Design

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to review the existing capabilities that may be used to design parts that will be micromanufactured without lithography-based processes. In the past five to 10 years, non-lithography-based meso- and microscale (NLBMM) parts have seen increased use in medical applications, consumer products, defense applications, and several other areas. These technologies promise to have an impact on the economy, improve health and safety, raise our standard of living, and form a middlescale stepping stone by which the benefits of nanotechnology may be accessed. The technologies used to design NLBMM parts and the processes and equipment used to fabricate them are in a nascent stage. These technologies have been, for the most part, borrowed from the design practices of macroscale engineering and very large-scale integration (VLSI). At present, most designers have difficulty ascertaining the appropriate time to use pre-existing design knowledge, theory and tools. Designers must be able to assess the suitability of pre-existing technology for the design of NLBMM parts. Otherwise, design processes will be long and iterative, with the result that the products’ benefits will be either delayed or lost. As designers, we must understand the nature of this new technology and work hard to generate the design knowledge, theories and tools that will enable the widespread and rapid advance of NLBMM technology.

Given the nascent state of NLBMM technology, this chapter focuses on the technologies that “should be.” Some of these technologies may be borrowed or adapted from the macroscale and VLSI design domains, whereas others will have to be fundamentally different. This chapter aims to explain the aspects of NLBMM parts design that are fundamentally unique and the circumstances in which these unique differences call for new design knowledge, theories and tools. Toward this end, this chapter contains discussions on the following topics: (1) the reasons why unique requirements exist for the design of NLBMM parts, (2) the existing knowledge and practices that may be borrowed to design NLBMM parts, and (3) the gaps between existing technologies and the requirements for NLBMM part design. The topics are arranged so that members of disparate design communities (e.g., decision theorists, hardware and mechanical designers, design theorists, industrial designers, and process design specialists) may make use of the knowledge gained during this study.