IMPROVED MATERIALS FOR NAVY ELECTRONICS

In recent years, the United States has lost its technological advantage in many areas in which it pioneered research and development, due to poor make-or-buy decisions by business, or because of a reluctance to make long term business investments. This loss of technological advantage has had a negative impact on the NAVY and the other services, since it has sometimes left the US suppliers with a second-rate capability to accomplish technology insertion and manufacture new systems (resulting in higher cost), or has impacted the system's performance and reliability because of marginal fabricaton techniques. This proposal defines methods of identifying those areas of particular interest to the Navy in which the US is not a technology leader (such as bonded wafer SOI technology), and define the programs and the resources needed for these programs to close the technology gap. Following coordination of the final technology selection with the Navy, a Phase II program which establishes a demonstration model of the technology will be considered.