SAN DIEGO, June 13 -- JMAR Technologies Inc., a provider of precision micro and nanotechnology products, announced its semiconductor process technology group has been awarded a $1.6 contract to enhance the semiconductor fabrication processes installed at the Advanced Reconfigurable Manufacturing for Semiconductors (ARMS) foundry owned and operated by the Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) in Sacramento, Calif. General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, a prime contractor for DMEA, issued the contract to JMAR as part of the Defense Department's Advanced Technology Support Program. Since the ARMS foundry was established in 1999, JMAR has played a key role in the installation and implementation of that foundry's chip fabrication processes, which include CMOS gate array, EEPROM and radiation-tolerant ultrathin silicon technologies. Under a contract awarded by General Dynamics in 1998, JMAR supported the DMEA in the design, construction and commissioning of the ARMS foundry, which is a custom integrated circuit prototyping facility that produces innovative microcircuits to replace obsolete military system electronics. JMAR maintains a semiconductor process engineering and operations group next to DMEA's facility in Sacramento. The work under the current contract will be performed on-site by JMAR's Sacramento staff with support from JMAR's Southern California offices.