Workshop: Advanced Manufacturing for Smart Goods; Vancouver, Washington; May 19-20, 2015

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a workshop to identify advanced manufacturing research needs for the emerging Smart Goods industry to help U.S. manufacturers more quickly advance Smart Goods into the marketplace. In 2012, the U.S. information technology industry, from semiconductors to telecommunications and other information services, contributed over $1.7 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product. By 2017, about one half of spending on information technology equipment in the U.S. is projected to be in smart computing as sensors, actuators, wireless communications, and low-power computation become embedded in everyday objects called "Smart Goods", i.e., the Internet of Things. Future smart computing requirements are challenging conventional wisdom in semiconductor manufacturing making the U.S. information technology industry vulnerable to foreign investments aimed to leapfrog current advantages held by U.S. firms in silicon microelectronics. The main objectives of the workshop are to: (1) examine and review the state-of-the-art in manufacturing materials and process technologies for the emerging Smart Goods industry; (2) gather the Smart Goods industry perspective of the advanced manufacturing research needs, gaps and challenges upstream of the "big data" value stream; and (3) formulate recommendations for the next steps to advance manufacturing technologies within the Smart Goods industry. The workshop will be held in the Portland, Oregon-Vancouver, Washington metropolitan area, also known as the Silicon Forest, containing almost 900 semiconductor and electronics companies. The workshop will bring together an academic and national laboratory audience with invited industry speakers and panelists to identify advanced manufacturing research needs for the emerging Smart Goods industry. An organizing committee consisting of state, university and federal laboratory members will work with an industry advisory team to select 15-20 distinguished members from industry to deliver presentations and populate panels. Sessions will involve both presentations and panels discussing future computing requirements for many Smart Goods including the integration of low-power computation with new sensors and small power sources on complex three-dimensional surfaces. Technologies to be discussed include inkjet printing, the scaling of near monodispersed functional nanomaterials, and the photonic sintering of particle films into multifunctional films and devices. The organizing committee will compile a report after the workshop recapping the key challenges and opportunities in advanced manufacturing research for Smart Goods, and outlining the next steps for aligning universities and industry interests around a common pre-competitive research agenda. The report contents will be disseminated through the workshop website and an appropriate journal.