Confronting the Japanese Challenge: The Revival of Manufacturing at Intel

Like many other American corporations, Intel was outcompeted in manufacturing by Japanese firms in the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. By 1985, it became clear that the corporation's weakness in production endangered its long-term survival. Responding to the Japanese challenge, Intel's upper management instigated a fundamental reform of manufacturing. At their behest, production engineers and managers adopted Japanese manufacturing technologies and operating procedures. They put microchip fabrication on a scientific footing. They developed new ways of transferring processes from development to production and standardized the firm's factories. This major transformation enabled Intel to reach manufacturing parity with Japanese chipmakers by the early 1990s.

AC Electrothermal Pumping for Medical Applications

While AC electroosmosis (AC-EO) micropumps have advantages of easy implementation and compatibility with microchip fabrication, it has been observed that the pumping rate is decreased for high conductive bio-fluids [1]. To expand our applications to biomedical area we propose here the AC electrothermal (ACET) effect, which can also improve the pumping rate by multiple fold compare to AC-EO. When utilized in biomedical applications, these micropumps can be used to administer small amounts of medication (e.g. insulin) at regular time intervals. ACET generates temperature gradients in the fluids, and consequently induces space charges that move in electric fields and produce microflows. To demonstrate the fluid manipulation in high conductive bio-fluids, we have developed an AC electrothermal micropump using asymmetrical electrode arrays.

Nanoelectrode Chrome Photomask Design and Specification for Biosensor Fabrication

This paper explains the most crucial part of any microchip fabrication, which is the mask design for photolithography process. The design is initially sketched roughly to meet the design specification and later on designed using AutoCAD software. Therefore, to meet the required criteria, the overall width and length of the device is optimized at 12mm and 20.21mm respectively. Optimization of the size is done based on the chip behavior as a disposable chip and adding an economical value when it is commercialized. The nanoelectrode mask layout comprises of four sets of design which are single gaps for size reduction, single gaps for size expansion, multiple gaps for size reduction and multiple gaps for size expansion. While, the second chrome mask is fabricated for gold contact padding with two types of design sets, one is for single gaps and another is for multiple gaps. Both mask designs were sent for chrome mask fabrication for future use in biosensor fabrication.

Fast ferritin immunoassay on PDMS microchips

A heterogeneous sandwich immunoassay of ferritin on a poly(dimethylsiloxane) microfluidic chip is proposed. An undemanding “prepolymerization technique” based on wet treatment of a phosphor bronze substrate was used for the microchip fabrication. Receptor rabbit antibodies were immobilized via passive sorption directly on microchannel walls. After the incubation of ferritin samples, secondary biotinylated antibodies were introduced. A solution of avidin molecules labeled by fluorescein isothiocyanate was finally added into the microchannels. Lamp-based fluorescence detection of the immunocomplex was then carried out. Dynamic detection range of the method was in the interval from 100 ng mL−1 to 10 μg mL−1.