Huge 3D Printing Facility in Singapore

Singapore will soon house the biggest commercial 3D printing facility in Southeast Asia.

U.S.-based semiconductor company Ultra Clean Technology (UCT) recently launched the new facility in Woodlands, a suburban town located in northeaster Singapore. With a maximum build volume of 650mm x 750mm x 550mm, the $3.5-million 3D printing facility will provide services including 3D engineering, prototyping, part optimization, virtual warehousing and consumer parts production.

UCT said in a statement that the move from mass production to mass on-demand customization will have a positive impact on the economy.

Singapore unveiled the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster, which seeks to harness, strengthen and expand on the country's existing 3D printing capabilities and to position the country as a world leader in this technology.

Additive manufacturing is one of the four key technology areas identified for development under the $200 million Innovation Cluster Programme (ICP) announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in October 2013. The programme is led by SPRING Singapore and National Research Foundation (NRF), by the Research, Innovation & Enterprise 2015 (RIE2015) Sub-committee on Innovation & Enterprise.

To accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing, NAMIC will also partner with well-known industry partners, including multinational companies and local firms.

Prototype production of parts can now be accomplished within a few days, according to Lavi Lev, senior vice president of UCT's Asia division. This will significantly reduce costs, boost productivity and engage smaller companies by allowing them to manufacture parts with no capital equipment investment, he added.

In addition, cost of operation is lessened and traditional supply chains are optimized through virtual warehousing. In this approach, parts are digitally stored and manufactured only on demand. The need to store thousands of parts in warehouses that cost millions becomes obsolete.

3D printing, however, will not replace mass manufacturing just yet at its current state, said Brendan Goh, co-founder of local start-up Pirate3D, adding that the technology will only become mainstream if it can produce high quality finished products and if it can achieve high speeds.

Although some challenges lie ahead, the Singapore government has started investing in advance to build up upstream R&D and downstream commercialization capabilities.

The national government has also begun training talents that will drive the nascent additive manufacturing industry.

The manufacturing sector accounts for about 18 per cent of Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP), and with continuous technology upgrades and restructuring, the sector will continue to be a key driver in the country's economic growth.

Argonne opens its Doors to Startups and Businesses

In 2009, Andreas Roelofs cofounded aixACCT Systems Inc., a company specializing in piezoelectric material testing. For a fledgling business, the technology and expertise required to bring a product to market may seem out of the realm of possibility. Equipment worth millions of dollars isn’t something many have access to.

“After starting this company, I didn’t think I could knock on (Argonne National Laboratory’s) door,” says Roelofs in an interview.

Today, Argonne National Laboratory announced the creation of two new collaborative centers—Nano Design Works (NDW) and the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS)—meant to provide businesses and industry access to Argonne’s top-of-the-line facilities and scientific expertise.

“Think about how big this box is that we’ve just opened” with nanotechnology and energy storage, says Roelofs, now the director of NDW. “We’re creating new knowledge.”

In Roelof’s eyes, nanotechnology picked up momentum around 15 years ago. Materials behave differently on the nanoscale, generally described as less than 100 nm. Elements from the periodic table, according to Roelof, exhibit new properties. “You create new properties (which) can give you new functionalities,” he says. “That is really the promise of nano.”

Drugs capable of targeting cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed; foams capable of absorbing spilled oil from the water column, these are just a couple of the ways nanotechnology can benefit the future.

Currently, NDW is exploring superlubricity, the ability to rub two surfaces together without creating friction. The center successfully created diamond and graphene nanoscrolls, which appear like ball bearings on the macroscopic level and reduce friction. The discovery could solve a major problem for machinery, as approximately 30% of a vehicle engine’s power is forfeited to friction loss.

“But companies have ideas too, and they get stuck once in a while,” says Roelofs. “We want to work with big and small companies and help them with their problems.”

“Where ACCESS and NDW will differ from the conventional approach is through creating an efficient way for a business to build a customized, multidisciplinary team that can address anything from small technical questions to broad challenges that require massive resources,” said Jeff Chamberlain, the director of ACCESS.

Argonne has 1,400 award-winning and internationally recognized scientists and engineers.

According to Chamberlain, the lithium-ion market is worth around $16 billion, but less than 5% of the technology is manufactured in the U.S. As the industry grows, some economists believe the market could bring in $30 to $80 billion/yr, he said. “If we have the right kind of breakthrough that involves material(s) science and involves some small-scale engineering, like we do at Argonne National Laboratory, then we can enable the market to blossom, but simultaneously open the opportunity for American businesses to capture some of that market,” said Chamberlain.

Roelofs joined Argonne a little over four years ago as the Deputy Division Director of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. Eventually, he added “industry liaison” to his business card, as he was the point of contact for outside industry.

“We saw the importance of having this dialogue with industry,” however, “we got to the point where this nanocenter was not enough for some of the questions we got,” Roelofs says.

For more information go to: access.anl.gov or nanoworks.anl.gov

Samsung opens 10-story Silicon Valley Office

Samsung has recently opened the doors of its San Jose office where it towers over its Silicon Valley neighbors. At a time when so much work is conducted online or over cell phones at home, in cafes and on airplanes, offices are perhaps more symbolic than ever.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo gave a nod to the rival in his comments to several hundred Samsung employees and guests at the opening. "Hello future denizens of spaceship Samsung, we look forward to seeing you take off in San Jose," he said.

Indeed, the race continues. The giants have logged several laps, leapfrogging each other with high profile smartphone and tablet features running on ever faster and more integrated SoCs.

Samsung came in first in the battle of the buildings, with more than 700 employees already inhabiting its 1.1 million square feet. Apple is still raising the walls of its new headquarters, though no doubt architects for both efforts can find reason to claim bragging rights.

Both buildings stand out for their size and style, something that isn't hard to do in the low slung solemnity of Silicon Valley office parks. Both in their own ways try to push the boundaries of architecture that encourages interaction, hoping for collaboration and unexpected innovations.

In my mind, the Samsung cube with its cut-through courtyard symbolizes the company's relative openness. The Apple spaceship suggests the consumer giant's more insular mystic.

The opening came the same day a Korean paper reported Samsung will cut by 20 per cent it's spending on capital equipment for semiconductors next year. Executives at the event decline to comment on the report, but even if it proves true it would be a slightly smaller cut than its other rival, Intel, is planning.

A spokesman for the company's foundry business stuck to the corporate message that Samsung is ramping the 14nm process in which it is making its latest Exynos SoCs. It plans to have mass production on a 10nm node by the end of next year, using triple patterning on critical layers.

In many ways, the semiconductor race is an even more dramatic one than the higher profile smartphone slugfest. The billions Samsung spent on its Austin fab made it one of the largest foreign investments in the U.S. at that time.

Samsung's fab complex in Giheung, South Korea will not be on the cover of Architectural Digest, but it is doing work fundamental to the success of many electronic products, including the iPhone. Such plants must continue to turn the crank on increasingly complex and expensive processes to fuel the new spaceships powering up in San Jose and Cupertino.

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