Sept. 3, 2002 — Analog Devices, the semiconductor giant that helped introduce MEMS technology to the world 15 years ago, said today that it has sold its 100 millionth MEMS device.

Exactly what that device was and who bought it will never be known, but Analog sells a range of accelerometers for automotive airbags and other functions. The company has a display board in the lobby of its Cambridge, Mass., office charting how company sales have closed in on the symbolic number over the last several years.

“We shipped the first MEMS-based sensors for airbag crash detection in 1993, and there has been a tremendous amount of learning along the way,” said Franklin Weigold, general manager of Analog’s MEMS division. His unit now has 500 employees, three research centers and three manufacturing plants.

Analog had $2.27 billion in sales for fiscal 2001, down 12 percent from 2000. The company does not disclose how much of its sales come from MEMS products; it lumps MEMS with its “other analog” sales, which account for about 25 percent of revenues.

Analog uses surface micromachining to manufacture its MEMS, the smallest of which is 5 millimeters square and 2 millimeters thick. The company says it expects the future of MEMS to be in optical devices and more complicated accelerometers to sense rotational motion.

— Matt Kelly