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September 22, 2008
Compiled by George Allen
DWFritz Automation works with a variety of MEMS applications, building sophisticated automation to solve client manufacturers’ most difficult custom challenges. Our experienced, expert engineering team integrates intelligent machine vision, robotics, and micron-level precision technologies to deliver high efficiency production machines without sacrificing quality or creating excessive waste.
The following text includes excerpts from the MEMS Investor Journal [MEMS, Microfluidics and Microsystems Executive Review interviews] that bring MEMS industry leaders to comment on the future of the MEMS industry:
MEMS Investor Journal (IJ): Freescale is one of the leading companies in terms of MEMS commercialization. What are your top 3 MEMS products today?
Dave Monk, Freescale: It depends upon the definition for "top". I will assume this is meant to be top revenue opportunities today. I would state that these are: DMD, ink-jet print heads, and inertial sensors for airbag deployment. My reply is based on information from a recent market study by Yole Development in which they have ranked the top 30 MEMS manufacturers; these results reflect that data.
MIJ: What do you think are the top MEMS applications that will emerge over the next 1-2 years?
DM: We believe, as do many market studies (e.g., Strategy Analytics and EMTECH), that the top emerging markets in MEMS during that timeframe will be in low g/angular rate for vehicle dynamic stability, tire pressure sensing, and consumer applications for low g inertial devices. Part of the reason for this is that these devices use more mature MEMS technology. As is often the case, different sensor/actuator applications using MEMS will use different MEMS process flows. Therefore, several new applications are still on the early stage of the learning curve for a new MEMS process: e.g., RF MEMS, optical MEMS, and BioMEMS. However, once the process technology is more mature, these will also be ripe new market areas for MEMS.
MEMS IJ: As a provider of MEMS foundry services in Europe, which MEMS applications do you see driving the strongest demand at this point?
Peter Pfluger, Tronic: As a contract manufacturer of custom MEMS components our views on the MEMS foundry requirements are probably incomplete. Indeed our customers are requiring much more from us than simply standard wafer processing. At the end of the day, our OEM partners are expecting qualified and tested custom products, not wafers or dies, usually delivered in the form of a packaged component that they can integrate directly in their system. For us the demand is now strongly driven by System in Package (SiP) requirements and we are continuously structuring ourselves to tackle those OEMs requirements.
In terms of applications, we currently see the strongest demand from systems and sub-systems manufacturers in the medical devices and industrial control and metrology fields. The demand is indeed growing for custom capacitive inertial transducers and sensors as well as for the customization of our miniature capacitive pressure sensor technology platform.
MEMS IJ: How will that change in a few years. Which applications do you think will experience the strongest growth?
Peter Pfluger: The MEMS life sciences and lab automation applications are today in an early stage of maturity. The first products are starting their market introduction but there are much more to come. Companies in those fields have recognized the perspectives offered by those technologies. It is now a question of time to build the necessary fundamental knowledge and solutions.
MEMS IJ. What’s new at IMT. What exciting new projects have you been involved with recently?
John Foster, Innovative Micro Technology. We do have a number of new exciting projects, and we are seeing an upswing in general of large companies and well-funded startups keen to have access to MEMS in order to help their businesses. One interesting thing. while I don’t want to dodge your question, I must. Most of our customers don’t even want their competition to know that MEMS is the answer. So, we keep these programs to ourselves. Of the programs we can discuss, I’m very excited about our fiber-to-the-premises product with Exponent and our infrared product with Ion Optics. Both these programs have legs, are a great use of MEMS technology, and are good partners for IMT.
MEMS IJ. How was last year in terms of business and how is this year shaping up?
John Foster. We are growing, both in revenue, number of customers, and programs in production. We’re running 24x7 with 150 employees and climbing. Having said that, however, we are always wary about the future, and we are constantly looking to mitigate any downturn in one industry with possible upsides in other industries. One of the things that I’m most pleased about is that we have attained our goal of diversity in partnering with customers in a large array of businesses, from infrared to biomedical, electrical switching to optical…
MEMS IJ. What are the top three new MEMS products that are likely to be commercialized in the near future?
John Foster. I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive my huge biases. Of course I like the products that we are bringing out now and I’ve already mentioned. Outside that, I’m excited about some of the biomedical applications that are now coming to fruition in the marketplace. MEMS implantables and MEMS drug-infusion devices will make a difference in people’s lives in a substantial way, and in that sense will be “top” products. Farther out in time, we hope that our cell sorter technology will enable cell therapies in a cost-effective way for a wide range of diseases including certain cancers, autoimmune, coronary and ischemia maladies.
MIJ. There has been much discussion about RF MEMS recently. How close do you think we are to having RF MEMS actually implemented in high volume applications?
Chris Lumb, Micralyne. RF MEMS, like many application areas, will continue to see steady growth in a variety of application niches. Whether RF MEMS will be the next so-called killer-app remains to be seen. I’ve been in the industry long enough to see other application areas not fulfill their promise: two of these were DNA sequencing and optical telecom. My belief is that too much hype about killer-apps in advance of their reality is bad for the industry. Failed promises turn off investors for many years to come; they also scare away customers of MEMS. Those of us in the industry need to continue to demonstrate the reality of MEMS by actually delivering what we promise. At Micralyne we’ve done exactly that and as a result we’ve steadily grown our business over the years, by delivering real applications in realistic volumes and helping our customers generate revenues and profits, not just promises to their investors.
MIJ: Besides RF MEMS, which other applications do you see coming into mainstream over the next year or two?
Chris Lumb: There are so many new applications of MEMS it’s hard to list them all. Some of the big new ones are optical diagnostic devices for health care, drug delivery devices, sensors for bioterrorism defense, semiconductor test devices, as well as a range of new automotive sensing applications. One of the biggest growth areas we’re seeing this year is optical telecom: demand is growing rapidly and telecom carriers are now specifying capability that requires MEMS devices in all major RFPs. The other big area of growth we’re seeing is in MEMS microphones: these will likely be widely deployed within several years in phones, computers, and additional automotive applications. So right now we see MEMS taking major steps forward in fulfilling it’s promise to create a world of smaller, faster, and cheaper devices. It’s a good time to be in this industry.
MEMS IJ: Microfabrica has positioned its EFAB process as its unique capability. How does the EFAB process work and what are its unique advantages and benefits over other MEMS technologies?
Adam Cohen, Microfabrica: EFAB technology is a micro fabrication process based on multi-layer electroplating and planarization of metals. The process is designed to efficiently stack dozens of independently patterned metal layers on top of one another, allowing designers to create intricate 3-D complex geometries with micron-level precision.
EFAB technology is a flexible and versatile process that has the ability for creating complex 3-D micro devices composed of dozens (so far up to 50) layers (by comparison, the state-of-the-art for conventional MEMS processes is 5) that are otherwise impossible or impractical to make. This opens the door to enhancing performance and new functionality.
MIJ: What are the limitations of the EFAB process?
AC: There are three potential limitations of the EFAB process:
1) Materials–most electroplated metals and alloys attach to insulate, however a sister process is under development to provide both an insulator and a metal for those few applications that need a structural insulator,
2) Feature size - currently limited to 10-20 µm in the plane of the layers, and 2 µm perpendicular to this plane (but have not found a reason to go smaller than that)
And 3) sidewall quality - compared with LIGA it is not as good since its multiple layers vs. one.
MIJ: What kinds of applications are most optimally fabricated with the EFAB process?
AC: RF components/systems (especially microwave/mm-wave devices at GHz frequencies), safing/arming and fusing devices for weaponry, multi-axis inertial sensors, surgical instruments and medical implants, high-force & long-stroke actuators, print heads and fluid ejectors.
MEMS IJ: What would you say are the top three market opportunities for MEMS based devices right now?
Karen Lightman, MEMS Industry Group: We see the top markets as automotive, consumer goods and especially mobile devices, industrial and medical devices.
MEMS IJ: Based on what you hear from your members, how does the current state of the overall economy affect the MEMS industry?
Karen Lightman: In our conversations with both members and industry analysts like Marlene Bourne, Yole DÉvelopment and WTC/iSuppli, we aren’t seeing the economy impacting the MEMS industry at a significant level. However, with the rise in gas prices it’s likely that costs of shipping MEMS devices will increase further squeezing device manufacturers to reduce their overall bill of materials as most, if not all, MEMS devices are shipped around the world before they are finally placed within an Apple iPhone, for example…
MEMS IJ: What was the overall theme of your MEMS Executive Congress last year. What were the main takeaways from the meeting?
Karen Lightman: There were several main takeaways from our 2007 MEMS Executive Congress–where we had an overall theme focusing on the business side of MEMS:
Software will enable MEMS to truly take off. For example, as keynote speaker Philippe Kahn said at the Congress, without software, the Apple iPhone is just a “brick.” It’s the software that brings the enabling technology to the iPhone. In mobile media, MEMS is integral at every level: for big-screen projection, displays, RF and more.
In consumer goods, customers care more about performance and cost than whether it’s MEMS inside their application, so supply chain and inventory costs are extremely important. OEMs care about multiple-source suppliers because they want to reduce risk. For example, with the Nintendo Wii, both Analog Devices and STMicroelectronics provided the MEMS component technology, which ensures the integrity of the supply chain for high-volume mass-market applications. As the industry expands, there is increased opportunity for multiple-source suppliers in the market.
In the biomedical space, MEMS applications are integral to the movement toward home health care. MEMS applications are enabling precise drug delivery systems and patient monitoring. For example, Debiotech’s Nanopump, which is being commercialized by STMicroelectronics, comes close to mirroring the physiological delivery of insulin, and it’s a quarter of the size of existing insulin pumps. Other MEMS-based home health care devices are being used to monitor heart rate and blood pressure.
MEMS IJ: What is the theme for this year’s Congress? Why did you decide to focus on this topic?
Karen Lightman: For this year’s Congress, the focus will be on the convergence of MEMS technology in a growing number of applications and markets. For example, we are now seeing dozens of MEMS devices in single mobile phone–from MEMS enabled RF, silicon microphones and camera stabilization, and in the not-too-distant future, MEMS-based miniature projectors. We focused on this topic because it illustrates the pervasiveness of MEMS.
MEMS Investor Journal: MEMS, Microfluidics and Microsystems Executive Review–articles:
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