Category Archives: Packaging and Testing

STMicroelectronics has begun working with research partners to develop a pilot line for next-generation MEMS devices augmented with advanced technologies such as piezoelectric or magnetic materials and 3D packaging. The project was launched by the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC) Joint Undertaking (JU), a public-private partnership in nanoelectronics. 

In coordinating the €28m, 30-month Lab4MEMS project, ST is working with universities, research institutions and technology businesses across nine European countries. The project benefits from ST’s MEMS facilities in France, Italy and Malta to establish a complete set of manufacturing competencies for next-generation devices, spanning design and fabrication to test and packaging.

With over 800 MEMS-related patents, more than three billion devices shipped and extensive in-house production capabilities currently producing more than 4 million MEMS devices per day, ST is ideally placed to lead the Lab4MEMS research into next-generation devices. The project will develop technologies such as Piezoelectric (PZT) thin films to enhance current pure-silicon MEMS, enabling improvements such as larger displacement, higher sensing functionality and greater energy density. These are needed to build smart sensors, actuators, micro pumps and energy harvesters meeting the demands of future data-storage, ink-jet, healthcare, automotive, industrial-control and smart-building applications, as well as consumer applications such as smartphones and navigation devices.

The project will also develop advanced packaging technologies and vertical interconnections using flip-chip, through-silicon vias and through-mold vias, enabling 3D-integrated devices for applications such as body area sensors and remote monitoring. A key target is to perfect a PZT deposition process compatible with mass production, and integrate it into complex MEMS processes to enable innovative actuators and sensors on System-On-Chip industrial products.

Lab4MEMS is one of the Key Enabling Technologies (KET) Pilot-Line projects contracted by the ENIAC JU to develop technologies and application areas with substantial societal impact.

“The ENIAC JU research agenda has synergies with ST’s commitment to improving quality of life through technology,” said Roberto Zafalon, European Programs Manager, R&D and Public Affairs, STMicroelectronics. “Lab4MEMS is an important project that will benefit consortium members and stakeholders, including ENIAC member states. Ultimately, we expect the results to translate into long-term prosperity and valuable knowledge-based employment opportunities.”

The ENIAC JU is a public-private partnership involving ENIAC member states, the European Union, and the Association for European Nanoelectronics Activities (AENEAS). It is currently contributing some €1.8bn towards the costs of R&D projects, which it selects through a competitive process assessing responses to its Calls for Proposals. The Lab4MEMS project, coordinated by ST, was selected in 2012 and work began in January 2013.

As testament to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s educational blueprint, Zachary Olmsted, a junior Nanoscale Engineering major at SUNY’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), has been chosen to receive the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the second consecutive year that a CNSE student has been honored with the nation’s premier undergraduate award designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering.

“I am delighted to congratulate Zachary Olmsted from our world-class College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, whose notable recognition as a recipient of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship identifies him as one of the nation’s top undergraduate scientific scholars,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “I also commend Dr. Alain Kaloyeros and CNSE for their critical role in supporting the SUNY system’s ability to develop a new generation of high-tech talent that will be an invaluable asset for New York’s future.“

 “I am thrilled for Zach and proud of his many achievements, and want to congratulate him on this well-deserved recognition as a Goldwater Scholar,” said CNSE Associate Professor of Nanobioscience Dr. Janet Paluh, who is Olmsted’s academic advisor. “This award is a reflection of his demonstrated excellence in both the classroom and the laboratory, and a tribute to his passion for, and commitment to, next-generation scientific discovery and exploration at the interface of biology with man-made materials.”

A native of Oneida, New York, Olmsted is one of only 271 students to be recognized nationwide. He was selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,107 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities across the country. As part of the award, Olmsted will receive $15,000 in funding for his undergraduate studies over the next two years.

In his research, Olmsted is using the fundamental principles of materials science, biology, and device engineering to develop novel biomedical applications, with a focus of integrating biologic components with devices. Working at both the protein-level, using the model yeast system, and at the cell/organ-level, using pluripotent stem cells, these biosynthetic interfaces show promise to develop new cancer therapeutics and drug testing platforms that will alleviate sole reliance on animal studies. Olmsted, who received an honorable mention in last year’s competition, plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. in Nanomedicine, a joint program of CNSE and SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

“The selection of a CNSE student for the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for the second year in a row underscores the growing recognition of CNSE’s undergraduate program as a hallmark for academic and research excellence,” said Dr. Daniel White, CNSE Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Professional and Corporate Recruitment and Outreach. “We are pleased to see Zachary receive this honor, which reflects positively on CNSE’s innovative educational paradigm and further defines our student body as among the best in the nation.”

In 2012, Sheila Smith, a Pittstown, New York native who is currently a junior at CNSE majoring in Nanoscale Engineering, was honored with the Goldwater Scholarship.

Student receives nation's most prestigious award for science and engineering

Zachary Olmsted and Dr. Janet Paluh using a

Zeis fluorescence microscope to study a skin cell

In addition, Chase Brisbois, a junior majoring in Nanoscale Science at CNSE, received an honorable mention. Advised by Professor of Nanoscience Dr. Robert Brainard, his research targets the development of photo-imageable hydrogels that self-assemble into 3D scaffolds, which are designed to enable new capabilities and scientific advances in the field of tissue engineering. Brisbois is a native of South Lyon, Michigan.

Designed to alleviate a critical current and future shortage of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers in the United States, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship provides a continuing source of highly qualified individuals to those fields of academic study and research.

Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 80 Rhodes Scholarships, 118 Marshall Awards, 110 Churchill Scholarships and numerous other distinguished fellowships. Since its first award in 1989, the Foundation has bestowed over 6,550 scholarships worth approximately $40 million.

The high-value microelectromechanical system (MEMS) market experienced soft growth last year, mainly due to weakness in the mainstay medical electronics and industrial sectors, according to an IHS iSuppli MEMS High-Value MEMS Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS.

Revenue in 2012 for high-value MEMS, a market characterized by the lofty average selling prices compared to other MEMS devices, amounted to $1.63 billion, equivalent to growth of 6.5 percent from $1.53 billion in 2011. While revenue was up, growth was noticeably down from the 12.5 percent expansion of 2011.

This year will see a slightly improved 7.4 percent increase to $1.8 billion as the industry starts to recover during the second half. Growth then picks up by 2014 and rises to 10.3 percent, with 2015 and 2016 also forecast to experience solid upturns north of 9.0 percent, as shown in the figure below.

MEMS revenue slows

“The high-value MEMS market last year suffered a deceleration in growth because of continuing slow sales in medical electronics as well as a broad-based downturn in the industrial segment,” said Richard Dixon, Ph.D., principal analyst for MEMS & Sensors at IHS. “In medical electronics, the market performance has been sluggish for the last 18 months, echoing global economic uncertainties. The same macroeconomic headwinds also curtailed end-user demand in industrial electronics semiconductors, inflicting further pain. The high-value MEMS market was aided slightly by strong performance in the telecom, aerospace, and oil and gas sectors, which served to ameliorate the negative effects of the slow-moving sectors.”

Higher growth expected for high-value MEMS

Despite the diminished growth of 2012, the high-value MEMS market remains the second-fastest-expanding area in the broader MEMS space, coming in after the mobile and consumer market but leading the data processing and automotive segments. High-value MEMS accounted for 19 percent of the total MEMS industry last year, despite extreme fragmentation of the space with well over 100 suppliers. The average selling prices of sensors used in high-value MEMS are also much higher than the prices of sensors used in other MEMS segments, which gives the high-value MEMS industry its strength and importance.

Results sluggish in most high-value MEMS segments

Six sectors make up approximately 95 percent of the high-value MEMS market. The largest is medical electronics, accounting for more than 80 percent of total high-value MEMS shipments last year.

The majority of medical electronics sensors are used for diagnostics, patient monitoring and therapy.

For instance, tens of millions of pressure sensors are used and thrown away annually, with the sensors deployed to monitor the blood pressure of patients during and after major operations. Pressure and flow sensors are also used in devices like ventilators and respirators; implantable devices such as cardiac monitors; thermometers; and infusion pumps for introducing fluids, medication or nutrients into a patient’s circulatory system.

The depressed performance in medical electronics was also present in other high-value MEMS segments.

The test and measurement space, especially in semiconductor testing and wafer processing, was flat to down last year. Likewise, the industrial segment governing power tools and transportation exhibited anemic results.

Weak growth expected

Two high-value MEMS segments registered growth but were weak at best: building and home control on the one hand, with smart meters declining last year; and manufacturing and process automation on the other, because of low growth in areas like industrial motors.

In the energy generation and distribution segment, results were mixed. Spending on utilities was down and wind turbine deployments were slowing, but oil and gas showed strong demand in the third quarter based on shale discoveries.

The one segment of the high-value MEMS industry that was up strongly last year was military and civil aerospace. Despite a decelerating missiles and munitions market, the segment more than made up with the extremely robust commercial aircraft sales of the Airbus from Pan-European maker EADS, as well as of the Dreamliner planes made by U.S maker Boeing.

Six devices made up 83 percent of the high-value MEMS market last year. The biggest was microbolometers—tiny arrays of heat-detecting sensors sensitive to infrared radiation—used in firefighting, law enforcement and surveillance systems.

Other prominent high-value MEMS devices include pressure sensors, optical MEMS in telecommunications, wafer probes for semiconductor testing, inkjet printer heads, and accelerometers for gadgets like pacemakers.

A year ago, the microtechnology, nanotechnology, and advanced materials industry looked out on the year 2012 with quite positive expectations. As it turned out, the unstable economic situation has left its mark on these industries, too. For 2013, at least, the companies expect a slight upwards trend.

At present, the mood of the industry is quite subdued, as the economic data survey of the IVAM Microtechnology Network confirms. In 2012, the business situation has been worse than expected in a third of companies. While orders and staff numbers have slightly risen and production has remained stable for a large proportion of companies, sales figures have dropped. The lack of funding for the strategic business development, expansion or investment in innovation is still an essential problem. Only 7 percent of companies had more funds available for corporate financing in 2012 than in the year before, only 16 percent have been able to invest more than in 2011.

Foreign trade has developed modestly in the last business year, thus continuing the trend of previous years. Throughout Europe, the export rates of the microtechnology, nanotechnology and advanced materials industry have remained rather stable in 2012.

In order to be able to compete the companies will attempt to enter the markets also via subsidiaries or cooperation. Markets of particular interest are the BRIC countries as well as countries that have recently been reclassified from emerging markets to industrial nations. Brazil, Russia, India and China as well as Israel, Taiwan and South Korea are countries which the companies want to enter in the short and medium term, e.g. by cooperative ventures or setting up branches.

In the European microtechnology industry, the business situation in 2012 has been worse than expected in a third of companies.

Semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation entered the high-growth market for testing MEMS-based sensors by installing V93000 Smart Scale systems at several of Freescale Semiconductor’s facilities around the world. In addition to using Advantest’s testers for engineering development at Freescale’s Sensor and Actuator Solutions Division engineering center in Tempe, Arizona, the semiconductor manufacturer has started to employ the V93000 platform in production testing of its newest generations of MEMS-based sensors being manufactured in Asia.

Advantest claims its Smart Scale platform can be configured to provide the lowest cost of test for high-volume sensors. Officials says that while the ultra-compact A-Class test head enables a small footprint, the V93000’s robust system resources and its processor-based universal pin architecture combine to deliver unmatched parallelism and high multi-site efficiency in testing all current and emerging sensor technologies.

The tester is equipped with drivers for all major MEMS handlers and can communicate with the handler during the test flow. This is a key performance attribute in testing MEMS, which requires the handler to move between different orientations during test runs.

"In extensively evaluating testers for its MEMS applications, Freescale conducted comparative reviews of various systems to find the solution that would meet its technical requirements," said Sae Bum Myung, executive vice president of worldwide sales at Advantest.

The Advantest V93000 tester has a successful track record with Freescale. The company contracts with outsource semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) facilities throughout Asia that are using V93000 systems.

"Using Advantest’s V93000 systems in MEMS testing will enable us to continue to lower our cost of test and improve the time to market for our newest sensor products," said Seyed Paransun, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Sensor and Actuator Solutions Division.

Advantest officials say the V93000 platform has the flexibility to test a wide range of semiconductor devices used in a variety of applications, from sensors to wireless communications. The tester’s per-pin accuracy and high throughput enable customers to quickly ramp to production volumes, shortening their time to market.

China-based manufacturers of cellphones and tablets in 2012 more than doubled their share of purchases of MEMS motion sensors, reflecting the rising prominence of the companies in the global market, according to an IHS iSuppli MEMS Topical Report from information and analytics provider IHS.

Chinese makers as a whole were the third major user last year of motion sensors for cellphones and tablets, accounting for 15% of the market, up from 7 percent in 2011, as presented in the attached figure.

“The purchasers fell into two groups: the first typified by big companies such as ZTE, Huawei Technologies, Lenovo and Coolpad; and the second made up of a multitude of smaller players,” said Jérémie Bouchaud, director and senior principal analyst for MEMS and sensors at IHS. “The two groups will evolve in different directions in the years ahead. The larger manufacturers will maintain their growth through 2016, but the boom that smaller players are enjoying at present—driven by the long-tail growth of smartphones—is a bubble that will not be sustainable. As top-tier suppliers start to optimize their lower-end platforms for this market, the window of growth for smaller players will shrink accordingly, expiring during the next few years.”

Shades of gray

Chinese firms ZTE and Huawei Technologies were at No. 8 and No. 9 last year—below top players Apple and Samsung, Nokia of Finland at No. 3, LG Electronics of South Korea in fourth place, HTC of Taiwan in fifth, Japan’s Sony in sixth and Illinois-based Motorola in seventh. However, ZTE and Huawei were ahead of No. 10 BlackBerry, the rebranded Canadian player formerly known as Research In Motion.

Outside of the legitimate Chinese market, the China gray-handset space also had a small presence in the global motion sensor industry given spending of $12.7 million, down from a peak of $41.1 million in 2009. The market here consisted solely of accelerometers supplied by American companies Memsic and Freescale, as well as STMicrolectronics and Bosch. There are no compasses or gyroscopes in this segment.

Apple and Samsung dominate

Apple and Samsung Electronics were the two largest buyers in 2012 of MEMS motion sensors for handsets and tablets with nearly three-fifths control of the total market last year, affording the two giants extraordinary leverage when negotiating prices.

Apple spent $422.4 million for a 31 percent share, while Samsung’s expenditure of $340.8 million gave it a 25 percent share. The combined share of 56 percent from the two—equivalent to $763.2 million—dwarfed the rest of the market, which included the underground gray-handset space in China, as well as other smaller buyers from Taiwan and the United States, as shown in the attached table.

“The heft and influence of Apple and Samsung in the consumption of motion sensors give the two titans incredible purchasing power in this key area,” Bouchaud said. “Apple and Samsung were leagues ahead of other companies like Nokia, LG Electronics, HTC, Sony and Motorola in purchasing motion sensors. Both companies in 2012 paid 20 to 25 percent lower prices than other buyers for all motion sensors on average. For 3-axis gyroscopes, Apple and Samsung paid prices that were 10 to 15 percent less than for everyone else.”

Apple and Samsung are expected to maintain their dominance until at least 2016, retaining approximately 55 percent of the market by then.

Overall, revenue last year for MEMS motion sensors used in handsets and tablets amounted to $1.34 billion, up a solid 21% from $1.11 billion in 2011.

Apple’s major contribution

California-based Apple was the biggest buyer of motion sensors for tablets, but fell behind top purchaser Samsung last year for the sensors in mobile handsets. Apple’s share last year was down from 36 percent in 2011, but the company can claim important milestones in the MEMS motion sensor market.

The first iPhone made the accelerometer popular as the phone could automatically orient to a horizontal or vertical position; the iPhone 3GS launched an electronic compass for navigation; and the iPhone 4 along with the first iPad created a new market for motion-sensitive gyroscopes.

Unlike most manufacturers, Apple so far has a single-source policy for motion sensors. French-Italian entity STMicroelectronics has been the sole supplier to Apple of accelerometers since 2007 and of gyroscopes since 2010, while Japanese-based AKM has been the lone supplier of the e-compass since 2009.

STMicroelectronics is also the supplier of 3-axis gyroscopes for the iPhone 4, 4S and 5, as well as for the iPad 2, 3 and mini tablets.

Apple, however, may be facing stiff competition from other buyers in pioneering new motion sensor applications. Samsung, for instance, is driving the adoption of pressure sensors for sophisticated indoor navigation, while Nokia and HTC have already introduced optical image stabilization to reduce camera shake in smartphones.

Samsung’s upstart challenge to Apple

Samsung overtook Nokia in 2011 to become the second-largest buyer of MEMS motion sensors for handsets and tablets. The South Korean behemoth increased purchasing by 69 percent, boosting its market share to a quarter of the total from 19 percent in 2011. Samsung’s new-found prominence puts it within 6 percentage points of Apple, narrowing Apple’s lead down from 15 percent in 2011.

Unlike Apple, Samsung has a diversified supplier base: three for discrete accelerometers; four for e-compasses; two suppliers for discrete gyroscopes; two for pressure sensors; two for 6-axis inertial measurement units combining a 3-axis accelerometer and a 3-axis gyroscope; and one for 6-axis compasses comprising a 3-axis accelerometer and a 3-axis e-compass.

STMicroelectronics was the main supplier to Samsung as it was for Apple, with German maker Bosch Sensortec and California-based InvenSense as Samsung’s next biggest providers.

Samsung’s inclusion of pressure sensors in the latest Galaxy Note 2 and S III smartphones is also notable, giving the company an important head start in this segment, especially as Apple is not expected to include pressure sensors in the iPhone until 2014.

The top suppliers overall

Four suppliers shipped more than $100 million worth of MEMS motion sensors last year, making up 84 percent of the market. STMicroelectronics was No. 1 with $640 million, followed by AKM with $236 million, Bosch Sensortec with $135 million and InvenSense with $121 million.

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SiTime Corporation, one of the fastest growing semiconductor companies, today introduced the SiT15xx family of 32 kHz MEMS oscillators that are intended to replace legacy quartz crystal resonators. This new family is targeted at mobile applications, such as smartphones and tablets, which require small size and low power. SiTime claims the new device will offer area savings of 85%, cut power by 50% and provide 15 times more reliability.

SiTime intends for the SiT153x family to replace quartz crystal resonators and operates from a 1.2V to 3.63V regulated power supply.The SiT154x family would also replace quartz crystal resonators and operates from a 2.7 to 4.5V unregulated Li-Ion battery.

"SiTime’s silicon MEMS and analog technology deliver innovative timing solutions that leapfrog decades of quartz industry development. Large infrastructure and consumer electronics companies have already adopted SiTime’s solutions and are profiting from our remarkable combination of highest performance, lowest cost and best reliability," said Rajesh Vashist, CEO of SiTime. "Now, we are bringing these exceptional benefits to the booming mobile market. Our focus, passion and execution has allowed us to get 80% share of the MEMS timing market and with the new SiT15xx family, we continue to extend our lead."

In addition to smartphones and tablets, the SiT15xx family is intended for devices that require small size and low power such as fitness monitoring and watch products, medical monitoring and wellness devices, sport camcorders, wireless keypads and mouse devices.

At ISSCC 2013, Holst Centre and imec have presented an innovative method for the power-management of piezoelectric energy harvesters. The proposed interface IC provides energy-aware supply voltage regulation from cold start with a power consumption of less than 140nW. A power efficiency of 90 to 94% is achieved in a wide power range of 1µW to 1mW. Key building block of the IC is a new active diode bridge rectifier with zero bias property.

Holst Centre and imec have developed an integrated piezoelectric energy interface IC with zero bias rectifier circuit and energy-aware supply regulator. The IC is suitable for regulating the voltage in battery-less smart sensors that are typically composed of a piezoelectric energy harvester, sensors, an energy storage system and wireless transceivers.  With a power consumption of less than 140nW and a power efficiency as high as 90 to 94% in a wide 1µW-to-1mW power range, the circuit outperforms existing implementations that typically suffer from high energy losses.

The IC regulates the AC power from the piezoelectric energy harvester and supplies an energy-aware DC voltage to the user. The rectified output voltage is connected to a capacitor which accumulates the harvested energy. When this output voltage reaches a target startup voltage, a power-OK signal is set and a timer oscillator with 8-bit counter is enabled. When the output voltage reaches the threshold voltage set by a shunt regulator, a USE signal is generated and the counter is stopped. The USE signal triggers the users to draw current from the capacitor until the USE signal is reset. The harvested power will charge the capacitor again and the cycle is repeated.

The proposed circuit has been fabricated in a commercial TSMC 0.25µm CMOS process with 0.25mm2 active area. The harvested power was generated by an aluminum nitride vacuum packaged MEMS piezoelectric harvester. Tests have demonstrated that the IC itself consumes only 40nA of quiescent current and that this new method of power management delivers optimal power matching for input AC-peak voltages up to 5V.

A comparison with state-of-the-art interfaces shows that this solution consumes less power than previous solutions (only 140nW) while at the same time providing full cold-start, high efficiency AC-DC conversion, output regulation and energy awareness.

MEMS pressure sensor is one of the very first MEMS components appearing in the microsystem world. The technologies are quite mature and the market is big and expected to grow from $1.9B in 2012 to $3B in 2018.

“MEMS pressure sensor for consumer applications, especially for smartphones and tablets, is following the model of accelerometers and gyroscopes. Adoption of this model will help the MEMS pressure sensor market to boom again! We believe, this huge opportunity will result in the global volume of the MEMS pressure sensor market hitting 2.8 billion units by 2018” said Wenbin Ding, technology and market analyst at Yole Développement.”Consumer pressure sensor will represent 1.7 billion units and will overtake automotive as the market leader in volume.”

Even though the consumer application has a much lower ASP than other applications, this promising segment will bring more than 8% CAGR to the global MEMS pressure sensor market.

In their report, Yole Développement provides a global overview of the current MEMS pressure sensor technologies, market and competitive landscape. The covered industries in the MEMS pressure sensor 2013 report are automotive, industrial, medical applications, consumer electronics and high-end (aeronautic, military, defense) applications.

Automotive applications are still dominating the MEMS pressure sensor market. TPMS, MAP and BAP will be the biggest sub applications in this field. Automotive, medical, industrial and high-end markets are growing 4% to 7% however the consumer market is growing 25% in value (38% in volume) because of new opportunities in smartphones and tablets.

MEMS pressure sensor finds new applications in each domain, for example: in-cylinder pressure sensing for consumer applications.

MEMS technologies are still gaining market share compared to other classic technologies

MEMS pressure sensors are showing advantages compared to other current technologies, such as ceramic thick-film, ceramic capacitive and thin-film technologies. Yole Développement has carried out an in-depth analysis of the applicable range of technologies and classified them based on the requirements of the major applications.

Technologies like thin-film are still needed for use in harsh environments, particularly with high temperatures and corrosive medias. MEMS pressure sensor manufacturers are also working on components which could be used in these environments. The status of SiC MEMS pressure sensor development is also described in the report.

Yole Développement analysis provides an overview of other existing pressure sensor technologies. Comparisons of different MEMS technologies are done in order to better understand the positioning of MEMS pressure sensors in the global market.

Fragmented market with more than 50 players involved

Since the MEMS pressure sensor market is huge, Yole Développement is not surprised to see a large number of players in this industry. It is one of the most fragmented markets.

More than 50 worldwide players are involved. The top 5 players (Bosch, Denso, Sensata, GE Sensing and Freescale) represent about 50% of the total market. Automotive, medical, industrial, and high-end markets already have their mature leaders and smaller companies following. The consumer electronics market is still emerging with some conventional MEMS sensor companies interested.

Yole’s report also includes a focus on the competition in the automotive market. Lots of companies are targeting this industry. Bosch has always dominated this sector. The supply chain of the automotive industry is complicated with different types of players: Car Manufacturers, Tier1 Automotive Part & Systems Suppliers (related to Pressure Sensors), Full Package Sensors Specialists and MEMS & Semiconductor Specialists. This section of the report includes a detailed description at each level of the value chain and gives an in-depth supply chain analysis for the automotive market.

With new opportunities appearing in consumer electronics, new comers from the USA and China are targeting this segment. Yole Développement also follows the activities of some new Chinese challengers. Local Chinese companies are making an effort to try and fulfill the huge domestic demand in automotive and consumer applications.

Analog Devices, Inc. introduced today a high performance MEMS microphone developed specifically for hearing aid applications. When compared to legacy solutions like electret condenser microphones (ECMs), the ADMP801 is not only smaller in size at only 7.3 cubic millimeters, but also offers greater performance stability over time, temperature, and environmental changes, produces very low equivalent input noise (EIN) at 27 dBA SPL (sound pressure level), and consumes only 17 µA at 1Vsupply — a fraction of the power consumed by traditional ECMs. The ADMP801 MEMS microphone is available in a tiny surface-mount package measuring only 3.35 mm x 2.50 mm x 0.98 mm that is reflow-solder-compatible with no sensitivity degradation.

 “Hearing aids represent an application ideally suited for the advantages MEMS microphones offer including small size, stability, and very low power consumption,” said Pat O’Doherty, vice president for the Healthcare Group, Analog Devices. “However, MEMS microphones have not offered the EIN performance levels that meet stringent hearing aid standards until now. The ADMP801 MEMS microphone offers noise performance, package size, and phase and gain stability that is very desirable for advanced hearing aids that incorporate beamforming to facilitate sound or voice localization.”

The ADMP801 is a high quality, ultralow power, analog output, bottom-ported, omnidirectional MEMS microphone designed specifically for hearing aid applications. It is fully pick-and-place and reflow compatible, offering an option to save on cost using a mechanized assembly process as compared to ECMs that require manual assembly processes. The device offers excellent environmental and temporal stability, and multiple ADMP801 MEMS microphones can be configured in an array to form a directional response, facilitating sound of voice localization.

ADMP801 Omnidirectional MEMS Microphone Key Specifications

  •     Microphone EIN: 27 dBA SPL
  •     Current consumption: 17 µA at 1 V
  •     Stable response over time and temperature
  •     Package volume: 7.3 cubic millimeters