Division of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
that coordinates the development of high-tech military
equipment.
The Microsystems Technology Office, established in 1958
under the authority of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), works to reduce complex system applications that use multiple technologies (computers, for example) into chip-size packages. The three primary areas of
focus are electronics, photonics, and microelectromechanical systems. Within these fields, the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has several featured programs that include advanced lithography, in which multiple beams of
lights are condensed into one column to advance semiconductor technology that includes layered intelligence; distributed robotics based on biological features; microelectromechnical systems, which “merge sensing, actuating, and
computing” to achieve “enhanced levels of perception, control, and performance to weapons systems and battlefield
environments” (www.darpa.mil/mto); and the development
of new technologies that integrate all three fields into advanced computer chips.
Although the advances developed by the Microsystems
Technology Office are designed for military applications,
many of them will affect businesses and consumers in the
long term as the technology becomes available to the public
(as transistors did after World War II).
—Cynthia Clark Northrup