01/08/2003  Inspecting MEMS devices is among the applications eyed for a new three-dimensional imaging and measurement instrument.

01/08/2003  Pacific Nanotechnology Inc. said it has launched an atomic force microscope (AFM) for the imaging of wafers and storage media disks.

01/06/2003  MEMS-directed lasers may sound complicated, but not if you compare them to everyday items, such as tires. “In a car for example, you have four tires,” explains Saeid Aramideh of Iolon Inc. “If every tire was tuned separately, you’d have to carry four spares.” In this instance, the car is a long haul optical transmission network, and the tires are the tunable lasers that help move traffic.

01/03/2003  When Bob Miracky started talking to potential customers about a radio frequency switch his company was developing that offered less signal loss than existing components, he didn't emphasize that it was a MEMS device. "Companies buy business solutions, not technology," said Miracky, president of Teravicta Technologies Inc. of Austin, Texas.

12/30/2002  The Segway Human Transporter, a self-balancing personal transportation vehicle, is among the best selling items on Amazon.com Inc.’s Web site, the Reuters news service reported.

12/23/2002  With an experienced management team and a manufacturing deal in place, Microlab Inc. plans to go to market with its electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) MEMS switch early in 2003. Some challenges still remain, including a bid to close the company's last round of funding this year, but the firm believes that its core technology will be the funding clincher.

12/20/2002 

12/17/2002  Innovative Micro Technology (IMT) said it received $1.8 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army to develop a MEMS-based system for purifying human blood stem cells.

12/05/2002  As the Segway throws itself on the mercy of the market on Amazon, its older cousin, the iBOT, moves closer to opening new worlds for the wheelchair-bound. An FDA board recommended approval for the iBOT, a wheelchair with MEMS gyroscopes and accelerometers that enable it to climb stairs and balance on two wheels.

11/19/2002  Germans might not have a reputation for being the jolliest people around, but those presenting a forum on the outlook for the European MEMS industry at the Electronica 2002 trade fair recently were all smiles. The scientists, officials and market watchers painted a generally rosy picture of an industry that has enjoyed steady growth despite the general downturn in the tech sector.

11/13/2002  Consumer electronics makers will put MEMS devices in more products because they offer more performance and functionality for the same or lower price. But the expanding market comes with growing pains, according to a new report.

11/13/2002  The transition from concept to high-volume MEMS production is expensive and risky. While engineering resources exist for taking a good idea for a microdevice through design, prototyping, testing and high-volume production, the infrastructure for doing so is still evolving. There are no guarantees of success, no standards to follow and packaging problems continue to be almost insurmountable.

11/12/2002  Tire pressure monitoring and global positioning systems are among the areas spurring billion-dollar growth for MEMS sensors, according to a new report.

10/30/2002  Xtrana Inc. has been awarded $986,051 over the next three years from the National Institutes of Health to develop a nucleic acid-based, microfluidic device to detect a panel of respiratory viruses from a single patient sample, the company said in a news release.

10/28/2002  Santec Corp. of Japan said it has launched a new MEMS-based variable optical attenuator for optical networking systems.

10/21/2002  Italian tiremaker Pirelli Pneumatici will begin offering a MEMS-based tire monitoring system to European consumers by the end of 2002.

10/14/2002  Arradial Inc. has large offices for a company devoted to microfluidics. Scientists there hope the space won’t stay empty for long. After 18 months of perfecting its prototype, the startup is poised to get down to business: drug discovery using a microfluidic form of high-throughput screening that lets operators measure out liquid specimens as small as a few picoliters in volume.

10/14/2002  Teravicta Technologies has signed a deal with Dow-Key Microwave to sell Teravicta's radio frequency (RF) MEMS switches worldwide, according to a news release.

10/04/2002  OMM Inc. said it has been awarded four U.S. patents for innovations in MEMS photonic switching.

10/02/2002  Triad Sensors prefers to think of its new MEMS chip as a bargaining chip. The startup has made hundreds of them primarily to pitch its process – a potentially better way to make MEMS. Triad serves a field that has many different production methods, but no set standard. So, it's touting its approach as a way to make many different microdevices in existing foundries.