US Government Opens Advanced Technology Program

President Clinton and Commerce Secretary William M. Daley have announced the opening of the first round of competition for the US Department of Commerce's annual Advanced Technology Program.
The program provides funding on a cost-shared basis to industry to carry out research and development on high-risk emerging and enabling technologies. Existing areas of competition include digital video in information networks and tools for DNA diagnostics. Among several new programs are microelectronics manufacturing infrastructure and photonics manufacturing.
The latter category encourages the development of packaging technologies, simulation and modeling tools, processing methods and instrumentation needed by US manufacturers to develop photonics-based products quickly and at low cost.
Full proposals for the digital video category are due April 22. Final proposals for microelectronics manufacturing and photonics manufacturing are due April 8, and for the tools for DNA diagnostics category, March 18. Further information on the program is available at http://www.atp.nist.gov