1 © David J. Litwiller 2013

Developing Bottom-Up Devices and Advanced Manufacturing Processes

Dave Litwiller

Keywords: Bottom-up development; advanced materials; complex fabrication; differences compared to

manufacturing top-down designed products; physical IP; sensors; transducers; interface technologies; energy

conversion technologies

Introduction

Producing the most advanced physical technologies often requires bottom-up development. Bottom-up

describes the situation where the behavior of constituent materials and components needs to be

extensively understood and refined beyond the current state of knowledge before larger systems

employing them can be robustly designed and produced. The bottom-up world is very different from

top-down system integration or incremental refinement where many companies and technology

industries work today. Yet, bottom-up is the domain of many of the most compelling breakthroughs in

research, development and manufacturing of physical science based innovation.

Common bottom-up examples include many types of sensors, actuators, physical interfaces, propulsion

systems, energy storage devices, energy conversion and recovery technologies, advanced membranes,

and other technologies which achieve new to the world capabilities or order of magnitude

improvements in cost, size and performance versus the prior state of the art in their domains.

Operating in the breakthrough world of simultaneously optimizing at such a demanding level of physical

performance, and necessarily with little margin for error to conceal any weaknesses, requires different

disciplines than the more routine technology integration. Bottom-up design is the preferred process for

establishing new combinations and frontiers of what is possible. It is frequently the key to achieving

unprecedented levels of performance. Yet it has, unfortunately, become a partially lost art in some

sectors of technology.

This paper provides a recap overview of the bottom-up world of how best to devise, optimize and scale

products and manufacturing processes which rely on advanced, and difficult to model materials,

components and sub-systems. Attention is also given to the distinctive staff personality traits and work

methods which it takes to sustainably win in these pursuits.

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Frame of Reference

Bottom-up design and development is largely a return to the disciplines of earlier technology industries.

It is a case for many of going back to the future to achieve the most substantial capability advances with

fundamental physical technologies.

To conduct bottom-up development and production efficiently depends upon following a largely

sequential series of steps moving from materials, to components, and final devices. This progression is

laid out below.

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Sequence of Progress - Developing Advanced Devices, Manufacturing Processes and Systems

Characterize Base

Materials under

Representative

Process

Conditions

Make Each Sub-

System, with

Evidence of

Measurement,

Control, and

Repeatability

Produce

Functional

Devices

Achieve Device

Performance to

Specification and

Target Yield,

Conduct

Accelerated Life

Testing

Test

Repeatability of

Production

through Changes

in Line, Staff and

Base Material

Lots or Vendors

Achieve

Interchangeability

of Final Devices –

From Unit to Unit,

Lot to Lot, Shift to

Shift, etc.

Attain Stable Device

Performance under

Controlled,

Intentional Process

Changes and

Natural Variations

Devise Parametric

Trade-off Curves to

Predictably Model

Changes to Final Device

Attributes based on

Controlled Process

Inputs and Parameters

Reduce Cycle

Time, Implement

Continuous

Improvement

Techniques,

Enhance Yield

Institute

Corrective and

Preventative

Action System

and Other

Quality

Controls

Characterize the

Highest Sensitivity

Process Variables,

and their

Interrelationships

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Done this way, bottom-up development has strong roots to the method of basic scientific inquiry. It

then achieves fastest and most useful results from which to base subsequent decisions and

investigations. There is usually no short-cut to success, but there is a discipline laid out above which

lights the way along the shortest path in time and expense from start to finish.

The Process of Bottom-Up Design

The most constructive mind-set in bottom-up development is:

• Start by thoroughly understanding the properties and limitations of the materials and material

combinations to be used, usually with testing in experimental rigs in order to get visibility into

essential properties most quickly and flexibly

• With this knowledge, more complex components are then designed, produced and tested,

correcting issues as they emerge and verifying those changes with further testing

• The final system is then constructed and tested

When working with advanced materials and system architectures, the bottom-up sequence reveals the

biggest issues early and cheaply, so that they can be corrected quickly or accommodated cost-

effectively. Moreover, when changes need to be made late in bottom-up development, they usually can

without disrupting the overall system design because of how well understood all of the constituent

elements have become.

Construct Experiments to Release Maximum Information

To achieve results most quickly, the design of experiments and trials should be done in ways that:

• Control for one variable at a time; deconstructing additive effects to individual effects first, and then

reassembling to combined effects

• Test to the extreme of failure, test to the other extreme of insignificant effect, and throughout the

rest of the range of influence for each substantive input or variable. Increase sampling granularity

where the phenomena under study exhibits the greatest rate of change or sensitivity

• Test for reversibility of effects, where possible, to build assurance that the observed cause and

effect is in fact the case. Correlation is not causality

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• Structure experiments during early investigational phases so as to have a 50%/50% chance of

success or failure. Experiments with an equal chance of succeeding or failing provide the most

information to guide further work

A particular dilemma when developing advanced manufacturing techniques is interpreting and inferring

action from partial yield, which is the case when the manufacturing process and device design are semi-

working. In general:

• If yield is lower than 20%, often fundamental questions remain about the nature of the technology

which needs to be better understood in order to achieve significantly better yield

• If yield is around 50%, usually the best progress can be achieved by reducing the cycle time for yield

enhancing experiments, through removing waiting and procedural waste, to accelerate the rate of

information flow from further experiments to iteratively learn and increase yield

• If yield is approaching 80% or beyond, typically the process is largely adequate, and the best

advances are realized by extensively analyzing first-pass yield fall-out and early life failures to

identify limited points of intervention in upstream processing or qualification to redesign or

otherwise deliver further yield gains

To get diagnostic and performance data quickly to accelerate development, the overall manufacturing

process needs to be instrumented with test structures and direct measurement of critical mid-stream

properties as manufacturing is in progress. Doing so ensures that the internal structure of the process is

understood and controlled, not just waiting for end of line measurements. Observation of vital process

performance at major interim nodes greatly aids not just up front development, but also later for

troubleshooting when issues occur after production release, and adapting the process over time as

materials, equipment, or targeted output attributes necessarily evolve.

Trouble Signs

Development of advanced manufacturing platforms and products is usually in significant trouble when

any of the following signs are evident, including in bottom-up development cases:

• Predictability of the process isn’t getting substantially better with time

• Changes which people expect should have minor impacts routinely have major and unexpected

consequences

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• Late experiments to try to tame the process involve changing many variables at once, drawing

people into an iterative game of N-dimensional chess with very low likelihood of rapid success, little

tangible progress, and little information from the results of new attempts to guide subsequent

investigations. Knowing that something failed is not of much use, as is often the case with quasi-

random attempts to shoot for success. But, being able to extract exactly why something failed from

more sophisticated experimental inquiry is extremely valuable to get much smarter quickly about

what to do next to advance upon ultimate success

• Overreliance on theories and literature guiding investigations rather than careful experimentation

and direct observation. Theory and literature can be helpful to identify many of the highest

sensitivity variables, inputs and controls. But, theory and literature will not typically reveal the

optimal formulation or manufacturing process in a specific setting. Context may not change

everything in bottom-up development, but it changes a lot

• Extensive speculation about the relative impact of multiple intersecting and competing phenomena,

without quickly getting on with internally revealing experiments and observations

• Staff and management disagree about whether the state of readiness of the process, or regularly

vary widely about what the objective likelihood of success for a production assay will be

These and similar difficulties are usually symptoms of: skipping steps in the necessary sequence shown

in the graphic above, combining steps prematurely, or adopting methodologies more suitable for the

comparatively predictable top-down world of integrating and debugging reasonably robust components.

Mind-sets and approaches need to be conditioned to the demands of bottom-up development. With

the right orientation for progress, the highly variable and interrelated nature of manufacturing advanced

devices and structures with equally advanced materials and processes can be tackled efficiently and

effectively.

Overcoming the Weaknesses of Bottom-Up Design

The criticism of bottom-up design is sometimes that system and integration issues can be missed with

an overreliance on bottom-up techniques. In isolation, this is true. However, blind spots can be

prevented by conducting regular reviews as development progresses of system requirements,

integration needs and relationships between subsystems, components, material combinations and

materials.

This kind of top-down overlay on the bottom-up process achieves the best contribution from both

approaches. By revisiting top-down design from time to time during bottom-up development, the

development team comes up from the detail each person is working on to assess fitness of what they’re

doing to the latest thinking about the overall system. They the can then periodically review and renew

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assumptions and dependencies based on their current understanding of their part of the solution for the

overall system to come together well.

Top-down synchronization discussions like this should be held no less frequently than 10% increments

throughout the overall project for device design and manufacturing process development. More

frequent top-down synchronization reviews should be conducted if the development is in difficulty or

undergoing rapid change as discoveries emerge and design choices evolve. Quick, daily sync meetings

are common in the most dynamic and demanding bottom-up development environments.

People

Like a lot of technology general management, the leadership for bringing to life complex new

manufacturing processes largely comes down to getting the right people with suitable inclinations and

aptitudes to succeed solving difficult, interrelated problems. These pioneering individuals who best suit

bottom-up development are:

• Multi-disciplinary, bringing a keen interest and awareness of several fields of science and technology

to their thinking, so that they are not locked in to one domain, model, or way of thinking

• Inquisitive, humbly probing the how and the why of everything significant that they interact with.

They are people who see questions and opportunities for improved insight in the behaviours and

relationships that others take for granted. They can keep zooming in and further in on an issue until

they see enough structure emerge in observed dynamics to form new and better models of cause

and effect which can be verified and then advantageously exploited

• Relentless, both for the pace that they push themselves and their indefatigable will to deconstruct

and solve tough problems. Delays are powerfully distasteful, yet at the same time, they are never

deterred from getting the data or making the observations which they suspect are important to

sustain progress

• Exhaustive, seeing invention on its own as an abstract and only partial result. For the right scientists

and engineers who are thoughtful about advanced devices and manufacturing, real innovation

comes from completing a technology to a state of knowledge and refinement to be produced in high

volume and used widely by delighted end customers. This is the only standard by which they

measure their ultimate success. Many valuable insights into a technology’s full potential only come

after ramping a technology’s production and deployment up. The raw invention is just an intriguing

start

• Hobbyists in the same domain as their work. It is their passion. They never stop

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• As creative about devising analytical tools, measurement instruments and test rigs as they are about

the technology under development. People who are pushing the boundaries of what is known,

developing industry-shaping technology, and at a rapid pace, have to be developing corresponding

techniques to test and measure as they go along

• Fantastic improvisers. There are no paved roads and maps for this kind of journey on the leading

edge, just compasses and machetes to get through the jungle. The rest has to be figured out en

route. Those who don’t just survive but thrive are able to invent or discover the rest of the

resources they need as they go, and without spending a fortune to do it

• Of the view that theories are stepping stones which will be greatly modified, or even rewritten, as

the ultimate truth of the physical behavior of the technology gets revealed. Such individuals always

hold back a bit of skepticism that further truth may be revealed, no matter how pleasing a working

explanation or model may be. They are not bound by the scholastic tradition of trying to see the

perfect answer in a closed form or approximated fashion predominantly based on idealized or pre-

existing theory. They do not fall into the narrative fallacy of falling for elegant theories to the

exclusion of getting on with doing experiments and making measurements

• With full command of the scientific fundamentals governing their work. They never lose sight of the

basics as they proceed. They do not spend a lot of time on weakly founded conjecture, and are

especially disinclined to speculate where cause and effect cannot be shown

• Investigative into failure for the insights it can reveal, not brushing it aside. Even in the case of

graceful failures where accommodative system architectures or luck may diminish the impact of a

point failure, a failure is still a failure and cause for determined interrogation

• Obsessed with prototyping, experimentation, direct observation, and meticulous record keeping, in

the tradition of the greatest scientific and engineering achievers to never miss or lose anything

important. Being diligent is a differentiator. Personal experience drives misconceptions out of a

person’s mind. Experiments solve arguments

• Hands-on. They do not let the interpretations of others obscure or otherwise get in the way of the

most important aspects of their work

• Tough on themselves, as they are on others, to be disciplined to not fall in love with an early,

convenient explanation, but to instead push for a deeper, more rigorous version of the truth

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References

“Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle”, R. Feynman, Appendix to the Rogers

Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, 1986

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt

“Charles F. Kettering: A Biography”, T. Boyd, Beard, 2002

http://www.amazon.ca/Charles-F-Kettering-A-Biography/dp/1587981335

“The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development”, D.

Reinertsen, Celeritas, 2009

http://www.celeritaspublishing.com/PDFS/ReinertsenFLOWChap1.pdf

About the Author

Dave Litwiller is an Executive-in-Residence with Communitech, based in Waterloo, Ontario. His

background is in wireless devices, precision electro-mechanics, semiconductors, electro-optics, MEMS,

biotech instrumentation, and enterprise software. His work spans functional and general management,

as well as governance of growth stage technology businesses. He serves as an advisor to various private

corporations in matters of strategy, technology, operations, finance, R&D, manufacturing, governance,

and business development.

Dave is the author of the book published in 2008, “Rapid Advance - Mergers & Acquisitions,

Partnerships, Restructurings, Turnarounds and Divestitures in High Technology”. He holds a B.A.Sc. in

Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.