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Big plans for tiny devices
By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- In a lab on the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida, engineers have been working for the past two years to miniaturize marine instruments that can test for everything from pollutants to explosive mines under water. Friday, representatives of the Center for Ocean Technology showed off their facility, told about plans for expansion and tried to interest Tampa Bay area companies into tapping their expertise in making microelectromechanical devices that work under water. The devices, known as MEMS, have been around for more than a decade and have been incorporated into everything from automotive airbag sensors to read/write heads for computer hard drives to inkjet printer heads. The benefit of MEMS devices is that they combine multiple functions -- mechanical, fluid, optical and electronic -- on a chip smaller than a dime and thinner than a human hair. Though MEMS have been most widely used as pressure sensors -- they're in the tires on the space shuttle and in the braking system of your car -- the experts who spoke Friday said that's just the beginning. One speaker, Kurt Petersen, runs Cepheid, a company in Sunnyvale, Calif., that uses MEMS in a device that analyzes DNA in 30 minutes. Possible uses include quick detection of cancerous cells in human tissues, foot and mouth disease in cattle and a lethal disease on grapevines. USF officials hope to spark that kind of cutting-edge thinking among area entrepreneurs by offering to help them incorporate MEMS technology into products. In an effort to move its research out of the lab and into the community, the Center for Ocean Technology will open a clean-room facility at the Young-Rainey STAR Center in Largo by mid-year. "We have no interest in doing production work of MEMS," said Carol Steele, administrative manager at the Center for Ocean Technology. "But the new facility will be very good for prototyping as companies try to apply MEMS to their business." Steele said the Center's research, which has been funded by the military, might be especially applicable to the biomed field. "Our special niche is making MEMS-size devices that work under water," she said. "If we can make these work in the ocean, we can probably make them work in the saline solution of the body." At least one company in the audience welcomed USF's expansion to Largo. Constellation Technology Corp., which is developing devices that can detect nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, now tests its MEMS prototypes at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The USF lab will be right across the parking lot from Constellation Technology's office at the Star Center. The Center for Ocean Technology has had one entrepreneurial spinoff. Jay Sasserath, a former executive at local tech company Unaxis, has partnered with USF professor David Fries to license a process Fries developed at the university. The St. Petersburg company, Intelligent Micro Patterning LLC, is selling a technology that speeds up the etching process and allows MEMS devices to be made faster and cheaper. Sasserath started the company in July and entered into an agreement in October to build his first system for Life Sciences Inc., a St. Petersburg biotech company that wants to miniaturize a test that can be used to detect HIV or other pathogens. "I've been talking to companies in the biomed field and research and development," Sasserath said. "The biggest problem with MEMS has been the cost. But we can do design, fabrication and testing, as well as rollout of a MEMS device." Sasserath, who was vice president of strategic marketing at the company previously known as Plasma-Therm, has one full time assistant, six part-time employees and a small manufacturing plant in downtown St. Petersburg. "I'm having a lot of fun," he said. "But I'm working ungodly hours." -- Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2996. What it stands for: microelectromechanical systems What they do: combine mechanical, fluid, optical and electronic functions on one tiny chip How they're used: in automotive air bags and braking systems; in disposable blood pressure monitors; to monitor air and water quality
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