Category Archives: MEMS

MU, a medical-device manufacturer, and STMicroelectronics today announced that MU’s US-304 portable ultrasound imager, powered by ST’s STHV800 pulser, is aiming to increase the quality of point-of-care medical diagnostics in remote rural areas of Africa.

MU’s device has been developed for the “Doctor Car” mobile-clinic project to provide medical care in remote rural areas of Africa. In this project, medical workers use a special vehicle equipped with remote-healthcare systems to diagnose residents in remote rural areas where medical facilities are unavailable. The data obtained by the portable ultrasound device is transferred via mobile networks to healthcare entities in urban areas for detailed diagnosis and proper treatment. MU will start shipping ultrasound imagers to Doctor Cars and clinics in Africa this year.

The MU US-304 is a convex-type ultrasonic imager (3.5MHz) capable of performing abdominal diagnosis up to 15cm under the skin. It can be carried anywhere and simply connected via USB to a laptop or tablet. The MU device integrates ST’s high-voltage, high-speed ultrasonic-pulser IC (integrated circuit) with an 8-channel transducer driver circuit manufactured in ST’s proprietary 200V SOI-BCD semiconductor process. This process enables the integration of high-voltage CMOS technology, precise analog circuitry, and robust power stages on the same chip.

The industry’s most highly integrated ultrasonic pulser, ST’s STHV800 also offers low noise and tiny size to help produce accurate diagnostic images at a much lower cost and power consumption compared with stationary ultrasound equipment.

“The challenge in developing point-of-care ultrasound diagnostic devices is to achieve high portability and low cost without sacrificing performance. ST technology has proven an ideal solution to this problem,” said Yasuhiro Tamura, President, MU. “As we continue to create products for medical care in developing regions, in cooperation with ST, we hope to expand our application scope to new areas including livestock care.”

“MU’s newest portable ultrasound device is on course to improve the quality of medical diagnostics in remote rural areas, where the need is great,” said Hiroshi Noguchi, Director, Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group, STMicroelectronics Japan. “The selection of ST technology confirms our commitment to providing ultrasound-equipment makers with the highest performing ICs in the market and positions ST as the go-to partner for creating innovative applications that make positive contributions to people’s health and quality of life.”

ST offers a cost-effective evaluation board (STEVAL-IME013V1) that integrates the STHV800 pulser IC with an STM32F4 ARM Cortex-M microcontroller. The board’s graphical user interface and preset waveforms make it simple for designers to test the pulser under different conditions.

Samco, a Japan-based semiconductor process equipment developer and manufacturer, is employing around 20 more people at its locations in North America, China, Taiwan and Singapore, as well as its subsidiary Samco-UCP in Liechtenstein, in order to better provide services and support to overseas customers.

“Increasing the number of Samco employees abroad is part of the company’s larger strategy to optimize our current sales structure while actively growing our customer base across the globe,” says Osamu Tsuji, Samco’s President, Chairman and CEO.

Samco offers systems and services that revolve around three major technologies, namely thin film deposition with PECVD, MOCVD and ALD systems; microfabrication with ICP etching, RIE and DRIE systems; and surface treatment with plasma cleaning and UV ozone cleaning systems.

“We’ve seen an increase in laser diode, MEMS and power device-related inquiries from abroad,” says Tsuji. “Systems for research and development at universities and research institutions, which is an area Samco specializes in, are also in high demand.”

This includes India, where the growing economy is expected to accelerate in the future. The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay recently installed one of Samco’s DRIE systems and collaborated with Samco to host the company’s first thin-film technology workshop in the country.

Samco is currently considering offering internships to students at IIT Bombay and has started gathering a team that will focus on cultivating the Indian market, Tsuji adds.

Future goals include doubling its on-site staff by July 2018, discussing the possibility of new locations in the future, and ensuring its overseas sales encompass at least 50% of the company’s total net sales within the next two or three years.

“Semiconductor equipment manufacturers’ overseas sales generally account for around 70 or 80 percent of their total net sales,” Tsuji says. “Samco has great potential for growth in the future. With these markets, we’ll actively expand and reach our goal of at least 10 billion yen in total net sales.”

Imec, the nanoelectronics research center, today announced that its annual Imec Technology Forum (ITF) in Brussels will take place May 24-25, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium at SQUARE, Brussels Meeting Centre. ITF Brussels is the flagship of imec’s worldwide series of technology forums that brings experts and visionaries together to discuss the future of technology and tech-innovation to market. This year’s theme is “Daring to Take a Different View—Nanotechnology in the Hot Seat,” which will explore nanotechnology from all angles, question its future course, and identify new applications and paths for its use.

“The heart of imec is innovation and collaboration, and ITF Brussels will demonstrate that. Innovation is the result of hard work, endless questions, challenges to the status quo. Attendees will experience first-hand how constantly pushing these boundaries is essential to come up with groundbreaking solutions and stimulate innovation,” stated Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of imec. “The recent events in Brussels have deeply touched all of us, however the city is open for business and travel. Imec is privileged to bring our partners and international guests together in Brussels to focus on this year’s theme.”

Expecting to draw more than 1,000 attendees, ITF Brussels will offer numerous expert speakers from within the imec organization such as An Steegen, senior vice president process technology, and Wim Van Thillo, director perceptive systems for IoT, automotive and wireless. Industry speakers will also headlineincluding C-level executives from Samsung, Mentor Graphics, ASM International, Infineon Technologies, GlobalFoundries, J&J Pharmaceuticals, Audi, Microsoft, to name just a few.

ITF Brussels will introduce two new additions to the conference line up: interactive panel discussions and imec hot seats. Hot topics in today’s technology discussion will be explored such as “Scaling is dead. Long live scaling.”; “How close are we to precision medicine?’; “It’s a software world but it would be nothing without hardware?”, and “Combining ecological and economical sustainability.” Panelists will comprise both imec and guest partner executives and offer their various perspectives, and attendees will have an interactive role with panel voting and Q&A. Imec hot seats will place imec experts front and center to answer attendee questions, exchange ideas, investigate collaboration opportunities and consider different views. Spanning its vast R&D focus, topics such as energy, IoT, healthcare, services, and CMOS will be analyzed.

ITF Brussels 2016 takes place May 24-25, 2016 at the SQUARE, Brussels Meeting Centre. For the full list of speakers, conference program, registration and more information, please visit: http://www.itf2016.be/Homepage/page.aspx/2098

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technology concept that is currently transforming and redefining virtually all markets and industries in fundamental ways. In fact, IHS forecasts that the IoT market will grow from an installed base of 15.4 billion devices in 2015 to 30.7 billion devices in 2020 and 75.4 billion in 2025, according to “IoT Platforms: Enabling the Internet of Things” a new white paper available as a free download from IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight.

An important sign of the fundamental significance of the IoT concept is that most major information and communication technology vendors are now strategically developing IoT offerings. Companies that sit at the heart of the telecom, networking, industrial infrastructure, enterprise system, and cloud computing sectors are now offering platforms to facilitate the broader economy’s transformation to pervasive connectivity. Over the past five years, fragmented efforts to connect machines and sensors in industry-specific ways are now coalescing into a comprehensive vision of connectivity permeating the global physical environment.

“IoT platforms serve to remove the complexity when developing, deploying, and managing applications over the application lifecycle,” said Sam Lucero, senior principal analyst, IHS Technology. “Moreover, these underlying platforms provide operators flexibility to choose various strategic approaches to the IoT beyond simple managed connectivity offers. IoT platforms enable new value-added services for developers and implementers, while providing complete, end-to-end IoT solutions directly to the market.”

ClassOne Technology, manufacturer of cost-efficient Solstice electroplating systems, has announced the completion of a major new round of funding from Salem Investment Partners of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The announcement was made jointly by Byron Exarcos, CEO of ClassOne and Meredith Jolly, Vice President at Salem Investment Partners.

“It’s evident that 2016 will be another significant growth year for ClassOne Technology,” said Mr. Exarcos. “With this new funding we will fill order backlogs and address a forecast that is strong and rapidly increasing. This surge in business is coming from the many emerging markets that build products on 200mm and smaller substrates. These users are looking for advanced plating performance at an affordable price — and that’s precisely what Solstice systems are designed for. As a result, more and more of these companies are ordering our tools. And that now includes many of the top-tier manufacturers from around the world.”

“We’re delighted to see the exceptional and sustained growth that ClassOne Technology is achieving across the U.S., Europe and Asia,” said Ms. Jolly. “It’s even more remarkable given that the company just introduced the Solstice system two years ago. It’s great to be on a winning team and to be able to contribute to their success.”

ClassOne’s Solstice electroplating line serves many cost-sensitive emerging markets such as MEMS, Sensors, LEDs, Opto-electronics, RF and more. Designed specifically for ≤200mm wafer processing, Solstice tools are available in three different models and can electroplate a range of metals and alloys, either on transparent or opaque substrates. The company also just announced their Plating-Plus capability which allows Solstice to perform additional processing — such as Metal Lift-Off, Resist Strip and UBM Etch — along with plating, all on a single tool.

In addition to plating equipment, ClassOne also provides spin rinse dryers, spray solvent tools, advanced software and more. ClassOne equipment is strategically priced at less than half of what similar tools from the larger manufacturers would cost — which is why it has been described as “Advanced Wet Processing Tools for the Rest of Us.”

By James Hayward, Technology Analyst, IDTechEx

Last week, IDTechEx gave the opening presentation at the 2016 Korea Summit for Smart Wearable Devices, excellently hosted by KDIA and KSA in Seoul, Korea. Wearable sensors once again dominated discussion throughout the day, with latest examples of options in MEMS, textiles and more presented at length in the conference. Additional discussions throughout the day extended to topics like glucose sensing (including enzyme-free examples), sensor fusion and beyond.

Sensor development is driving the next generation of wearable devices, and this development is now going further than simply attaching sensors to devices that can be stuck on the body. Professor Mark Allen of the University of Pennsylvania gave a fascinating presentation about development of advanced MEMS for wearable devices. MEMS remains the dominant force in wearable sensing, but examples are now becoming broader than the increasingly commoditized, off-the-shelf and near ubiquitous IMU. IDTechExResearch’s bestselling report on the topic, “Wearable Sensors 2016-2026: Market Forecasts, Technologies, Players” finds that IMUs continue to dominate the wearable sensing space, counting for almost half of the total wearable sensor shipments in 2016.

The majority of wearable sensors today are found placed on the body within devices. One step further involves inserting sensors more permanently, whether via something like a skin patch that can be worn for weeks or months at a time, or to use Professor Allen’s example from work at Georgia Tech, magnetometers to detect motion of a magnetic stud inserted as a tongue piercing. Here, the use case is to enable patients suffering significant paralysis to other areas of the body to control an electric wheelchair using the tongue. The next step is to ingest sensors – Proteus Digital Health provide perhaps the most popularized example here, but devices like pill cameras are also regularly used in the diagnostic and clinical trial settings. The next steps involve the full implantation of a sensor, either permanently or through a planned lifetime followed by degradation.

Professor Allen spoke of some of their recently FDA approved work towards implantable sensors for intra cardiac pressure sensing. By fabricating a MEMS devices using ceramics, they created a biologically stable sensor that can be inserted inside the heart in high-risk patients to enable predictive diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. With the group prolifically producing new work, one area is looking at using a core-shell structure to make biodegradable sensors that can maintain structure and communication for a useful lifetime before dissolving. Sensor development is constantly improving the value proposition in many wearable and implantable products, producing state-of-the-art products for the medical space in particular.

IDTechEx Research covers all of the main types of wearable sensors found in products today, as well as sensors of the future in their report “Wearable Sensors 2016-2026: Market Forecasts, Technologies, Players“. The report groups sensors in prominent categories. For each sensor, the technologies and major players are described, backed up by detailed interviews and company profiles of key bodies in each sector. The report also views the big picture, discussing the implications of sensor fusion and the relative merits of each sensor type for various applications. This extensive primary research is used to produce detailed market forecasts for each sensor type over the next decade. Market data is provided for the growth of each sensor type, and is used to illustrate key trends that are observable in various application sectors.

sensors

According to their latest report, Technavio analysts expect the global piezoelectric smart materials market for 2016-2020 to exceed USD 42 billion by 2020 growing at a CAGR of almost 13 percent.

According to Chandrakumar Badala Jaganathan, lead research analyst at Technavio for metals and minerals, “The global piezoelectric smart materials market is expected to be vibrant during the forecast period due to increasing investment in R&D for product innovation and the rising demand from the automotive industry. In addition, high demand from APAC is expected to further drive market growth.”

Technavio’s lead chemicals and materials market research analysts have identified the following three factors that will drive the global piezoelectric smart materials market:

-Increase in demand from military and aerospace sector
-Growing demand from construction industry
-Rise in R&D efforts

Increase in demand from military and aerospace sector

The spacecraft industry has provided a tremendous boost to the piezoelectric smart materials market globally. Materials with enhanced functional properties such as shape memory, electrochromism, and piezoelectricity, are gaining demand in the aerospace industries. These materials help in controlling the airflow across the wings of an aircraft, maintaining it in takeoff, flying, and landing it more efficiently with less noise.

Some applications for aircraft include wing morphing and flapping wing technologies. These materials are used to solve some common problems with the aircraft such as engine vibration, high cabin noise levels, ice formation on wings, flow separation due to turbulence, and control surfaces in cold climatic conditions.

In the military, piezoelectric materials are used in applications such as smart sensors, smart nanorobotics, smart combat suits, and smart skins. The majority of the demand from aerospace industry is expected to come from the US followed by Europe.

Growing demand from construction industry

The application of piezoelectric smart materials in the construction industry falls into three categories: structural health monitoring, vibration control, and environmental control. Structural health monitoring is where piezoelectric smart materials find their most widespread applications. The primary focus of structural health monitoring lies in the monitoring of loads and detection of damage in the structures. In addition, the trend toward longer and more slender cables has given rise to the demand for piezoelectric smart materials for use in structural monitoring and vibration control.

North America has the highest level of activity involving structural health monitoring. In the US, optical fiber grating systems are used to monitor traffic and composite repair monitoring. Additionally, embedded and surface-mounted MEMS sensors are used to monitor concrete and metal structures. “The growing construction sector will lead to a greater demand for piezoelectric smart materials,” says Chandrakumar.

Rise in R&D efforts

Transportation, healthcare, and smart packaging are among the sectors that have been receiving tremendous attention with respect to R&D. In the transportation sector, the military and aerospace sector, followed by the automotive and marine sectors account for the major R&D.

In the US, a considerable amount of funding has been offered by organizations such as the Naval Research Laboratory, Army Research Laboratories, Air Force Research Laboratories, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A lot of this funding has been offered to the universities that have given rise to a lot of startup organizations in the field of smart materials.

In Europe, many similar initiatives involving Central European Chapter funded plans. In addition, defense programs, financed by the Western European Union, and a few of the large aerospace companies, are being undertaken by many institutions.

Technavio is a technology research and advisory company.

Leti, an Institute of CEA Tech, and ARaymondlife, a manufacturer of customized devices and consumables for the IVD industry today announced a joint initiative to accelerate the development and manufacturing of innovative medical devices, especially in the field of microfluidic cartridge analysis.

The initiative, based on experiences from ongoing projects, will focus on cartridges that enclose portable bio-med systems that enable sample analysis where the patient is dramatically reducing both the time to see the results and the cost of an analysis.

More broadly, Leti and ARaymondlife will collaborate on future projects that capitalize on their complementary strengths. Leti has joined the network of selected partners initiated by ARaymondlife according to their know-how and capabilities to guide its product-development projects, and ARaymondlife is a preferred partner for the development platform of medical devices that Leti has recently established.

“This partnership combines our competencies in ways that will significantly speed the development and time-to-market of analytical tools and systems for Leti’s partners and ARaymondlife customers,” said Leti CEO Marie Semeria. “It also capitalizes on the technological diversity of the local ecosystem and underscores the Grenoble region’s excellence in medical technology.”

By combining their complementary strengths, the partners expect to support the development of turnkey solutions for companies that want to introduce new products in the medical technology industry, but require additional analytical resources, technical competencies or manufacturing tools.

“The strict standards and high costs for developing medical devices require that prototypes used for clinical testing not only meet quality regulations, but that also are almost identical to the final product,” said Philippe Daurenjou, ARaymondlife Commercial Director. “This partnership with Leti uses our complementary strengths to meet those requirements effectively and cost efficiently, and make our customers more competitive.”

The two partners anticipate working together on projects that will combine Leti’s expertise in developing analytical protocols with Araymondlife’s manufacturing capacity. On those projects, ARaymondlife would be involved very early in the development cycle to check the viability of the proposed solution in the manufacturing processes. The team will make modifications to improve the reliability of the product and reduce production costs, as needed.

In addition to its med-tech uses, Leti’s technology also is well-suited for rapid and cost-effective onsite analysis in environmental, agricultural and veterinary applications.

jimmy sized 4Solid State Technology is pleased to announced that Jimmy Goodrich of the Semiconductor Industry Association is the latest distinguished guest confirmed to speak at The ConFab 2016.

Jimmy Goodrich is vice president for global policy at SIA. In this role, Mr. Goodrich works closely with SIA member companies, the Administration, Congress, domestic and international stakeholders, and foreign government officials to advance all aspects of SIA’s international policy agenda. Mr. Goodrich is also an Executive Committee member of the United States Information Technology Office (USITO), representing SIA in his capacity.

Mr. Goodrich has nearly a decade of experience working with Chinese and global stakeholders on technology policy issues. He most recently served as Director of Global Policy at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), where he worked on a wide range of China and Asia-Pacific technology policy issues relating to cyber security, trade, standards, and Internet governance. Before joining ITI, Mr. Goodrich was the Director for Greater China Government Affairs at Cisco Systems in Beijing. He also has held positions at APCO Worldwide’s Beijing office, a public affairs consultancy, and USITO, which represents U.S. information technology firms in China.

Mr. Goodrich has a bachelor’s degree in comparative politics and East Asian studies from Ohio University.  He lived in China for more than 7 years and is fluent in Mandarin.

Space is limited, but there’s still time to register for The ConFab 2016. To learn more, visit theconfab.com.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) has surpassed two billion unit sales of its robust and versatile STM8 microcontrollers, less than two years after reaching one billion unit sales, noting particularly strong success in China.

Aided by these accelerating STM8 sales, ST’s share of the general-purpose microcontroller market has grown to 12.7% in 2015 from 8.2% in 2013, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS).

“The STM8 has become one of the world’s most popular microcontrollers, and is a sturdy pillar of our strategy,” said Daniel Colonna, Microcontrollers Marketing Director, STMicroelectronics. “As with all of our MCUs, we are committed to supporting STM8 for the long term, and we’ll continue to strengthen our market position.”

The STM8 provides an economical and efficient electronic brain for smart devices in daily use throughout the world, such as white goods, consumer products, automotive control units (ECUs), and industrial controls. It combines class-leading computing power and competitive pricing with support for memory-efficient coding, low power consumption, high feature integration, versatile configurations, and an outstanding development ecosystem that facilitates design, debug, and prototyping. In addition, built-in memory cycling and error checking, as well as high reliability for automotive applications, have made STM8 a benchmark for robust embedded performance.

The large number of devices shipped reflects the microcontroller’s appeal to OEMs serving high-volume markets, and the work of ST’s distributors worldwide who have helped design STM8 devices into a wide variety of projects. Sales performance has been particularly impressive in China through ST’s top microcontroller distributors, Willas-Array, Wintech and Yosun, targeting products for the country’s domestic market as well as for export.

Key technical features of STM8 microcontrollers:

— Proprietary CPU core with best-in-class performance
— High code efficiency enabling more sophisticated applications in smaller
memory footprint
— 1.65V to 5.5V power-supply range covers many application types
— 2KB to 128KB on-chip Flash; up to 2KB data EEPROM
— Multiple package types from 20-pin to 80-pin, including LQFP, WLCSP,
QFN20-48, SO-20, TSSOP-20
— High integration for cost-effective system design:

— ADC, DAC, multiple channels up to 12-bit
— Rich serial interfaces
— Multiple timers
— Display controllers up to 8 x 40 LCD
— Flexible, power-saving clock system
— Up to 68 high-current I/Os