Challenge: Dispersed teams

The modern Micro and Nano Technology (MNT) development cycle often involves diverse teams of engineers spread across the globe and working within many different companies. Working together means there is a need for communication to share plans and experimental results. While email is still the main way to achieve this communication, it has proven to be inadequate in many cases. It is too cluttered and represents informal knowledge which is unstructured and difficult to retrieve. Normally the knowledge gained becomes inaccessible as soon as the project has ended and a new email folder is created. There are also cultural aspects to consider, both between companies and countries. Many different ways of documenting and storing development data are used and there are also differences in the ways of communicating. The recent trend for outsourcing can make this process even more difficult.

Challenge: Rapid idea verification

A variety of uncertainties and hurdles challenge the development of new manufacturing processes. The diversity of technology options and their constraints, the shrinking geometries and other external and internal forces put technologies and engineers easily to their limits. Already in the first phase of device and process development many good ideas are scrapped. There is simply not enough time to do the necessary research and explore the solution space sufficiently. Often successful concepts are not considered further. Therefore potentially successful products are never developed. This limits the ability of organizations to innovate.