MEMS pioneer takes a year
off school to sell his wares

There are 1.6 MEMS devices per person today in the United States, according to a recent industry group study, and the association’s co-founder wants to have a hand in boosting that number.

 

Ken Gabriel, co-founder of the MEMS Industry Group, said he’s taking at least a year off from his job as a Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) professor and co-director of the university’s MEMS lab. He plans to focus on Akustica, a MEMS-based startup specializing in acoustic technology he helped develop in CMU’s lab.

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“This particular technology is one that I’ve been working on and developing with colleagues and students over the last 3-4 years … and it’s reached state of maturity. It has gone as far as it could go in a university environment,” said Gabriel, who is co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer of the Pittsburgh-based company.

 

“The next phase is what I would call the intense commercialization phase: Go out and try to find out how the technology fits into the acoustic product mix. The best way to do that is to take it out. There’s only so much you can do within a university environment.”

 

Gabriel said the yearlong leave of absence from CMU, which could be extended another year if needed, will allow him to develop acoustic MEMS chips that function as miniature microphones and speakers for future mobile phones, hearing aids and other consumer electronic devices. He anticipates the prototypes by early next year, and “reasonable volume production” by the end of 2003.

 

He said the advantage of Akustica’s solution is that it integrates multiple components and electronics in a single package, which can capture a richer acoustic signal and reduce unwanted noise.

 

Other firms, such as SonionMicrotronic AS and Knowles Electronics, also develop MEMS acoustic technology, but Gabriel said his firm differentiates its devices by using standard CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) chips. That means Akustica’s chips can be made in any of the world’s CMOS foundries, which should lower costs, and boost reliability, quality and durability.

 

The company, which has five full-time employees now and hopes to have 100 within three years, should close on a first round of seed funding worth between $1 million and $2 million by month’s end, he said.

 

“That’s a better response than we anticipated, which is gratifying,” he said. “We’re setting a limit on how much we’ll take.”

 

Gabriel credits the response to a greater understanding among investors of MEMS in general, but he said Akustica has entered an area with diverse markets, and its approach offers innovations to manufacturing as well as end use.

 

“Quite honestly, this is something most people, even if you’re not technically savvy, can grasp and understand: Microphones that cancel noise, that give you directionality, direct digital reproduction. … There’s a resonance there to understanding the applications.”

 

That take on the market is shared by Marlene Bourne, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR.

 

“There’s quite a bit of research going on in a number of companies,” she said. “It’s the next product wave.”

 

She said acoustic MEMS technology is attractive because it can potentially improve both the cost and quality of just about any consumer electronic device with a microphone. Still, that market will require high volume production of parts, and profits will harder for parts makers to achieve. “Those markets … demand extremely low prices,” she said.

 

Bourne said Gabriel and Akustica officials are smart to focus first on hearing aids and high-end audio equipment.

 

“My sense is he’s got a product that’s going to work and do well,” she said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

 

Before going to Carnegie Mellon in 1997, Gabriel spent five years as the first MEMS director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He was recruited from Bell Labs, where he established its silicon-based micromachining program.

 

He also was founding director of OMM Inc. and founder of two Pittsburgh startups, Verimetra and Xactix.

 

Gabriel said he will stay actively involved with MEMS Industry Group, which serves as a trade association for MEMS manufacturers, integrators and suppliers. He might even be able to increase his presence; the group’s Pittsburgh office is closer to Akustica’s headquarters than it is to his lab at Carnegie Mellon.

 

Louis Ross, director of Global Emerging Technology Institute, a nonprofit technology think tank that monitors and analyzes emerging technologies internationally, said he met recently with Gabriel to discuss ways the two groups could work together.

 

Ross said Gabriel’s move should be good for Akustica and the market in general.

 

His presence and the value he places in the company, considering how important his contribution to MEMS development in the United States has been, serves as a strong validation of what the company is doing,” he said.  “From our perspective, it is a key area relating to next-generation wireless (devices). … MEMS as applied to next-generation handset technology and development will become increasingly important.”

 

To Gabriel, taking his technology into the private sector is a realization of a dream two decades in the making.

 

“From back in the mid-’80s, before we called this area MEMS, I have been captivated by the potential for this technology to have so many different aspects of our lives,” he said. “I want to … get MEMS out and into as many products as I can.”

 

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