Framework overview of the processes, people, and diagnostics to use when designing and manufacturing bottom-up technologies

1. Developing Bottom-Up Devices and Advanced Manufacturing Processes
Dave Litwiller
Keywords: Bottom-up development; advanced materials; complex fabrication; differences compared to
manufacturing top-down designed products; physical IP; sensors; transducers; interface technologies; energy
conversion technologies
Introduction
Producing the most advanced physical technologies often requires bottom-up development. Bottom-up
describes the situation where the behavior of constituent materials and components needs to be
extensively understood and refined beyond the current state of knowledge before larger systems
employing them can be robustly designed and produced. The bottom-up world is very different from
top-down system integration or incremental refinement where many companies and technology
industries work today. Yet, bottom-up is the domain of many of the most compelling breakthroughs in
research, development and manufacturing of physical science based innovation.
Common bottom-up examples include many types of sensors, actuators, physical interfaces, propulsion
systems, energy storage devices, energy conversion and recovery technologies, advanced membranes,
and other technologies which achieve new to the world capabilities or order of magnitude
improvements in cost, size and performance versus the prior state of the art in their domains.
Operating in the breakthrough world of simultaneously optimizing at such a demanding level of physical
performance, and necessarily with little margin for error to conceal any weaknesses, requires different
disciplines than the more routine technology integration. Bottom-up design is the preferred process for
establishing new combinations and frontiers of what is possible. It is frequently the key to achieving
unprecedented levels of performance. Yet it has, unfortunately, become a partially lost art in some
sectors of technology.
This paper provides a recap overview of the bottom-up world of how best to devise, optimize and scale
products and manufacturing processes which rely on advanced, and difficult to model materials,
components and sub-systems. Attention is also given to the distinctive staff personality traits and work
methods which it takes to sustainably win in these pursuits.
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2. Frame of Reference
Bottom-up design and development is largely a return to the disciplines of earlier technology industries.
It is a case for many of going back to the future to achieve the most substantial capability advances with
fundamental physical technologies.
To conduct bottom-up development and production efficiently depends upon following a largely
sequential series of steps moving from materials, to components, and final devices. This progression is
laid out below.
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3. Sequence of Progress - Developing Advanced Devices, Manufacturing Processes and Systems
Characterize Base
Materials under
Representative
Process
Conditions
Make Each SubSystem, with
Evidence of
Measurement,
Control, and
Repeatability
Achieve
Interchangeability
of Final Devices –
From Unit to Unit,
Lot to Lot, Shift to
Shift, etc.
3
Produce
Functional
Devices
Attain Stable Device
Performance under
Controlled,
Intentional Process
Changes and
Natural Variations
Characterize the
Highest Sensitivity
Process Variables,
and their
Interrelationships
Devise Parametric
Trade-off Curves to
Predictably Model
Changes to Final Device
Attributes based on
Controlled Process
Inputs and Parameters
© David J. Litwiller 2013
Achieve Device
Performance to
Specification and
Target Yield,
Conduct
Accelerated Life
Testing
Reduce Cycle
Time, Implement
Continuous
Improvement
Techniques,
Enhance Yield
Test
Repeatability of
Production
through Changes
in Line, Staff and
Base Material
Lots or Vendors
Institute
Corrective and
Preventative
Action System
and Other
Quality
Controls

4. Done this way, bottom-up development has strong roots to the method of basic scientific inquiry. It
then achieves fastest and most useful results from which to base subsequent decisions and
investigations. There is usually no short-cut to success, but there is a discipline laid out above which
lights the way along the shortest path in time and expense from start to finish.
The Process of Bottom-Up Design
The most constructive mind-set in bottom-up development is:
•
Start by thoroughly understanding the properties and limitations of the materials and material
combinations to be used, usually with testing in experimental rigs in order to get visibility into
essential properties most quickly and flexibly
•
With this knowledge, more complex components are then designed, produced and tested,
correcting issues as they emerge and verifying those changes with further testing
•
The final system is then constructed and tested
When working with advanced materials and system architectures, the bottom-up sequence reveals the
biggest issues early and cheaply, so that they can be corrected quickly or accommodated costeffectively. Moreover, when changes need to be made late in bottom-up development, they usually can
without disrupting the overall system design because of how well understood all of the constituent
elements have become.
Construct Experiments to Release Maximum Information
To achieve results most quickly, the design of experiments and trials should be done in ways that:
•
Control for one variable at a time; deconstructing additive effects to individual effects first, and then
reassembling to combined effects
•
Test to the extreme of failure, test to the other extreme of insignificant effect, and throughout the
rest of the range of influence for each substantive input or variable. Increase sampling granularity
where the phenomena under study exhibits the greatest rate of change or sensitivity
•
Test for reversibility of effects, where possible, to build assurance that the observed cause and
effect is in fact the case. Correlation is not causality
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5. •
Structure experiments during early investigational phases so as to have a 50%/50% chance of
success or failure. Experiments with an equal chance of succeeding or failing provide the most
information to guide further work
A particular dilemma when developing advanced manufacturing techniques is interpreting and inferring
action from partial yield, which is the case when the manufacturing process and device design are semiworking. In general:
•
If yield is lower than 20%, often fundamental questions remain about the nature of the technology
which needs to be better understood in order to achieve significantly better yield
•
If yield is around 50%, usually the best progress can be achieved by reducing the cycle time for yield
enhancing experiments, through removing waiting and procedural waste, to accelerate the rate of
information flow from further experiments to iteratively learn and increase yield
•
If yield is approaching 80% or beyond, typically the process is largely adequate, and the best
advances are realized by extensively analyzing first-pass yield fall-out and early life failures to
identify limited points of intervention in upstream processing or qualification to redesign or
otherwise deliver further yield gains
To get diagnostic and performance data quickly to accelerate development, the overall manufacturing
process needs to be instrumented with test structures and direct measurement of critical mid-stream
properties as manufacturing is in progress. Doing so ensures that the internal structure of the process is
understood and controlled, not just waiting for end of line measurements. Observation of vital process
performance at major interim nodes greatly aids not just up front development, but also later for
troubleshooting when issues occur after production release, and adapting the process over time as
materials, equipment, or targeted output attributes necessarily evolve.
Trouble Signs
Development of advanced manufacturing platforms and products is usually in significant trouble when
any of the following signs are evident, including in bottom-up development cases:
•
Predictability of the process isn’t getting substantially better with time
•
Changes which people expect should have minor impacts routinely have major and unexpected
consequences
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6. •
Late experiments to try to tame the process involve changing many variables at once, drawing
people into an iterative game of N-dimensional chess with very low likelihood of rapid success, little
tangible progress, and little information from the results of new attempts to guide subsequent
investigations. Knowing that something failed is not of much use, as is often the case with quasirandom attempts to shoot for success. But, being able to extract exactly why something failed from
more sophisticated experimental inquiry is extremely valuable to get much smarter quickly about
what to do next to advance upon ultimate success
•
Overreliance on theories and literature guiding investigations rather than careful experimentation
and direct observation. Theory and literature can be helpful to identify many of the highest
sensitivity variables, inputs and controls. But, theory and literature will not typically reveal the
optimal formulation or manufacturing process in a specific setting. Context may not change
everything in bottom-up development, but it changes a lot
•
Extensive speculation about the relative impact of multiple intersecting and competing phenomena,
without quickly getting on with internally revealing experiments and observations
•
Staff and management disagree about whether the state of readiness of the process, or regularly
vary widely about what the objective likelihood of success for a production assay will be
These and similar difficulties are usually symptoms of: skipping steps in the necessary sequence shown
in the graphic above, combining steps prematurely, or adopting methodologies more suitable for the
comparatively predictable top-down world of integrating and debugging reasonably robust components.
Mind-sets and approaches need to be conditioned to the demands of bottom-up development. With
the right orientation for progress, the highly variable and interrelated nature of manufacturing advanced
devices and structures with equally advanced materials and processes can be tackled efficiently and
effectively.
Overcoming the Weaknesses of Bottom-Up Design
The criticism of bottom-up design is sometimes that system and integration issues can be missed with
an overreliance on bottom-up techniques. In isolation, this is true. However, blind spots can be
prevented by conducting regular reviews as development progresses of system requirements,
integration needs and relationships between subsystems, components, material combinations and
materials.
This kind of top-down overlay on the bottom-up process achieves the best contribution from both
approaches. By revisiting top-down design from time to time during bottom-up development, the
development team comes up from the detail each person is working on to assess fitness of what they’re
doing to the latest thinking about the overall system. They the can then periodically review and renew
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7. assumptions and dependencies based on their current understanding of their part of the solution for the
overall system to come together well.
Top-down synchronization discussions like this should be held no less frequently than 10% increments
throughout the overall project for device design and manufacturing process development. More
frequent top-down synchronization reviews should be conducted if the development is in difficulty or
undergoing rapid change as discoveries emerge and design choices evolve. Quick, daily sync meetings
are common in the most dynamic and demanding bottom-up development environments.
People
Like a lot of technology general management, the leadership for bringing to life complex new
manufacturing processes largely comes down to getting the right people with suitable inclinations and
aptitudes to succeed solving difficult, interrelated problems. These pioneering individuals who best suit
bottom-up development are:
•
Multi-disciplinary, bringing a keen interest and awareness of several fields of science and technology
to their thinking, so that they are not locked in to one domain, model, or way of thinking
•
Inquisitive, humbly probing the how and the why of everything significant that they interact with.
They are people who see questions and opportunities for improved insight in the behaviours and
relationships that others take for granted. They can keep zooming in and further in on an issue until
they see enough structure emerge in observed dynamics to form new and better models of cause
and effect which can be verified and then advantageously exploited
•
Relentless, both for the pace that they push themselves and their indefatigable will to deconstruct
and solve tough problems. Delays are powerfully distasteful, yet at the same time, they are never
deterred from getting the data or making the observations which they suspect are important to
sustain progress
•
Exhaustive, seeing invention on its own as an abstract and only partial result. For the right scientists
and engineers who are thoughtful about advanced devices and manufacturing, real innovation
comes from completing a technology to a state of knowledge and refinement to be produced in high
volume and used widely by delighted end customers. This is the only standard by which they
measure their ultimate success. Many valuable insights into a technology’s full potential only come
after ramping a technology’s production and deployment up. The raw invention is just an intriguing
start
•
Hobbyists in the same domain as their work. It is their passion. They never stop
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8. •
As creative about devising analytical tools, measurement instruments and test rigs as they are about
the technology under development. People who are pushing the boundaries of what is known,
developing industry-shaping technology, and at a rapid pace, have to be developing corresponding
techniques to test and measure as they go along
•
Fantastic improvisers. There are no paved roads and maps for this kind of journey on the leading
edge, just compasses and machetes to get through the jungle. The rest has to be figured out en
route. Those who don’t just survive but thrive are able to invent or discover the rest of the
resources they need as they go, and without spending a fortune to do it
•
Of the view that theories are stepping stones which will be greatly modified, or even rewritten, as
the ultimate truth of the physical behavior of the technology gets revealed. Such individuals always
hold back a bit of skepticism that further truth may be revealed, no matter how pleasing a working
explanation or model may be. They are not bound by the scholastic tradition of trying to see the
perfect answer in a closed form or approximated fashion predominantly based on idealized or preexisting theory. They do not fall into the narrative fallacy of falling for elegant theories to the
exclusion of getting on with doing experiments and making measurements
•
With full command of the scientific fundamentals governing their work. They never lose sight of the
basics as they proceed. They do not spend a lot of time on weakly founded conjecture, and are
especially disinclined to speculate where cause and effect cannot be shown
•
Investigative into failure for the insights it can reveal, not brushing it aside. Even in the case of
graceful failures where accommodative system architectures or luck may diminish the impact of a
point failure, a failure is still a failure and cause for determined interrogation
•
Obsessed with prototyping, experimentation, direct observation, and meticulous record keeping, in
the tradition of the greatest scientific and engineering achievers to never miss or lose anything
important. Being diligent is a differentiator. Personal experience drives misconceptions out of a
person’s mind. Experiments solve arguments
•
Hands-on. They do not let the interpretations of others obscure or otherwise get in the way of the
most important aspects of their work
•
Tough on themselves, as they are on others, to be disciplined to not fall in love with an early,
convenient explanation, but to instead push for a deeper, more rigorous version of the truth
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9. References
“Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle”, R. Feynman, Appendix to the Rogers
Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, 1986
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt
“Charles F. Kettering: A Biography”, T. Boyd, Beard, 2002
http://www.amazon.ca/Charles-F-Kettering-A-Biography/dp/1587981335
“The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development”, D.
Reinertsen, Celeritas, 2009
http://www.celeritaspublishing.com/PDFS/ReinertsenFLOWChap1.pdf
About the Author
Dave Litwiller is an Executive-in-Residence with Communitech, based in Waterloo, Ontario. His
background is in wireless devices, precision electro-mechanics, semiconductors, electro-optics, MEMS,
biotech instrumentation, and enterprise software. His work spans functional and general management,
as well as governance of growth stage technology businesses. He serves as an advisor to various private
corporations in matters of strategy, technology, operations, finance, R&D, manufacturing, governance,
and business development.
Dave is the author of the book published in 2008, “Rapid Advance - Mergers & Acquisitions,
Partnerships, Restructurings, Turnarounds and Divestitures in High Technology”. He holds a B.A.Sc. in
Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
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