Imec, an international consortium focused on micro and nano technology, has a large global staff, and that’s a good thing because it has a lot on its plate.

“Manufacturing matters,” as Bennett Harrison, my graduate advisor at Carnegie Mellon University, used to say. It was a main theme of The Deindustrialization of America, a book he co-authored with Barry Bluestone describing the demise of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Today, as I see it, “MEMS matters”—and not just in the U.S. MEMS manufacturing matters worldwide.

Precious metals such as platinum, gold and palladium are used to make critical medical parts. These materials work well in such applications for several reasons, including their biocompatibility and radiopacity, which allows them to be seen inside the body via a fluoroscope or an X-ray.

Stylus and optical surface metrology: the best of both worlds

Stylus profilers have been the primary tools for surface-finish measurement for many decades, providing cost-effective, rapid and quantifiable surface roughness and form information via single or multiple traces across samples. Most surface-finish standards are based on 2-D stylus parameters such as Ra, Rpm or Rz.