recession had firmly taken center stage with all channels of the news media. After nine months of gloom and doom, many people heading to San Jose this year did so anticipating a depressed atmosphere. This was not the case. The conference seemed busier than ever.
While attendees at technical presentations were down a bit, walk-in and exhibitor numbers increased.
In the New York aisle of the main hall, Brian Molis, Director of Optic Sales for Gurley Precision, observed, "For me, traffic was very stable from previous years. More importantly, the attendees seemed much more aware of what they required. Whether they were looking to replace an old vendor to reduce costs or they had a new project, they were focused on why they were there."
Molis said that Gurley's sales have been buoyed by defense interest in their encoder line, test and measurement in the printing industry, and subassemblies that Gurley produces for OEM's.
While traffic in the South Hall wasn't what he hoped for on Tuesday, the first day of the exhibition, Steve Arnold, SMA Optical Technologies was pleased with traffic there on Wednesday and Thursday. SMA was offering systems for pico projection (one of the hot technologies at this year's Consumer Electronics Show), lens systems for acoustic imaging, and an OEM system for biofluorescent detection.
Next: Moscone Center, San Francisco 2010
On Friday morning, January 30, immediately following Photonics West, three groups of exhibitors toured the 399,000 sq. ft. space that comprises Moscone South and North. These two spaces exceed San Jose's 267,500 in many ways other than simple square feet. There are two disinctly different exhibition halls at Moscone Center, one on either side of Howard Street, and they are linked contiguously by a large undergound councourse that includes meeting rooms, escalators and lobbies. Floorplans are here.
The Opto and Bios conferences are preliminarily planned for the Third Street (east) end of the South Hall. The South Hall has a vaulted ceiling, no pillars; the North Hall (pictured below with a tour group) has a flat ceiling with a series of pillars. Both are equipped with an extensive network of heavy duty grommets for hanging signage. In fact the entire Moscone Center is replete with so many new opportunities for signage, exhibition and promotion that Photonics West, logistically, will be an entirely new conference for exhibitors and technical sessions. SPIE is even encouraging double-decker exhibit displays "at no extra cost."
North Hall Moscone Center with tour group
Click to enlarge
There is a cost and a payoff for everything. Moscone Center literally has no parking. On the other hand there is no need for a car in San Francisco. If you will be visiting customers at their site, your car will need to be parked at your hotel.
Hotels? There are many. The Hilton, official hotel of the conference, has 2,000 rooms. The nearby Marriott has 1,500. There are hotels to fit many budgets and plenty of rooms within walking distance of the Center.
Costs, that's everything from booth carpet to electrical to drayage and labor, look to be about 2% higher in San Francisco than in San Jose. Champion is still the contractor.
Where do you and your company's exhibit want to be at Moscone Center? There are going to be a lot of opinions about that. Contact your fellow New York Photonics and RRPC members, and contact Tom Battley to discuss, but under no circumstances do you want to be late with your early-bird contract which is due March 12. Be sure to let SPIE know that you want to exhibit with other New York State companies by noting so on the contract.
APOMA Meeting During Photonics West
During Photonics West 45 attendees at the Wednesday morning APOMA Meeting enjoyed presentations by Universal Photonics and Op-Tec.
Justin Mahanna, Richard Nastasi and Chris Russell, from New York Photonics member Universal Photonics spoke about the Faster, Better Finish: The Right Pad and Polish for the Job. The presentation is here.
Creating College Programs to Educate & Train Optics and Photonics Workers, was the subject covered by John C. Souders Jr., Ph.D. Associate Director, OP-TEC. The presentation is here.
Souders distributed newly-minted copies of the The National Precision Optics Skill Standards for Technicians at the meeting. The Standards were endorsed by the Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster in January after several months of collaboration and review with Op-Tec. It is hoped that the standards will be endorsed by APOMA sometime 1st quarter, 2009.
Jim Sydor, President, Sydor Optics, Rochester, NY and 2007 - 2008 president of APOMA, passed the gavel to new president, Colin "Cody" Green, VP Sales & Marketing, PFG Optics, Ocean Springs Mississippi.
Green, in his acceptance remarks, said, "I thank Jim Sydor, the best APOMA president... ever."
More Damage Forensics
Pursuant to last year's presentation about damage forensics by Tayyab Suratwala during the APOMA meeting in San Jose, we posted several of Tayaab's papers in our
December newsletter.
That listing of various damage forensics papers was very popular with readers, with over 65 downloads from our site. Suratwala is Associate Program Manager for Laser Materials and Optics Technology at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's National Ignition Facility.
Suratwala will be in Rochester on Monday, March 23, as part of the ongoing Optics Colloquia series. He will be discussing Contributions of kinematics and pressure distribution on the surface figure during polishing of fused silica. The poster is here.
Qioptiq Agrees to Pay Fine
This article is excerpted from Export Control News & Alerts, a publication of the Export Compliance Training Institute.
Qioptiq, a company with affiliates in the UK and the US (including a location in Rochester, NY), recently agreed to pay $25 million in fines for US International Traffic in Arms (ITAR) violations.
The bulk of the 163 charges relate to Qioptiq Singapore activities, including disclosure of unlicensed US night vision technology to its own employees in Singapore, the export of ITAR jurisdiction technology to a variety of countries, and the manufacture and unlicensed export of night vision assemblies using US origin ITAR data to a variety of countries. The large fine is due to the fact that the majority of the violations involved illegal transfers to China (or Chinese national employees) and Iran, two countries that are subject to particularly restrictive ITAR proscribed country status.
Qioptiq obtained several Thales High Technology Optic Group companies, including Thales Electro-Optics Pte Limited, Singapore (Thales Singapore), Avimo Singapore (predecessor to Thales Singapore), Thales Optical Coatings, Limited, UK and Thales Optem, Inc., NY (Thales NY) in December 2005. The companies' primary business is the manufacturing of optical components used in both commercial and military applications. Before the purchase, Thales voluntarily disclosed some of the ITAR violations to the US Government and agreed that its successor company Qioptiq would conduct a thorough review of ITAR compliance over the preceding five years, (and further in some situations). Because of the Thales agreement with the US Government Qioptiq inherited many of the violations when it acquired the Thales companies.
According to the authors, who are themselves export control consultants:
This $25 million dollar settlement agreement is among the highest ever for activities conducted primarily outside of the United States. In addition to the fact that there are 163 alleged charges, there are two other key reasons for the large penalty.
The first reason is that the case involved illegal transfers to Iran and China-it is difficult to imagine any countries that are more sensitive in terms of US defense trade policy.
The second reason is that the US Government claims that it discovered a clear pattern that shows that the companies involved did not really want to try to comply with the ITAR, or, in the words of the State Department, the companies demonstrated "a longstanding lack of support for ITAR."
The State Department's draft charging letter includes a fairly long list of factors that appear to show that the companies' primary objective was to minimize the burdens of complying with the ITAR. Ignoring the ITAR and not spending money and resources on ITAR compliance is an effective way to minimize compliance burdens-until you get caught.
Once the State Department knows about your violations, a record of "lack of support" for ITAR compliance is going to cost you a lot more in extra monetary penalties in addition to a larger amount of US Government scrutiny of your company after you paid the fine. Nobody wants to pay big fines, and even worse, nobody wants the US Government watching their every move after they pay the fine.
See full article here.
By: Danielle McClellan, Maarten Sengers
and John Black
STTR
STTR 09.A Solicitation
The DoD STTR 2009.A solicitation has been pre-released here. It invites small businesses and research institutions to jointly propose cooperative research and development efforts in response to topics in this solicitation. During the pre-release period, which ends on February 23, 2009, you may contact the topic authors directly (contact information is listed with the topic) to ask technical questions about specific solicitation topics. The DoD will begin accepting proposals on February 24, 2009 and will close to proposals on March 25, 2008 at 6:00 a.m. ET. Plan ahead and submit your proposal early to avoid the risk of Web site inaccessibility due to heavy usage on the final day.
Cornell Materials Research
Cornell announces Facilities 101 on April 8, 2009 for regional businesses.
The 1-day course provides an in-depth introduction to the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Experimental Facilities.
Attendees: Manager and engineers looking to better understand materials in their products, and who might benefit from Cornell's capabilities in materials analysis, processing and problem solving.
Date : Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Time: 9:30 am - 4:00 pm
Location:701 Clark Hall on the Cornell campus
Costs: $100 includes reference materials on the facilities, lunch, and parking.
For registration and information click here.
RIT CIMS
Managing Your Business in Tough Economic Times
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Networking Reception: 7:30am
Breakfast: 8:00am, concluding by 9:30am
Featuring:
- Dan Burns, Senior Vice President, M&T Bank; Regional President, Rochester Division
- Kent Gardner, President and Chief Economist, Center for Governmental Research
Reservations required.
585.475.6711 or besdar<at>rit.edu.
Lean Manfacturing
Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies (CIMS) is offering a new Lean Certification program starting in April. This program can help companies get specific people in their organization started on their journey to continuous improvement. This is a great offering for companies that are not yet using Lean to improve their business and it is also great for companies that are using Lean but would like to get others in their organization trained. Follow the link to the CIMS web-site showing the details and registration form to sign up. The link is here.
Since this training will have a limited capacity, it is best to sign up now and have your spot reserved.
Contact RRPC
How does one acquire the coveted RRPC Newsletter Cub
Reporter Badge?
Luke, you finally got yours but I didn't see you wearing it at Photonics West. Everyone else: contact us with industry news and be the first in your
office to wear one (or hide it in your desk).
New York Photonics and the Rochester Regional Photonics
Cluster are active and growing collaborative organizations. Efforts are
under way on joint training events, workforce development, collaborative
advertising opportunities, promoting the commercialization of I.P., and
the development of our website to further facillitate business development.
Join us! There are advantages to working together, and
we are interested in working with you. Send an email to us at membership@rrpc-ny.org.
To subscribe, to unsubscribe, to submit a news item or upcoming event,
to suggest a feature or column, or to offer feedback, contact Tom
Battley, at 585-329-4029.
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