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Young Speaks on MEMS
It was a rainy day but that didn't dampen spirits when Congressman C.W. "Bill" Young, who represents the 10th Congressional District of Florida and is serving his 16th term in the U.S. House of Representatives, joined University of South Florida officials, area dignitaries and technology experts at the Tampa Bay and MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology conference February 22nd at the USF St. Petersburg campus. This was Young's second trip to Pinellas County on technology-related business in several months. He was on hand late last year to celebrate the dedication of the newly named Young-Rainey STAR Center in Largo, so named because of Young's and Chuck Rainey's influence in transforming the former Dept. of Energy nuclear weapons facility into the thriving technology center that it has become.

Congressman C.W. "Bill" Young has been instrumental in influencing high tech growth in the Tampa Bay area.

Young's name will also commemorate the marine sciences center at USF St. Petersburg, which encompasses the Center for Ocean Technology, the Florida Marine Research Institute, the Florida Institute of Oceanography and the U.S. Geological Survey. The commemoration occurred along with the groundbreaking of a 60,000-square-foot addition of the USGS facility, which will accommodate an increase from 106 to as many as 250 employees. Funding for the addition was made possible by Young, who as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee allocated $6.25 million for the project.

Considering that his moniker is attached to two of the county's most vital technology centers, "I'm humbled," says Young. "I'll continue to do my best to deserve such accolades."

More important to him, however, is the significance of the MEMS technology laboratory that USF St. Petersburg is in the process of opening at the Young-Rainey STAR Center and other initiatives underway at the Center for Ocean Technology. "The only limitation to what MEMS can do is limited by our own ability to think and imagine what to do with it," Young addressed to the approximately 200 people attending the MEMS conference. "The United States must be secure, it must defend itself on the battlefield, detect drugs and monitor air and water quality. This technology can help do those things."

A MEMS chip that processes information from sensors is displayed beneath the lens of a high-resolution optical microscope in a lab at USF St. Petersburg.

MEMS technology has been under development since 1988 when a team from the University of California-Berkeley demonstrated a working electric motor that could be seen only with the help of a microscope. The motor's main spinning part measured 60 micrometers, or millionths of a meter, across. If 10 times bigger, it would still have been only as wide as a pin. Today, MEMS motors are even smaller and more powerful. According to David Darling, author of Beyond 2000: Micromachines and Nanotechnology, limits to the miniaturization of chips may eventually be reached, but not before, for example, we can carry a computerized version of all the books in the Library of Congress in our pocket.

MEMS technology underway at USF St. Petersburg includes development of components for an underwater chemical and biological sensor device intended for homeland defense. This is a $13.1-million program.

"It is important to constantly advance the state of the art in defense technology and medical technology," Young said. "Our ability to advance the state of the art in MEMS technology in Pinellas County is unbelievable. We have a world-class center for marine science and MEMS technology. All the people of our nation will profit by the work done at USF and the MEMS lab. People are looking at us here to get answers about our world's oceans."

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