7. Conclusions

In 1995, the ATP funded a joint-venture project involving General Electric Global Research (formerly General Electric Corporate Research & Development) and PerkinElmer (formerly EG&G Reticon) to develop dramatic improvements in manufacturing technology for fabricating thin-film amorphous silicon detector panels for medical and industrial imaging systems.

In 2000, the joint-venture project was successfully completed and process improvements resulting from this project have laid the groundwork for replacing an expensive 11-mask process with a 7-mask low-cost manufacturing process. Given competitive market pressures, it is expected that General Electric Company and

PerkinElmer, Inc. will complete the remaining technical development tasks and implement the low-cost process by 2004. Implementation is expected to result in 25 percent cost savings.

For medical imaging applications, the low-cost process will significantly impact the affordability of new digital mammography and digital radiography systems and make the benefits of these innovative technologies more widely available to healthcare facilities and patient populations that would not otherwise have access to these benefits. These benefits include:

• Decreased medical risk to patients and reduced patient anxiety by avoiding unnecessary medical procedures.
• Reduction in patient radiation exposure.
• Improved analytical continuity (from rapid retrieval of prior mammograms and the elimination of lost mammograms)
• Facilitation of the use of CAD software
• Facilitation of regional telemammography and teleradiology networks, expanding access to quality mammography and radiology services by medically underserved rural, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged populations.
• Substantial productivity improvements for healthcare facilities, counteracting the growing shortage of radiologists.
• Reduced record retrieval and record management costs.

Based on primary research and analysis completed during 2001 and early 2002, the case study projects a substantial public return on ATP's investment in the high-risk, low-cost process technology:

• Net present value of ATP investment: $219 million to $339 million (base-case versus step-out scenarios in 2002 dollars).
  
• Internal rate of return (public return) on ATP investment: 69 percent to 77 percent.
  
• Benefit-to-cost ratio of ATP investment: 125:1 to 193:1.
  

These measures reflect the benefits to the healthcare industry and to patients resulting from the ATP investment. Benefits and costs to General Electric Company and PerkinElmer, Inc. are not included.

Beyond medical applications, the low-cost process may also reduce thin-film a-Si detector fabrication costs for industrial machine vision, nondestructive testing, and airport cargo inspection applications. These benefits from non-medical applications are associated with greater uncertainty and are expected to occur only in the longer term.

This case study concludes that the new low-cost process technology has made significant progress toward meeting the necessary conditions for commercial implementation. These conditions are:

• Successful completion of the ATP-funded joint-venture project, demonstrating the technical feasibility of the low-cost process.
  
• Initial sales momentum for Senographe digital mammography units and Revolution digital radiography units, as well as independent market studies pointing to longerterm demand growth.
  
• Technological advantages that can be translated into business advantages. In the context of increasing competition and downward pricing pressures, the 25 percent cost reduction from the ATP-funded low-cost manufacturing process will be an attractive incentive for industry partners to implement the technology.
  

Based on the above elements of progress toward commercial implementation, this study concludes that the projected public returns from ATP's investment and the broad-based medical and economic benefits to patient populations and the healthcare industry have a strong probability of being realized.

Research performed for this study leads to the further conclusion that ATP's industry partners would not have developed a high-risk, low-cost process technology without ATP support. As a result, estimated benefits are directly attributable to the ATP investment.

Return to Table of Contents or go to Glossary.

Date created: April 25, 2003
Last updated: August 2, 2005

ATP website comments: webmaster-atp@nist.gov  / Technical ATP inquiries: InfoCoord.ATP@nist.gov.

NIST is an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department
Privacy policy / Security Notice / Accessibility Statement / Disclaimer / Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) /
No Fear Act Policy / NIST Information Quallity Standards / ExpectMore.gov (performance of federal programs)