Where Industry and Security Intersect
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1. The ISTAC meeting opened with introductions and solicitations of comments from the public.
2. In response to a request from BIS for the ISTAC to address the subject of microprocessor technology, the Chairman gave a presentation intended to launch discussion on the subject. The slides included background on the microprocessor industry and financial and volume data from industry analysts. The United States is the largest producer country of microprocessors—The U.S. owns 99% percent of the market share in the category of 32-bit microprocessors and 96% of the market share in the category of 64-bit microprocessor. Microprocessor performance has increased significantly over the years along with integrated circuit processor technology. In fact, advances in process technology have contributed significantly more to processor performance than advances in micro-architecture. Examples of representative products were discussed along with the present controls in Category 3E. The committee was encouraged to consider what, if any changes, in the technology controls should be pursued. Many vendors expressed a strong desire to eliminate the need to calculate CTP. Additional discussion of this topic continued in the closed session.
3. Dave McQuiddy of TriQuint picked up on the topic of MMICs that was introduced at the previous meeting. He gave an overview of TriQuint, the markets it serves, the products it makes, and the technologies it develops. The firm sells to both commercial and military customers and competes with global suppliers in the III-V compound semiconductor market. In general, military products (e.g. MMICs use in the F-22 radar) have higher capabilities and higher profits than commercial products (e.g. WLAN transceivers, which often have higher volumes but lower prices). One problem experienced by TriQuint is the reclassification by the State Dept. of a MMIC power amplifier sold to customers in Canada and subsequently prohibited from exports. The firm has been unable to sell this mature product overseas due to the ban, despite the existence of competitive devices from suppliers in Europe and Taiwan . Dave asked if some means can be developed for considering these global factors and the improvement in technology to allow some relaxation of strict controls.
4. Don Kania of Veeco gave a presentation on nanotechnology. Veeco is a manufacturer of equipment for the semiconductor and nanotechnology industry. His basic thesis is that nanotechnology has been over-hyped and largely misunderstood, and his preference is to call it nanoscience. Kania’s message to the committee is that size alone is not the determinant of nanoscience - simply scaling down doesn't make it so. What does matter is when the materials properties and physics change as a result of the reduction in size. The development of the scanning tunneling microscope kicked off the start of nanotechnology, and now the widespread availability of atomic force microscopes (more than 7,000 to date have been shipped) allows most universities to participate in the study of nanoscience . Don was careful to point out that this field is in its infancy and the investment level is measured and careful. In fact, more is spent on nanotech in Asia than in the US . The bulk of the work is published, academic research. Barriers to entry are small and the tools are readily available. People and investment are required to develop infrastructure and to move this out of the laboratories and into production. He urged the audience to watch for the developments in fabrication, measurement, and computation to gauge when the infrastructure is sufficient to displace existing technologies.
5. Henry Brandt of IBM presented a view of the high-performance computer market. He showed data on the size and financial trends in the industry and how the market dynamics are shifting. In particular, the strong growth in commodity clusters is taking market share away from the rest of the segments. A number of significant observations include the dominance of Linux as it displaces various UNIX releases, the impressive price/performance of commodity microprocessors and servers, the growing importance of floorspace, power, and cooling, and a shift underway to 64-bit architectures.
6. Joe Young of BIS reminded the committee that elections for a new chairman and vice-chairman will be held at the July ISTAC meeting in open session. All members were encouraged to consider running for office.
The meeting was then adjourned.