09/12/2007  September 12, 2007 - MEMS revenue will double from $5B in 2005 to $10B in 2011, with a "select group of large, well-established MEMS suppliers" benefiting from growth in the automotive sector, and "new, emerging entrants" to the MEMS market capitalizing on opportunities in consumer, communications, and portable end-product sectors, according to Semiconductor Partners.

09/07/2007  VTI has designed its new automotive digital accelerometer family to support smart sensing, improved reliability, and self-test features. The new digital sensor platform promises a cost effective system for diverse applications.

08/27/2007  Discera, Inc., qualified its MEMS-based oscillators with a series of frequency-stability and standard semiconductor qualification and reliability tests, comparing the silicon-based MEMS resonators to quartz for timing devices. Discera tested three separate manufacturing lots to prove process consistency in high-volume production, said Venkat Bahle, VP of marketing, Discera.

08/09/2007  MEMSConcepts.com has officially launched its membership-based network to join innovators and idea seekers.

08/03/2007  First Nano, a division of CVD Equipment Corp., has shipped its first EasyTube 6000 chemical vapor deposition system. The unit is available with processes for research in the semiconductor, MEMS, nanotechnology, and solar cell markets.

07/30/2007  To assist the development of a miniaturized dielectrophoresis-based system for particle and cell sorting, CFD Research Corp. is using a custom flowcell devised by ALine. CFD is developing the system under a Phase 1 SBIR contract for biodefense and homeland security applications requiring intelligent discrimination of target particles from a complex liquid matrix.

07/16/2007  Discera, Inc., chief technology officer (CTO) Wan-Thai Hsu will present "The New Heart Beat for Electronics — MEMS Oscillators," at the Emerging Technologies and Markets TechXPOT, July 18, during SEMICON West, July 16–20 in San Francisco.

07/10/2007  Looks like the US has a lot to learn from European soccer superiority, even in the nanoscale world. ETH Zurich took home three top prizes in last weekend's nanogram demonstration at the RoboCup games, placing first in all three skills tests -- a goal-to-goal "2mm dash" (316ms), slalom around fixed polymer photoresist posts patterned onto the "field" (583ms), and ball handling drill (3 goals in 3 minutes).

06/27/2007  Yole Développement will release a report on the RF MEMS switches market in July, outlining market potential in defense, industrial, automotive, and telecom applications. The report is in-line with forecasts by IDTechEx regarding end markets for RFID components, including medical, defense/aerospace/military, and telecom.

06/15/2007  Bennington Microtechnology Center (BMC) has formed a process development partnership with Apogee Technology for manufacturing process design of Apogee's Sensilica pressure sensor line.

05/17/2007  May 17, 2007 - STMicroelectronics and the SAES Getters Group say they will integrate SAES' PageWafer getter thin-film technology, used in high-vacuums in wafer-level packaged MEMS devices, into ST's next-generation MEMS gyroscopes, targeting consumer devices, gaming, and navigation devices.

05/16/2007  SAES Getters Group and STMicroelectronics have agreed to incorporate SAES' PageWafer technology into ST's multi-axis gyroscopes, with a goal of delivering higher sensitivity and stability for angular-speed measurement.

04/23/2007  April 23, 2007 - Innovative Micro Technology has begun offering getter deposition services of wafer-level packaging (WLP) of MEMS devices and other components requiring a hard vacuum, saying it has demonstrated vacuum levels below 10 mTorr for inorganic devices, equal to or better than industry standard.

04/18/2007  SEMI released corrections to its January and February book-to-bill estimates for the North America semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry, lowering the ratios to 1.00 and 0.98, respectively. SEMI blames a data-input error for the incorrect averages initially reported.

04/05/2007  April 5, 2007 - Silicon MEMS microphones were installed in 20% of mobile phones manufactured in 2006, up from 10% in the previous year, but in reality there are only two suppliers who reap the benefits, according to data from The Information Network.

04/02/2007  April 2, 2007 - Omron Corp. has finalized its acquisition of a 200mm CMOS semiconductor factory in Yasu, Shinga, Japan, from Yasu Semiconductor Corp., a consolidated subsidiary of Seiko Epson., five months after announcing the deal, according to the companies.

03/27/2007  Discera Inc. has completed a Series C funding round, and expanded its distribution with the addition of frequency control manufacturer ABRACON, whose channels include some of the top distributors in North America. Discera recently began shipping its first products for direct replacement of quartz crystal oscillators in electronics devices. The company will use its new funding to support increased production, distribution, and marketing.

02/27/2007  In addition to announcing the shipment of long-anticipated silicon oscillators, Discera Inc. boasts an agreement to help push those MEMS into OEM products. Discera hopes the moves will shake up the $3.5 billion market for quartz crystal oscillators.

02/23/2007  Bosch has begun manufacture of its Electronic Battery Sensor (EBS), which promises to help motorists avoid flat batteries, the most common cause of breakdowns. In 2007, more vehicles equipped with the sensor will go into series production.

02/14/2007  The commercial use of MEMS and nanotechnology ranges from display, gyro-sensor, and ink-jet printing to smart-RFID, RF-MEMS, and wireless-sensing sectors; this technology expansion is creating competitive and converging applications for MEMS devices, according to Bourne Research. The research firm released seven market briefs outlining the dynamics of MEMS and nanotechnology in emerging applications.