Highlights from the Manufacturing
Engineering Laboratory, June 2007

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Manufacturing Industry Clamors for MEL's Quality of Design Testing Tool

MEL researchers KC Morris and Serm Kulvatunyou gave a presentation on their work implementing the Naming and Design Rules from OAGi and UN/CEFACT using NIST's Quality of Design (http://www.mel.nist.gov/msid/XML_testbed/QOD.html) tool to the General Membership Meeting of the Open Applications Group (OAGi). The XML Schema Quality of Design Tool (also called the QOD Tool) assists companies in test for consistent use of their XML Schema for the specification of manufacturing information. Consistent design of XML schemas within an organization or single integration project can reduce the number and the severity of interoperability (i.e., data exchange) problems. In addition, this consistency makes the XML schema easier to extend, understand, implement, and maintain; and, it paves the way for automated testing and mapping. The MEL presentation covered work in progress and included preliminary results in testing some OAGi XML Schemas, as well as specific recommendations for how OAGi's Naming and Design Rules could be improved. The presentation was well received with several audience members indicating that they were eager to see it completed. Representatives from OAGi and the Automotive Industry Action Group said they intend to make the NIST QOD tool part of their standards development process.

Contact: Simon Frechette, 301 975 3335

Recognition

Nanotech Briefs Recognizes MEL researchers with a Nano 50 Award

Nanotech Briefs' Nano 50^TM awards recognize the "ultimate list of the top 50 technologies, products, and innovators that have significantly impacted - or will impact - key nanotechnology commercial markets, from automotive and electronics, to biomedical and materials.' Their editors recognized MEL's Michael Postek in the Innovators category. This category recognizes individuals 'recognized as a leader or pioneer in a specific area of nanotechnology, with a significant background of accomplishments in advancing the state of the art in nanotechnology.'

The editors also recognized the MEL research effort in Scatterfield microscopy was recognized in their Technologies category. This category recognizes technology breakthroughs that have, or are expected to have, a significant impact in one or more application areas. The Scatterfield microscopy team won it for their advances in the new optical technique. They were cited for the development of a new and revolutionary measurement technique capable of extending conventional optical metrology instrumentation well beyond their current limits. This technique enables imaging of nanometer scale targets used in overlay metrology, linewidth measurements, and defect inspection for the semiconductor and nanoelectronics industries. It meets the challenges of measuring nanometer-sized targets, while using high-throughput low-cost optical metrology instruments.

The scatterfield microscopy technique involves engineering the illumination in a Köhler illuminated bright field microscope in combination with structured samples. MEL researchers have modeled targets with dimensions down to 10 nm. Fundamentally, there are no roadblocks to measuring features 1/20^th the size of the measurement wavelength. Using well-engineered illumination and target designs, very good signal-to-noise ratios can be achieved. Examples based on theoretical and experimental implementations demonstrate excellent optical response to isolated and densely positioned nanometer scale features. One aspect of the technique known as zero order imaging, has been applied to overlay measurement and has other nanometrology applications. Commercial metrology tool manufacturers are now adopting the technique for illumination engineering with applications in overlay and critical dimension metrology. MEL's staff is working closely with the semiconductor and nanomanufacturing metrology communities in the adoption of this extensible set of optical techniques.

Contact: Rick Silver, 301 975 5609