Closed-Cycle Air Refrigeration (CCAR) 1995. 56

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., and Toromont Process Systems, Inc. Refrigeration systems blow compressed cold air into a cooling chamber. Continuous dehumidifying and compression is required to compensate for lost cold air. Emissions from such systems are harmful to the environment, depleting the ozone layer.

CCAR, a new form of industrial refrigeration technology, features an air-based system under higher pressure and in closed cycle to achieve ultra-cold temperatures using environmentally benign air as the working fluid. Investment: $2.1 million by ATP; $2.2 million by corporate partners Economic impact:

• Technology valued at $459-$585 million (in year 2001 dollars)
• An internal rate of return of 83-90 percent
• A benefit-to-cost ratio of 220:1 to 280:1 Industry benefits:
• 50-percent reduction over standard cryogens in the cost of delivering ultra-cold refrigeration (-70 o F to -150 o F)
• Reduction in food evaporation and enhancement of taste
• Additional U.S. exports of $5-6 million per year
• Diesel emissions avoided for 12,000-14,000 truck shipments of cryogens per year
• Improved food safety due to rapid cooling of cooked foods to ultra-cold temperatures

Likely technology spillovers beyond the food processing industry:

• The chemical, metals, and automotive industries, for condensing and capturing harmful volatile organic compound vapor emissions
• The diesel fuel industry, for replacing highpolluting marine diesel fuels with cleanburning natural gas in the form of liquid natural gas
• The petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries, for low-temperature reactions and storage applications

• 1999 Finalist for the Kirkpatrick Award in Chemical Engineering Magazine
• Expanded usage of innovative technologies associated with CCAR

What Is a Societal Benefit?

In creating ATP, Congress believed that for the federal government to support commercially relevant technology development, the resulting breakthroughs would need to benefit more than one company, and more than one industry, with the ultimate beneficiaries being the American economy and the American people. This pollination of technologies across sectors would inevitably yield rewards for society as a whole, as companies prosper, the economy strengthens, jobs are created, and new technologies reduce costs and enhance quality of life. From the technologies sampled on these pages to many others now in development, Americans are reaping the benefits of breakthroughs sponsored by ATP every day, in literally thousands of ways.

ATP and Homeland Security

In its history, ATP has made 141 investments to technologies that touch on the area of U.S. homeland security. The total investment in these ATP projects has been $669 million— $364 million by ATP and another $305 million by industry. About $145.2 million or 40 percent was devoted to critical physical infrastructure projects, and $135.4 million, or 37 percent, in research related to chemical, biological, or radiological/nuclear exposure.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., ATP is helping to enhance the nation’s ability to respond to and even prevent terrorism. For example:

• GE Global Research of Schenectady, New York, has developed digital imaging technology of unprecedented detail and clarity using amorphous silicon panels to detect heart disease and breast cancer. The same technology could also be used to assure the structural integrity of aircraft and as a means of airport customs and cargo inspection.
• Genex Technologies, Inc. of Kensington, Maryland, is developing revolutionary facial recognition technology that integrates hardware and software and uses true 3D imaging for face enrollment, identification, and verification at airports, border crossings, and sensitive facilities.
• Quantum Signal, LLC, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is developing 90-percent accurate biometric authentication through face or voice recognition for occupant sensing in vehicles, passenger screening at airports, and automated verification in telecommunications applications.

Materials

Composite Utility Poles (1995)
Ebert Composites Corp., Chula Vista, California, and Strongwell Corp., Bristol, Virginia Traditional upright utility poles and towers have disadvantages. Metal towers are difficult to transport, require teams of installers, and must be treated twice a year for corrosion. Wood poles require anti-decay treatments with chemicals that can leach into local water supplies. Ebert Composites Corporation proposed to use composite materials to radically improve the design, manufacture, and cost of utility towers and poles. The company believed that composites would be price competitive with steel and wood, more durable, lower maintenance, and conducive to production in minutes rather than the hours necessary to manufacture a steel pole. Ebert did not, however, have access to the resources needed for the intensive research that would result in such a product. Today, four years after completion of the ATP project, industries from oil to defense are interested in the technology, as are state DOTs.

Investment: $1.03 million by ATP; $303,000 by the participants

Project achievements:

• All technical goals met
• A 97-percent reduction in manufacturing time for electric utility towers as well as cost savings and higher quality due to the development of innovative equipment
• Commercialization of composite structures for electric power poles and lattice towers
• Two patents for “high shear strength pultrusion"

Spillovers:

• The 1999 Charles Pankow Award from the Civil Engineering Research Foundation
• Publication in a Society of Manufacturing Engineers journal (1999)

Computer and Television Hardware

Dramatically Better Video Displays (1994)
Displaytech, Inc., Longmont, Colorado

With the explosion in multi-media technologies—from large-screen TVs to videophones and personal digital assistants (PDAs)—high-resolution displays have been highly sought after, but inhibited by the constraints of liquid crystal display (LCD) technology and the enormous costs of research .

In the quest for better displays, researchers turned to a new technology—the ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC). Displaytech, a 20- employee small business, sought to mass produce FLC display chips using “dummy” silicon wafers.

Investment: $1.79 million from ATP; $1.5 million from Displaytech

Project achievements:

• Production capacity increased from one chip at a time in 1994 to a capacity of 100,000 chips a month by 2000
• 3 patents related to liquid-crystal displays
• Employment up from 20 employees to 150
• Technical barriers overcome to achieve a 600-percent increase in final image quality, a 100-percent increase in product lifetime, and a decrease in per-unit costs from $6,000 to $160 Spillovers:
• Joint ventures and partnerships formed with Hewlett Packard, Miyota, Motorola, Samsung, JVC, Concord, and Densitron Technology
• Network of worldwide licensees of Displaytech technology
• New FLC chip applied to flat-panel HDTVs, graphics arrays produced by Hewlett Packard, and displays produced by JVC, Samsung, and Minolta

High-Quality Color Displays for Televisions (1996)

ColorLink, Inc., Boulder, Colorado
For years, color televisions and computer monitors relied on color pixels composed of three monochrome pixels, each assigned a primary color (red, green, or blue). However, new types of electronics, from digital video cameras to PDAs, web phones, and flatscreen TVs, require higher resolutions than the pixel can accommodate.

ColorLink’s new model for high-resolution display and imaging relies on a highefficiency, tunable filter to encode color images in a rapidly changing sequence instead of traditional pixilated, slow-moving color switches. However, the development curve was too long to attract venture capital.

An ATP award allowed ColorLink to partner with Polaroid Corporation, Kent State University of Ohio, and others to develop color management solutions for liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology in High Definition televisions, display monitors, and other electronic devices. LCOS technology is now being used with color separation and recombination modules from ColorLink (pictured below) found in a new generation of JVC High Definition large-screen televisions.

Investment: $1.79 million by ATP; $340,000 by ColorLink

Project achievements:

• 8 patents associated with imaging and display
• Cost and size of projection displays decreased
• Display resolution and brightness improved

Spillovers:

• Entered into partnerships with Thomson RCA, Arisawa Manufacturing, and original equipment manufacturers

Components for Easily Assembled Software Systems 60

ATP Component- Based Software Development (CBSD) Focused Program (1994-2000)

Historically, about 85 percent of all large software systems used in business have been customized applications with code written for a specific firm. Very little code is reused. These systems are critical to the operation of large firms, expensive to develop and maintain, and sometimes unreliable.

The use of components—independent pieces of software that interact with other components in a well-defined manner to accomplish a specific task—could facilitate the development of “off the shelf” large applications that are lower cost, and easier to maintain and upgrade.

Investment: $42.06 million for 24 projects; $55 million by private firms Economic impact:

• Technology valued at $840 million (in year 2000 dollars) based on 8 of the most successful projects
• An internal rate of return of 80 percent
• A benefit-to-cost ratio of 10.5:1
• Total producer surplus of $538 million (in year 2000 dollars)
• Total consumer surplus of $1.13 billion (in year 2000 dollars)

Industry benefits:

• Reduced costs of developing and maintaining software systems
• Increased reliability of software
• Greater synergies across portions of software code and applications
• Two-thirds of the projects achieved their technical objectives
• Three of the projects generated enough returns to cover the entire cost of the focused program

Spillovers:

• Validation of the CBSD concept in the eyes of investors
• Premium pricing of products due to higher quality resulting from ATP involvement
• Internal credibility for participating firms, leading to more available R & D funds and expanded scope of the project

Information Systems

Technology to Control Hybrid Computer Systems (1995) ⁶¹

Hynomics (formerly Sagent Corporation), Kirkland, Washington

Businesses and industries increasingly rely on complex, distributed networks of computers and information systems to manage operations. These “hybrid" systems are difficult to synchronize and control, and rely on extensive manual intervention to be functional.

Intelligent “middleware" developed by Sagent Corporation (now named Hynomics) provides a common interface between different applications or operating systems in a network, assuring that events occur in the proper order and that data managed by these different nodes remains consistent. Investment: $1.93 million by ATP; $168,000 by Sagent Corporation

Project achievements:

• New technologies in hybrid systems, automata, and control theory that are now being commercialized
• 2 patents related to multiple-agent hybrid control architecture

Spillovers:

• 15 published articles in professional journals
• 10 conferences and presentations
• A partnership with SAP and a second with one of the world’s largest software companies

Information Storage

Magnetic Recording Technology with Global Impact (1991) ⁶²

Information Storage Industry Consortium [formerly National Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC)]

In 1991, magnetoresistive (MR) head information technology moved disk storage forward—but it still couldn’t keep pace with rapidly increasing storage needs caused by the memory-hogging nature of graphics and video images as software evolved.

NSIC proposed to vastly improve the potential for MR head technology, with the five-year goal of achieving 10 gigabytes of memory per square inch. It was a level of R & D that no company could afford to explore alone. The consortium received ATP funding on the condition that the magnetic recording industry as a whole be permitted to use the resulting series of innovations in product development.

Investment: $5.46 million by ATP; $5.98 million by NSIC

Project achievements:

• Giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads developed during the project can record nearly 100 times more information per square inch of recording medium than other heads commercially available
• Read-and-write heads created so precisely that errors occurred once in every 10 14 bits
• Hundreds of researchers coordinated across the U.S. in 8 companies and 7 universities

• By 2000, after only 3 years, 100 percent of PCs made in the U.S. used GMR-head technology
• U.S. share of the global market increased from 62 percent to 70 percent in this time period

Investments to Keep America Energized

More than ever before, Americans rely on a steady supply of energy to power our lives. Consider the cost to the nation of the August 14, 2003 blackout, when overloaded power systems in the Northeastern U.S. failed.  In all, eight U.S. states were affected, with an estimated cost to the economy of $30 billion.

ATP is supporting the nation’s energy security through investments in breakthrough technologies for fuel cells, solar cells, and batteries. ATP was one of the first large government programs to fund distributed generation technologies, such as fuel cells, that can power residences and businesses and provide improved backup power for telecommunications.  The innovative technologies fostered by ATP will make sources of distributed, off-grid power ever more compact, secure, reliable, and affordable. Key energy projects currently under way include:

• Plug Power LLC of Latham, New York, which experienced a workforce increase by 2003 from 50 to 300 with its breakthrough in a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell; this cell has improved carbon monoxide tolerance by 100-fold, enabling clean, low-cost fuel cell performance for homes and businesses.
• Materials and Systems Research, Inc., of Salt Lake City, Utah, developer of high-performing, solid-oxide fuel cell technology—using natural gas or other combustible vapors—for emergency and remote power generation.
• Evergreen Solar, Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, creators of wide, ultra-thin, silicon ribbons that yield more than twice as many solar cells per pound of silicon as conventional methods, lowering the cost of solar power.
• PowerStor Corporation of Dublin, California, developers of a new supercapacitor that can deliver pulses of energy to portable or fixed electronic devises using carbon aerogels for high performance.
• MTI Microfuel Cells, Inc., of Albany, New York, which is developing a micro fuel cell that may provide power 5 to 10 times longer than the lithium ion batteries now used in cell phones, laptops, and PDAs.
• Ovonic Battery Co., of Troy, Michigan, which is developing magnesium-hydride alloys capable of storing 7-percent hydrogen in fuel-cell-powered electric vehicles, a level that far exceeds the capability of metal hydride technologies now in use.

These and other technologies will help future generations of Americans to enjoy uninterrupted power for a higher quality of life, enhanced security, and a more stable U.S. economy.

The DNA Story

In the past 10 years, more than 45 ATP awards have supported the development of diagnostic tools used to isolate and evaluate genetic information. Indeed, ATP has been called the “Godfather” of DNA diagnostic tool technology.

Developments include production of a nucleic acid microarray, a microfluidic system, an informatics package, and an integrated platform that offers faster and cheaper methods of producing genetic data on a routine basis.

Third Wave Technologies, Inc., of Madison, Wisconsin (a company of three researchers), which proposed the first-ever direct method for analyzing genetic mismatches that make each human being unique—and cause some diseases. Previous identification of genetic mismatches were time consuming and expensive. Third Wave and its project were considered too risky by investors, but the twoyear project ( PPPP ) begun in 1994 with ATP cost-shared funding resulted in 10 patents, more than 20 papers, 30 poster presentations, 12 conference appearances, and numerous articles. In 2001 Third Wave earned more than $34 million in revenues and conducted a successful initial public offering. 63

Hyseq, Inc., of Sunnyvale, California, a start-up company, sought in 1995 to develop techniques critical for the quick and inexpensive sequencing of entire genes— research stifled by high-cost, slow, inaccurate processes. The Hyseq approach (PPP ) developed with ATP cost-shared funds separated DNA into segments then placed on a test chip—the HyChip—covered with probes. The HyChip went on to sequence the HIV virus correctly on one million probes without error, achieved 100-percent accuracy on mitochondrial DNA tests, and sequenced 500-percent more bases than was possible with a traditional DNA diagnostic chip. Eight patents resulted as well as conference presentations. The potential of the HyChip is being pursued by Callida Genomics, a company spun off from Hyseq. 64

PharmaSeq, Inc., of Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, wanted to address the high expense of detecting DNA sequences implicated in disease. In 1998, as part of the DNA Focused Program, ATP provided funding to PharmaSeq to develop a low-cost, high-throughput DNA analysis system that could identify gene sequences and store their information. The resulting technology received a patent, attracted multimillion dollar investment and a strategic partnership with an industry leader, and led to licensing and R & D relationships with multiple corporate partners. 65

Lightweight, Recyclable Car Parts (1991) 69 PPP
Ford Motor Company Scientific Research Laboratory and General Electric R&D

The movement to conserve energy and recycle in the late 1980s created a need for new composites to achieve weight reductions in automobile manufacturing—composites that could then be recycled at the end of a car’s useful life. However, the thermoset polymers then used in car parts could not be heated or recycled.

A consortium of seven organizations approached ATP to pursue promising technology involving cyclic thermoplastics, which offered many attractive properties in manufacturing, including the fact that they could be recycled simply by reheating the material. However, this was unproven technology and a dramatic shift away from accepted thermoset polymers. Investment: 5.29 million by ATP; $5.74 million by the consortium Project achievements:

• 16 patents related to cyclic thermoplastics
• Substantial data collected regarding mold flow and filling
• Successful research partnership between Ford, GE, PPG, American Lisitritz, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Tulsa, and the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
• Met the manufacturing cost target of approximately $1 per pound for automotive components and other parts (but did not achieve the goal of translating key properties from laboratory beaker reactions to materials made under simulated production conditions)

Spillovers:

• Composite molding process now used by Ford Motor Company
• Portfolio of patents sold to Cyclics® Corporation of Rensselaer, New York, in 1999
• Cyclics Corp., undertaking development projects for direct customers in structural composites and related technology areas

Soldering with Ink-Jet Technology (1993)
MicroFab Technologies, Inc., Plano, Texas

Continuing advances in electronics have led to new levels of miniaturization and corresponding needs for new ways to solder leads to circuit board contacts. Existing methods had been complex, expensive, and time consuming.

MicroFab proposed to use existing ink-jet printing technology to affix semiconductor chips to circuit boards at high temperatures via molten metal solder drops. Skepticism about the technology was high inside the industry, making venture capital unavailable.

Investment: $1.63 million by ATP; $695,000 by MicroFab

Project achievements:

• Successful prototype that dispenses 40- micron to 120-micron spheres of molten solders onto high-density electronic components at up to 220 o C, on demand, at rates up to 2,000 per second
• 5 patents received for solder-related microdroplet technologies
• Partners included Motorola, Delco, Texas Instruments, Kodak, and AMP
• Company grew from 18 to 30 employees

Spillovers:

• Several papers published and presentations given
• Funding received from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to test the technology at up to 325 o C (with partial success)
• Technologies licensed to MPM, a division of the Cookson Group, PLC, for use in solder balls

Nanotechnology Works Cross-Industry (1991) 70
Nanophase Technologies Corporation (NTC), Romeoville, Illinois

The advent of nanotechnology—the ability to manipulate matter at the atomic or molecular level—offered the opportunity to rewrite the future by helping to fight disease and pollution and aid in manufacturing. However, the production of nanosized materials a billionth of a meter in length was cumbersome and expensive.

NTC proposed new technology to synthesize and process nanocrystalline ceramics that would be less prone to molecular breakdowns, then apply this nanotechnology to other materials and uses. With ATP funding, NTC created a gas-phase condensation (GPC) process as a foundation for research and development.

Investment: $944,000 by ATP; $3 million by NTC

Project achievements:

• 25,000-fold increase achieved in capacity to produce nanoscale materials along with a 20,000-fold reduction in costs
• Growth in NTC from 2 to 61 employees
• 3 patents received related to nanomaterials production, with 28 more patents licensed or pending in the U.S., Europe, and Japan

Spillovers:

• NTC customer base now 20 companies worldwide
• Technology now being applied in a variety of industrial applications, including automobile coatings, carpet fibers, cosmetics, sunscreen, and high-opacity inks

Light Distribution Technology (1993)
Physical Optics Corporation (POC), Torrance, California

Products in many industries—laptop computers, televisions, flashlights, cockpit and car dashboards, and ATM displays—rely on light diffusers composed of frosted glass or plastic to disperse light as needed. However, these have been notoriously inefficient because they can only scatter light rather than direct it.

Physical Optics Corp., used ATP funding to pursue holographic technology that would increase the brightness of any traditional light source and enhance the contrast of optical images. The result would be screens and filters that “sculpt" beams of light by distributing the light in a desired direction, avoiding “hot spots" for any light source.

Investment: $850,000 by ATP; $870,000 by Physical Optics Corporation

Project achievements:

• New holographic systems technology for recording diffusers with desired scattering distributions
• Coating and processing techniques for deep-surface structures substantially improved
• Fabrication techniques for high-resolution diffusion masters refined
• High-resolution screens developed in a variety of sizes, shapes, and properties for a range of applications
• Projection screens with intense and directed light beams; transmission screens greatly enhance a previously dull image
• 3 patents related to illuminated displays

Spillovers:

• Several publications and seminars
• Alliances with original equipment manufacturers
• Licensing agreements with specific application providers
• Interest from Ford Motor and other large automotive companies