By Tom Henderson
Small Times Senior Staff Writer
HANNOVER, Germany — For years, MEMS pioneer Reiner Wechsung has stood up at various conferences and scientific gatherings in the world of small tech and challenged: “Show me two.”
It is one thing, Wechsung would say, to announce that you or your research staff built one nifty tiny device. It is quite another to show that your processes can be reproduced.
Forget building batch volumes. Just show Wechsung you could build two and you were on your way to having what he considered a reputable product.
Wechsung is no longer just the skeptic. He’s the founder and chief executive of STEAG microParts GmbH, and he’s building tiny parts in batch process by the millions each year — identical and commercially viable.
“What we had to do was find products and bring the manufacturing scale from lab scale to factory scale,” he said Tuesday during an interview at the Hannover Trade Fair.
MicroParts was founded in 1990. A fast-growing firm, its majority investor is the German industrial heavyweight, STEAG GmbH. MicroParts moved into its own facility in Dortmund, Germany, in 1994. The plant was doubled via expansion to 18,000 square feet of research and clean-lab production space in 1999.
MicroParts grew from 40 employees in 1994 to 160 employees at the beginning of this year, and is already up to 180 today. Wechsung says its mix is about half scientists and half support staff, with the mix involving “more and more engineers and more and more production.”
Wechsung is reluctant to discuss most of his upcoming or planned products, but has gone on record with several.
MicroParts is now testing a radically different inhaler, dubbed a Nebulizer, that uses micronozzles and a sprint-activated micropump to replace the propellant-gas technology prevalent in today’s inhalers.
The device must pass upcoming tests for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is at least two years from market, but Wechsung is confident his inhaler will eventually have sales in the tens of millions of units. The worldwide market is currently 500 million units, he says.
The Nebulizer, if Wechsung’s claims prove true, shows the power of the very small to improve the way we live.
Propellant-gas inhalers have a number of drawbacks, says Wechsung. They damage the environment by the release of large amounts of fluorocarbons into the atmosphere. The drug droplets expelled are too big — up to 500 microns — to be absorbed efficiently. And amount of drug expelled is typically twice or three times the dose actually needed.
Micronozzles reduce the droplet size to five microns. The longer spray time of two seconds with a trigger system allows the user to inhale the drug more efficiently. And the dose is more controlled, says Wechsung.
The inhaler is built in collaboration with the big German drug firm, Boehringer Ingelheim KG, part of a business model Weschsung uses to pass R&D costs on to large corporate partners.
Another product being shown at the fair is the LILLIPUT microtiterplate, an injection-molded polymer microfluidic device with a wide range of clinical microbiological applications, including DNA assays. It is less than a kitchen match in length and about half as wide.
MicroParts has also developed a microspectrometer in conjunction with an American manufacturer, SpectRx. One application is early recognition of jaundice in new-born babies without having to put the infant through the stress of drawing a blood sample. That collaboration is the start what Wechsung hopes will be a bigger presence in the American market.
“It’s the most important market in the world, so we must be there,” he says. “Since we have closer connections to German companies, most of our business is in Germany, but we hope that will change.”
MicroParts also makes component parts for ink-jet printers, but most of its research and sales is in the biomedical field.
Wechsung, who gave a speech at the Semicon Europa show in Munich on Monday before arriving at Hannover Tuesday, has long been known for his firm positions and willingness to defend them.
“He takes a very strong stand and some people don’t like it. He’s got a rugged personality,” says Kees Eijkel, director of MESA+, the large research institute associated with the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
“But he’s earned his standing in the [small-tech] community. He makes things happen.”
FAIR NOTES
* Two European small-tech trade organizations announced Tuesday morning that they had signed an agreement to ease the exchange of technology and to help each other find investment capital to assist in commercialization.
MINAC, a trade association of for-profit companies and non-profit microsystem and nanotechnology research institutes and universities in The Netherlands, and IVAM, a similar association based in neighboring Germany, formalized what had been a growing closeness between the two organizations. . .
* Organizers of the microtechnology portion of the Hannover Trade Fair are confident they will double participation to 600 exhibitors next year, now that the inaugural show for small tech is underway.
That will still leave microtechnology well behind this year’s biggest of the six fairs here under the Hannover Trade Fair banner. Factory automation has 1,800 exhibitors spread out over eight halls of its own and parts of three other halls.
The other fairs are Industrial IT and Software; Motion, Drive and Automation; Energy; Compressed Air Technology, Factory Equipment and Tools; and SubconTechnology, a fair for those seeking subcontracts . . .
* It was something approaching fear on the face of Michele Migliulo, president of Xactix, the only American firm with booth space at this year’s small-tech fair. About noon of opening day, a fair employee pushing a cart loaded with food and drink stopped at Migliulo’s booth to drop off what a form indicated was catered food for him.
“It’s not for me,” said Migliulo, a stricken look on his face as he waved his arms side to side animatedly.
“I can’t afford to eat (catered meals) here,” he said. “This is well organized fair, the most organized I’ve ever been part of. They don’t take lunch orders and make deliveries at other fairs. But check out these prices.”
While walk-up snack bars are inexpensive, one beer catered to a booth is about $23 U.S., though you can save a bit on an alcohol-free beer ($20) or a small Coke, which goes for $17 for a third of a liter, just less than 12 ounces.
If exhibitors find themselves dragging after a long day on their feet, they can get a coffee for $10. And if the blood sugar is lagging, there’s a bag of peanuts for a bit less than $5 . . .
* Once visitors learn the price structure, they tend to be a little more conservative in taking advantage of German hospitality. German trade fairs, according to Ellen McDevitt, program manager for the American recruiting arm of the Hannover Fairs, involve more schmoozing than their American counterparts. Would-be customers don’t just stop by for a brochure, a peek at the product and an exchange of business cards. They are expected to walk in, sit at a table and have a Coke and a smoke, maybe munch on some peanuts, crackers or cookies.
While fair rules prohibit checks or money from changing hands, a good deal of deal making is negotiated over drinks and munchies, she said. Best of all for visitors, such hospitality is free.