Category Archives: Packaging and Testing

wafer bonding and packagingEV Group (EVG), a supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that it is developing equipment and process technology to enable covalent bonds at room temperature. This technology will be available on a new equipment platform, called EVG580 ComBond, which will include process modules that are designed to perform surface preparation processes on both semiconductor materials and metals. EVG built on its decades of experience with plasma activated wafer bonding to create a novel process through which the treated surfaces form strong bonds at room temperature instantaneously without the need for annealing.

"In response to market needs for more sophisticated integration processes for combining materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion, we have developed a revolutionary process technology that enables the formation of bond interfaces between heterogeneous materials at room temperature," stated Markus Wimplinger, corporate technology development and IP director for EV Group. "Our expertise in wafer bonding process technology will allow us to provide different variants of the new process according to the requirements of different substrate materials and applications."

EV Group’s new process solutions will enable covalent combinations of compound semiconductors, other engineered substrates and heterogeneous materials integration for applications such as silicon photonics, high mobility transistors, high-performance/low-power logic devices and novel RF devices. The process technology and equipment that enables this room temperature covalent wafer bonding will be applied to EVG’s wafer bonding solutions for MEMS wafer-level packaging as well as to the integration of MEMS and CMOS devices.

Equipment systems based on a 200-mm modular platform, tailored for the specific needs of the new processes, will be available in 2013.

InvenSense, Inc. and Avnet Memec this week announced the formation of a pan-European distribution agreement. With the new partnership, Avnet Memec is chartered with sales and support for InvenSense’s MotionTracking devices throughout Europe and Israel.

“Aligning with InvenSense is very exciting as they have industry-leading MEMS sensors, and their 6- and 9-axis MotionTracking devices are particularly compelling and innovative,” said Steve Haynes, president of Avnet Memec. “Also, their proven products meet the expanding demands of consumer electronics OEMS, as well as industrial and automotive manufacturers. Our agreement with InvenSense is poised to open new and exciting opportunities for both organizations throughout Europe.”

“The demand for InvenSense products is growing throughout the pan-European region,” said Behrooz Abdi, President and CEO of InvenSense. “As Avnet Memec has a worldclass sales and support infrastructure that is intensely focused on customer support and demand creation, it is the ideal partner to increase InvenSense’s footprint in this region.”

MotionTracking devices are widely deployed in many consumer electronic devices including smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and smart TVs as they provide an intuitive way for consumers to interact with their electronic devices by tracking motion in free space and delivering these motions as input commands. Accurately tracking complex user motions requires the use of motion sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, compasses, and pressure sensors.

Shipments of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microphones in 2012 amounted to 2.05 billion units, up 57% from 1.30 billion in 2011, according to IHS iSuppli. Shipments will climb by another 30% to 2.66 billion units in 2013, to be followed by at least three more years of notable double-digit-rate increases. By 2016, approximately 4.65 billion MEMS microphones will be shipping, IHS predicted.

Revenues also made big gains in 2012, up 42% to $582 million, on the way to a projected $1.0 billion by 2016, IHS indicated.

"Microphones continue to be one of the biggest success stories in MEMS, with the rapid growth of the device due to its increasing penetration in the four areas of cellphones, laptops, headsets and media tablets," said Jeremie Bouchaud, director and senior principal analyst for MEMS & sensors at IHS. "MEMS microphones also can be found to a lesser extent in applications such as gaming, cameras, televisions and hearing aids, contributing to their broadening use overall, with further utilization coming to set-top boxes this year and to automotive during the next three years."

For handsets – by far the top application – penetration of MEMS microphones rose to 69% in 2012, up from 52% in 2011 and 38% in 2010, IHS said. In particular, multiple microphones are now being adopted in smartphones for noise suppression, in which the cancellation of ambient sounds is crucial for handsets when carrying out voice commands, like what Siri does in the Apple iPhones. The total number of microphones per handset is also on the rise: While midrange to high-end smartphones mostly used two microphones in 2010 and 2011, three microphones are fast becoming standard ever since Apple introduced a third device on the back of the iPhone 5 for high-definition video recording.

MEMS microphones are likewise making major headway into tablets, expected to become the second-ranked application by 2016, IHS noted. Even though the first tablets on the market, such as the initial iPad from Apple and the Galaxy Tab from Samsung Electronics, used electret condenser microphones (ECM), MEMS microphones had started to appear by the second generation of tablets. New use cases for noise suppression and voice commands are expected to add to the total device count moving forward, resulting in as many as four microphones in some tablets in the future.

MEMS microphones were also present in more than half of notebooks in 2012, as well as in headsets for the iPhone 4 and 4S, IHS added.

The MEMS microphone market is driven by both price and performance considerations, IHS pointed out. While MEMS microphones remain much more expensive than ECMs – over which MEMS microphones enjoy advantages in reliability, performance and ease of manufacturing – the price gap between the two has been narrowing. Moreover, sound quality and acoustics are becoming important differentiators in mobile devices, with manufacturers like Nokia and Apple willing to pay a significant price premium to obtain better performance and recently migrating to MEMS.

Apple, for instance, used ECMs exclusively for its first iPad and until the iPhone 3GS. Since the iPad 2 and iPhone 4, however, the California-based maker has switched to solely using MEMS microphones, IHS observed.

Both Apple and Samsung were the top consumers of MEMS microphones in 2012, accounting for a combined 54% of all shipped MEMS microphones, well ahead of other significant users like LG Electronics and Motorola, according to IHS.

The top supplier of MEMS microphones was US-based Knowles Electronics, which continued to dominate even though its share of shipments in 2012 slipped to 58%, down from 74% in 2011, on the face of increased competition, said IHS. Knowles is a second supplier of MEMS microphones for the iPhone, and is a first supplier for the iPad mini.

Other important MEMS microphone suppliers were AAC and Goertek, both from China and ranked second and third, respectively, IHS said. In fourth place was Analog Devices from Massachusetts, the sole supplier in the iPhone 5 of the third microphone – a high-performance, high-revenue-generating part.

Together the four top makers represented nearly 90% of MEMS microphone shipments in 2012, with the remaining portion of the market split among seven other suppliers, including Italian-French supplier STMicroelectronics in fifth place, IHS said.

Chinese makers figure prominently in the industry – as do Chinese smartphones and handset manufacturers acting as consumers, emerging as a major driving force after utilizing some 200 million MEMS microphone units in 2012, IHS noted.

Yole Développement’s research has credited STMicroelectronics for capitalizing on the booming demand for MEMS in mobile devices by shipping 58% more MEMS units in 2012, to become the first company to reach $1 billion in MEMS sales. And that was in a year when the average prices of accelerometers and gyroscopes that are its core MEMS products dropped by 20%-30%.

“The company was there and ready with its 8-inch fab when the volume demand started, as well as a large portfolio of products and low prices,” said Laurent Robin, Activity Leader, Inertial MEMS Devices & Technologies at Yole Développement. “They could use a feed-the-fab-strategy to build volumes, and discounts for buyers of multiple devices to meet the price demands of the cell phone makers.”

“Even more than Yole Développement’s recognition of ST’s achieving the revenue milestone, we appreciate the endorsement from our customers, across a broad range of applications and segments, of our strategy of being a reliable one-stop MEMS partner,” said Benedetto Vigna, Executive Vice President and General Manager of STMicroelectronics Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group. “We remain fully committed to continuing to meet our customers’ expectations and to expanding the role of sensors in ways that augment all of our lives.”

The morphing of the MEMS industry into a high volume consumer smart phone business has played to the advantage of big IDMs with their ability to ramp volumes to price aggressively, and to offer customers a wide variety of products from a single source to simplify the supply chain. The inertial sensor business also drove healthy 14% MEMS growth at Robert Bosch, boosting that big IDM’s sales close to those of long time industry leader Texas Instruments in a further reshuffling of the top companies lineup. Yole Développement will release its complete listing of the Top 30 MEMS companies early in April.

ST is now churning out some 4 million MEMS devices a day, offering not only inertial sensors but also now consumer pressure sensors, microphones, and e-compasses. The fully-integrated supplier has been able to optimize all steps in the process to wring out costs, from its mature standard manufacturing process for all inertial sensors, to its inhouse ASIC design, to its long expertise in common LGA packaging across all products, to its high volume parallel testing developed on commercial equipment with SPEA, to its sales force that can sell and deal on the whole smart phone sensor line. The company has also pushed the manufacturing technology to bring down die size, replacing glass frit with narrower gold bonding frames and replacing big bond pads with smaller TSVs made by etching air gaps around polysilicon vias. And it turned to outside partnerships (microphone technology from Omron) and purchases (magnetometers from Honeywell) to get new products to market faster.

Researchers at UCLA report that they have refined a method they previously developed for capturing and analyzing cancer cells that break away from patients’ tumors and circulate in the blood. With the improvements to their device, which uses a Velcro-like nanoscale technology, they can now detect and isolate single cancer cells from patient blood samples for analysis.

In recent years, a UCLA research team led by Hsian-Rong Tseng, an associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has developed a "NanoVelcro" chip. When blood is passed through the chip, extremely small "hairs" — nanoscale wires or fibers coated with protein antibodies that match proteins on the surface of cancer cells — act like Velcro, traping CTCs and isolating them for analysis.

CTCs trapped by the chip also act as a "liquid biopsy" of the tumor, providing convenient access to tumor cells and earlier information about potentially fatal metastases.

Circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, play a crucial role in cancer metastasis, spreading from tumors to other parts of the body, where they form new tumors. When these cells are isolated from the blood early on, they can provide doctors with critical information about the type of cancer a patient has, the characteristics of the individual cancer and the potential progression of the disease. Doctors can also tell from these cells how to tailor a personalized treatment to a specific patient.

Histopathology — the study of the microscopic structure of biopsy samples — is currently considered the gold standard for determining tumor status, but in the early stages of metastasis, it is often difficult to identify a biopsy site. By being able to extract viable CTCs from the blood with the NanoVelcro chip, however, doctors can perform a detailed analysis of the cancer type and the various genetic characteristics of a patient’s specific cancer.

Improving the NanoVelcro device

Tseng’s team now reports that they have improved the NanoVelcro chip by replacing its original non-transparent silicon nanowire substrate inside with a new type of transparent polymer nanofiber-deposited substrate, allowing the device’s nanowires to better "grab" cancer cells as blood passes by them.

Tseng and his colleagues were able to pick single CTCs immobilized on the new transparent substrate by using a miniaturized laser beam knife, a technique called laser micro-dissection, or LMD.

The researchers’ paper on their improvement to the chip was published online Feb. 22 in the peer-reviewed journal Angewandte Chemie and is featured on the cover of the journal’s March 2013 print issue.

"This paper summarizes a major milestone in the continuous development of NanoVelcro assays pioneered by our research group," Tseng said. "We now can not only capture cancer cells from blood with high efficiency but also hand-pick single CTCs for in-depth characterization to provide crucial information that helps doctors make better decisions."

Testing the improvements on melanoma

Using the new assay on patients’ blood containing circulating melanoma cells (CMCs), Tseng’s team was able to isolate and preserve single CMCs. Melanoma is a deadly type of skin cancer that is prone to spreading quickly throughout the body. The ability to capture and preserve single CMCs allows doctors to analyze melanoma cells’ DNA structure, determine the genetic characteristics of the patient’s cancer and confirm that the circulating cells remain genetically similar to the tumor they came from.

The preservation of single captured CMCs in this proof-of-concept study also allowed researchers to conduct an analysis — called single-cell genotyping — to find within the cell a specific target (BRAF V600E) for a drug called vemurafenib. BRAF V600E is a mutation in the BRAF protein that appears in approximately 60 percent of melanoma cases. Drugs that inhibit BRAF are able to slow and often reverse the growth of melanoma tumors.

"With this technology, we are getting closer to the goal of a widely clinically applicable liquid biopsy, where we can sample cancer cells by a simple blood draw and understand the genes that allow them to grow," said Dr. Antoni Ribas, a professor of medicine in the division of hematology–oncology, a Jonsson Cancer Center member and one of Tseng’s key collaborators. "With the NanoVelcro chips, we will be able to better personalize treatments to patients by giving the right treatment to stop what makes that particular cancer grow."

Dr. Roger Lo, another key Tseng collaborator and an assistant professor in UCLA’s department of medicine, division of dermatology, and department of molecular and medical pharmacology, was also optimistic about the new method.

"This scientific advancement — being able to capture the melanoma cells in transit in the blood and then perform genetic analysis on them — will in principle allow us to track the genomic evolution of melanoma under BRAF-inhibitor therapy and understand better the development of drug resistance," said Lo, who is also a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center.

UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has more than 240 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education.

Learn more about applications and markets of nanobiotechnology.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, a developer of standards for the microelectronics industry, announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed two new members: Mr. Jong H. Oh, Vice President, SK hynix and Mr. Hung Vuong, Qualcomm.  

Representing SK hynix, an active JEDEC member in multiple committees, Mr. Oh brings over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor memory industry ranging from circuit design to marketing and product planning.  He holds 49 US patents and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University in Korea.

During Mr. Vuong’s tenure as Qualcomm’s lead representative to JEDEC, Qualcomm has increased its involvement and assumed several leadership positions in JEDEC committees. Mr. Vuong is currently Chairman of two JEDEC subcommittees and brings a wealth of experience in the mobile market to his new position on the Board, including high performance at low power.

“JEDEC is honored to welcome Mr. Oh and Mr. Vuong to its Board of Directors,” said Mian Quddus, JEDEC Board of Directors Chairman. He added, “This is a crucial time in the industry and within JEDEC for introducing new memory concepts and facilitating the rapid growth of the mobile market. I am very pleased by the depth and breadth of expertise both Mr. Oh and Mr. Vuong will bring to their new role as Board members.”

JEDEC is a developer of standards for the microelectronics industry.  Over 4,000 participants, appointed by nearly 300 companies, work together in 50 JEDEC committees to meet the needs of every segment of the industry, manufacturers and consumers alike.

TESEC Corporation today announced the development and sales of the ULTRA MEMS handler, targeting Inertial (Accelerometer, Gyroscope and Magnetometer) MEMS devices. The ULTRA handler was designed jointly by TESEC and FocusTest, Inc. The ULTRA is a carrier based system with parallel test capabilities for 16, 32, 64 and 96 devices. The system will be available for demonstration and shipment mid-2013.

The overall MEMS market is the fastest growing portion of the semiconductor market, with 2012 revenues of $11.5B and an expected growth rate exceeding 10% for the next several years. According to TESEC’s Director of Sales, Keizo Yamaguchi, “the MEMS handling market is expanding rapidly and with the introduction of the ULTRA, TESEC intends to become a significant supplier to this segment.”

The ULTRA handler provides MEMS device suppliers with a significant throughput enhancement, as a significant portion of devices are being tested today on systems that provide only four to sixteen parallel processing. In addition to significantly higher parallel performance, the ULTRA offers a host of features aimed at higher performance and lower test time. With ±360 degree, 3 axis rotation the ULTRA is capable of providing stimulus for accelerometers and gyroscopes. A magnetic stimulus unit adds magnetometer test capability, making the ULTRA the industry’s first 9 degrees of freedom (DOF) capable system.

Future versions of the ULTRA are planned to expand coverage to address pressure sensor and high G MEMS devices.

“FocusTest brings 20 years of MEMS handling, stimulus and test experience to the ULTRA,” said Richard Chrusciel, ULTRA Product Development Manager, adding: “our partnership with TESEC brings over 40 years of experience and achievement in semiconductor handling, as well as a worldwide organization. The fusion of FocusTest and TESEC will bring world class automation to the MEMS handling market.”

The ULTRA handling and stimulus system is available in ambient and full tri-temperature configurations. Best of all, the unit is priced to avoid sticker shock, with base system configurations targeted to be of equal to or lower cost than current market products.

TESEC will provide world-wide sales/distribution, manufacturing and support for the ULTRA. FocusTest will provide MEMS and test cell specific engineering and applications.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of Jain PharmaBiotech’s new report Nanobiotechnology Applications, Markets and Companies to their offering.

Photo by cenews via Creative Commons

Nanotechnology is the creation and utilization of materials, devices, and systems through the control of matter on the nanometer-length scale. Nanobiotechnology, an integration of physical sciences, molecular engineering, biology, chemistry and biotechnology holds considerable promise of advances in pharmaceuticals and healthcare. The report starts with an introduction to various techniques and materials that are relevant to nanobiotechnology. It includes some of the physical forms of energy such as nanolasers. Some of the technologies are scaling down such as microfluidics to nanofluidic biochips and others are constructions from bottom up. Application in life sciences research, particularly at the cell level sets the stage for role of nanobiotechnology in healthcare in subsequent chapters.

Some of the earliest applications are in molecular diagnostics. Nanoparticles, particularly quantum dots, are playing important roles. In vitro diagnostics, does not have any of the safety concerns associated with the fate of nanoparticles introduced into the human body. Numerous nanodevices and nanosystems for sequencing single molecules of DNA are feasible. Various nanodiagnostics that have been reviewed will improve the sensitivity and extend the present limits of molecular diagnostics.

An increasing use of nanobiotechnology by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries is anticipated. Nanotechnology will be applied at all stages of drug development – from formulations for optimal delivery to diagnostic applications in clinical trials. Many of the assays based on nanobiotechnology will enable high-throughput screening. Some of nanostructures such as fullerenes are themselves drug candidates as they allow precise grafting of active chemical groups in three-dimensional orientations. The most important pharmaceutical applications are in drug delivery. Apart from offering a solution to solubility problems, nanobiotechnology provides and intracellular delivery possibilities. Skin penetration is improved in transdermal drug delivery. A particularly effective application is as nonviral gene therapy vectors. Nanotechnology has the potential to provide controlled release devices with autonomous operation guided by the needs.

Nanomedicine is now within the realm of reality starting with nanodiagnostics and drug delivery facilitated by nanobiotechnology. Miniature devices such as nanorobots could carry out integrated diagnosis and therapy by refined and minimally invasive procedures, nanosurgery, as an alternative to crude surgery. Applications of nanobiotechnology are described according to various therapeutic systems. Nanotechnology will markedly improve the implants and tissue engineering approaches as well. Other applications such as for management of biological warfare injuries and poisoning are included. Contribution of nanobiotechnology to nutrition and public health such as supply of purified water are also included.

There is some concern about the safety of nanoparticles introduced in the human body and released into the environment. Research is underway to address these issues. As yet there are no FDA directives to regulate nanobiotechnology but as products are ready to enter market, these are expected to be in place.

Future nanobiotechnology markets are calculated on the basis of the background markets in the areas of application and the share of this market by new technologies and state of development at any given year in the future. This is based on a comprehensive and thorough review of the current status of nanobiotechnology, research work in progress and anticipated progress. There is definite indication of large growth of the market, but it will be uneven and cannot be plotted as a steady growth curve. Marketing estimates are given according to areas of application, technologies and geographical distribution starting with 2012. The largest expansion is expected between the years 2017 and 2022.

3-D integration with nanostructuresResearchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new type of nanoscale structure that resembles a “nano-shish-kebab,” consisting of multiple two-dimensional nanosheets that appear to be impaled upon a one-dimensional nanowire. However, the nanowire and nanosheets are actually a single, three-dimensional structure consisting of a seamless series of germanium sulfide (GeS) crystals. The structure holds promise for use in the creation of new, three-dimensional (3-D) technologies.

The researchers believe this is the first engineered nanomaterial to combine one-dimensional and two-dimensional structures in which all of the components have a shared crystalline structure.

Combining the nanowire and nanosheets into a single “heterostructure” creates a material with both a large surface area and the ability to transfer electric charges efficiently. The nanosheets provide a very large surface area, and the nanowire acts as a channel that can transmit charges between the nanosheets or from the nanosheets to another surface. This combination of features means it could be used to develop 3-D devices, such as next-generation sensors, photodetectors or solar cells. This 3-D structure could also be useful for developing new energy storage technologies, such as next-generation supercapacitors.

“We think this approach could also be used to create heterostructures like these using other materials whose molecules form similar crystalline layers, such as molybdenum sulfide (MoS2),” says Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. “And, while germanium sulfide has excellent photonic properties, MoS2 holds more promise for electronic applications.”

The process, Cao says, is also attractive because “it is inexpensive and could be scaled up for industrial processes.”

To create the nano-shish-kebabs, the researchers begin by creating a GeS nanowire approximately 100 nanometers in width. The nanowire is then exposed to air, creating nucleation sites on the wire surface through weak oxidation. The nanowire is then exposed to GeS vapor, which forms into two-dimensional nanosheets at each of the nucleation sites.

“Our next step is to see if we can create these heterostructures in other materials, such as MoS2,” Cao says. “We think we can, but we need to prove it.”

The paper, Epitaxial Nanosheet–Nanowire Heterostructures, was published online Feb. 18 in Nano Letters. The lead author is Dr. Chun Li, a former postdoctoral researcher at NC State. Co-authors are Yifei Yu, a Ph.D. student at NC State; Cao; and Dr. Miaofang Chi of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office.

In its new report MEMS Front-End Manufacturing Trends, Yole Développement goes further in the equipment and materials market forecasts and in the manufacturing trends for MEMS. The report gives detailed analyses about MEMS device technology process flow, manufacturing trends and manufacturing cost breakdown.

Changes in MEMS manufacturing will drive the equipment & materials market from $378M to $512M for equipment and $136M to $248M for materials between 2012-2018

Innovative processes are fueling the MEMS equipment and materials market. Yole Développement forecasts that demand for MEMS-related equipment will grow from an estimated $378M in 2012 to greater than $510M by 2018, at a CAGR of 5.2% over the next five years. Yole Développement’s  MEMS market forecast will follow a cyclical up/downturn similar to what the mainstream IC equipment market underwent.

The demand for materials and related MEMS consumables will grow from an estimated $136M in 2012 to greater than $248M by 2018 at a CAGR of 10.5% over the next five years. 

As MEMS become commodity products, manufacturing will change and mature

Today, MEMS fabrication is still very diversified and lacking in standardization; Yole Développement’s rule, One product, one process, still applies. Indeed, MEMS has a different story than IC and doesn’t follow the same roadmap as the semiconductor industry. Thus, it’s still common to see many players with radically different manufacturing approaches for the same MEMS device, sometimes within the same company (i.e. both the CMOS MEMS and hybrid approaches can be used for inertial devices or microphones).

However, as MEMS becomes a commodity product with a quicker time-to-market compared to previous generations, anything that speeds up the commercialization process is welcome. MEMS packaging is evolving in a different direction than front-end processing, and Yole Développement has already identified that packaging standardization will become increasingly critical in order to support the massive volume growth in unit shipments, and decrease overall costs associated with MEMS and sensor content. For example, microphone packaging is very similar between one manufacturer and another. Additionally, this report shows that at the front-end level, companies are developing in-house technological platforms targeted for different MEMS devices.

In this report, Yole Développement shows that as MEMS moves from competing on process technology to competing on functions and systems, a move towards more standard solutions is necessary to drive down package size and cost.

Currently, MEMS foundries still compete at the process level and have to propose a wide range of processes in order to cope with new MEMS designs and structures. This approach differs from fabless companies, which usually focus on one type of MEMS design. Their main objective is to find the most experienced and reliable foundry partner in order to convince customers of their expertise. IDMs, meanwhile, generally rely on robust and established MEMS processes to manufacture their products. Foundries, which must always remain at the forefront of changes in the MEMS manufacturing landscape, have the biggest challenge.

TSV & unique wafer stacking solutions are key enablers for reducing die size and cost

This report highlights the major front-end manufacturing changes. For example, TSV for CSP is gradually seeping into the MEMS industry.

However, since miniaturization will be limited, new detection principles are currently being developed at various R&D Institutes (i.e. Tronic’s M&NEMS concept) in order to lower MEMS size at the silicon level. This technology is based on piezoresistive nanowires rather than pure capacitive detection, and is poised to be a leap forward in terms of device performance and chip size. This will set the stage for a new generation of combo sensors for motion sensing applications, achieving both significant surface reduction and performance improvement for multi-DOF sensors.

Amongst the large array of MEMS technologies, Yole Développement identified several that will have the widest diffusion in the years to come.

The list includes:

• Through Si Vias

• Room Temperature Bonding

• Thin Films PZT

• Temporary Bonding

• Cavity SOI

• CMOS MEMS

Other MEMS technologies, i.e. gold bonding, could be widely used to reduce die size while maintaining great hermeticity for wafer level packaging.