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"An Investment in the Nation's Future"
The
Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications (MESA)
Project is a new, state-of-the-art facility at Sandia
National Laboratories that will provide the capabilities
essential to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable stockpile.
MESA will create a computationally-intensive environment
for the design, integration, prototype fabrication, and
qualification of integrated microsystems into weapon components,
subsystems, and systems for the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile.
MESA is designed to accelerate the science
and application of microsystem technologies. These
small, highly integrated and low-power mechanisms
are created using integrated circuit fabrication
technology that allows for the combination of diverse
functions on a single computer chip.
Sandia's role in maintaining the
safety, security, reliability, and operability of
the nuclear stockpile demands that the Laboratory
create the MESA complex to develop, qualify, and
incorporate microsystems into nuclear weapons. To
achieve its mission, MESA must bring to bear a diverse
array of human talent from around the nuclear weapons
complex in the fields of:
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Microsystems technology development;
• Computational and engineering
sciences and analysis; and
• Weapon design, system integration
and certification.
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The
MESA complex will be the cornerstone of an "integrated
campus complex." Upon completion, MESA will be a key element
of the scientific and technological heart of Sandia. MESA is
designed to meet the requalification and reconditioning demands
set forth by the DoD and DOE and enables Sandia to remain on
the cutting edge of technology. The coupling of microsystem
components with the most advanced design and simulation tools
has clear and important benefits in enabling the Nation to meet
the challenges of maintaining and improving the safety, security
and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
| Sandia
technician Stephanie Reel is shown with one of the metal
deposition systems in the Microelectronics Development Laboratory,
an existing facility that will be a part of the proposed
MESA Complex. |
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major Microsystems facilities, the CSRL (Compound Semiconductor
Research Lab) and the MDL (Microelectronics Development
Lab), support our mission to provide differentiating microsystems
and electronic solutions that enable Sandia's success in
assuring national and global security. |
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Science & Technology Center MSTC
also utilizes a variety of laboratories as well as test
and evaluation areas with a host of technical microsystem
technologies within Sandia's PETL
(Processing Engineering & Technologies
Lab), IMRL
(Integrated Material Research Lab), and the CINT
(Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies), also(Advanced Manufacturing Processes
Laboratory) AMPL. |
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CSRL and MDL provide clean room facilities that are the
core microfabrication capability of Sandia's MESA
(Microsystems & Engineering Sciences
Applications) Program. |
The (Compound
Semiconductor Research Lab) CSRL was formally established
in 1986. After a steady decade and a half of continuous
growth, CSRL capabilities are now among the most extensive
of any laboratory of its kind in the world. |
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Organometallic
Vapor Phase Epitaxy (OMVPE) Reacto |
Sandia's (Microelectronic
Development Laboratory) MDL was built in 1988 as a world-class
facility dedicated to the advancement of microelectronic
research, development, and application initiatives of strategic
interest to the United States of America and the Department
of Energy. |
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Microelectronics
Development Laboratory (MDL) |
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Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) is a Department
of Energy/Office of Science Nanoscale Science Research Center
(NSRC) operating as a national user facility devoted to
establishing the scientific principles that govern the design,
performance, and integration of nanoscale materials.
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Top of page |
Contact
Jeffrey S. Nelson
(jsnelso@sandia.gov)
(505)284-1715
Web
Lisa Sena-Henderson
ldhende@sandia.gov
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