Category Archives: MEMS

Alcatel-Lucent has announced the acquisition of Mformation, a leading provider of mobile and “Internet of Things” security and device management solutions for mobile operators, service providers and enterprises. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mformation, headquartered in Woodbridge, NJ, will be incorporated into Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Platforms organization, providing service providers and enterprises with a secure, scalable, application-independent IoT security and control platform for use across multiple industries including automotive, healthcare, utilities, manufacturing and the digital home.

Additionally, Mformation’s software products will extend and enhance the capabilities of Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution to provide service providers with an end-to-end, integrated and cost-efficient device management solution across home, mobile and enterprise networks. These end-to-end capabilities can address the increasing importance of the effective management and security for the 70 billion devices expected to connect to the Internet by 2020, and will simplify the management of converged networks expected to grow exponentially with the implementation of 5G.

Security concerns are on the rise as networks become increasingly virtualized, wireless devices become mainstay components of complex machines pervasive in every aspect of life, and unmanned connected devices begin to outnumber the world’s population ten fold. In the past six months alone more than 50 million IoT devices have been hacked or recalled. The combination of Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive portfolio and Mformation together will allow network operators to manage any endpoint (or gateway), establishing an end-to-end IoT “chain of trust” built on industry best practices for authentication and data and network security.

By Zvi Or-Bach, Contributor

The upcoming IEEE S3S Conference 2015 in Sonoma, CA, on October 5-8, will focus on key technologies for the IoT era. It is now accepted that the needs for the emerging IoT market are different from those that drive the high-volume PC and smart-phone market. The Gartner slide below illustrates this industry bifurcation where traditional mass products follow the ever more expensive scaling curve, while IoT devices, with their focus on cost, power, flexibility and accessibility, will seek a place near its minimum.

S3S_Gartner

The current high-volume market is focused on a few foundries and SoC vendors driving a handful of designs at extremely high development cost each, processed at the most advanced nodes, with minimal processing options. In contrast, the emerging IoT market is looking for older nodes with lower development costs and a broad range of process options, and has many more players both at the foundry side and the design side.

The key enabling technologies for the IoT market are extremely low power as enabled by SOI and sub-threshold design, integrated with multiple sensor and communication technologies that are both enabled by 3D integration. All of these combine in forming the IEEE S3S unified conference.

This year’s conference includes many exciting papers and invited talks. It starts with three plenary talks:

  • Gary Patton – CTO of Global Foundries: New Game Changing Product Applications Enabled by SOI
  • Geoffrey Yeap – VP at Qualcomm.: The Past and Future of Extreme Low Power (xLP) SoC Transistor, embedded memory and backend technology
  • Tsu-Jae King Liu – Chair of EE Division, Berkeley University: Sustaining the Silicon Revolution: From 3-D Transistors to 3-D Integration

The following forecast from BI Intelligence suggest that the semiconductor technologies that are a good fit for the future market of IoT should be of prime interest for the semiconductors professional.

S3S_BI

Jim Walker, Research VP at Gartner, argued at the “Foundry vs. SATS: The Battle for 3D Wafer Level Supremacy” market symposium that 3D ICs are the key enabler of performance and small form factor of products required for IoT.

The upcoming IEEE S3S conference provides an important opportunity to catch up and learn about these technologies.

Let me share with you some nuggets from the monolithic 3D integration part of the conference:

Prof. Joachin Burghartz of the Institute for Microelectronics Stuttgart will deliver an invited talk on “Ultra‐thin Chips for Flexible Electronics and 3D ICs” which will present a process technology to fabricate flexible devices 6-20 microns thin. This process flow is currently in manufacturing in their Stuttgart fab, as depicted below:

S3S_Fig3

Another interesting discussion will be presented by NASA scientist Dr. Jin-Woo Han who will describe “Vacuum as New Element of Transistor”. These transistors are made of “nothing” and could be constructed within the metal stack, forming monolithic 3D integration with silicon-based fabric underneath.

In his invited talk “Emerging 3DVLSI: Opportunities and Challenges” Dr. Yang Du will share  Qualcomm’s views on monolithic 3D IC, which they term 3DVLSI and illustrate below, which seems very fitting for IoT applications.

S3S_Fig2

Globalfoundries will present joint work with Georgia Tech on “Power, Performance, and Cost Comparisons of Monolithic 3D ICs and TSV-based 3D ICs”. This work again shows that monolithic 3D can provide a compelling alternative to dimensional scaling as illustrated by the following chart.

S3S_Fig4

Monolithic 3D will present “Modified ELTRAN (R) – A Game Changer for Monolithic 3D” that shows a practical flow for existing fabs to process monolithic 3D devices using their exiting transistor process and equipment. This flow leverages the work done by Canon about 20 years back called ELTRAN, for Epitaxial Layer Transfer. The following slide illustrates the original ELTRAN flow.

S3S_Final

By deploying the elements of this proven process, a multilayer device could be built first by processing a multilayer transistors fabric at the front end of line, and then process the metal stacks from both top and bottom sides.

The conference includes many more interesting invited talks and papers covering the full spectrum of IoT enabling technologies. In addition, the conference offers short courses on SOI application and monolithic 3D integration, and a fundamental class on low voltage logic.

New technologies are an important part of the future of semiconductor industry, and a conference like the S3S would be a golden opportunity to step away for a moment from the silicon valley, and learn about non-silicon and silicon options that promise to shape the future.

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor company, and a manufacturer and supplier of MEMS for consumer and mobile applications, has introduced a six-axis motion-sensing device fully supporting image stabilization in smartphones, tablets, and digital still cameras. The latest addition to ST’s iNEMO (TM) range of inertial motion sensors, the LSM6DS3H combines a 3-axis gyroscope, a 3-axis accelerometer, and an ultra-low-power processing circuit in a System-in-Package solution that offers the industry’s lowest power consumption and smallest package size.

Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) techniques help minimize image blurring caused by camera motion while the snapshot is being captured. Initially developed for professional cameras, these techniques are being increasingly deployed in smartphones and tablets, where blurring is most likely to occur when the user takes a photograph with an outstretched arm.

Key technical features of the LSM6DS3H include:

  • Ultra-low power consumption of the motion sensors (0.85mA in normal mode, 0.4mA in low power mode), allowing the gyroscope to be “always on”;
  • Accelerometer power consumption in low-power mode down to 10 uA, 60% less compared with the previous-generation 6-axis module (LSM6DS3);
  • Supports both EIS and OIS applications with a choice of I2C or SPI for the primary interface and a dedicated auxiliary SPI interface to the camera module;
  • Compact package measuring 2.5mm X 3mm X 0.83mm;
  • Accelerometer ODR (Output Data Rate) up to 6.66 kHz, Gyroscope ODR up to 3.33kHz;
  • Smart FIFO for dynamic data batching and smarter power management: 4kbyte FIFO + 4kbyte flexible (FIFO or programmable);
  • Full-scale acceleration range +/- 2 / +/- 4 / +/- 8 / +/- 16g;
  • Full-scale angular rate range +/- 125 / +/- 245 / +/- 500 / +/- 1000 / +/- 2000 dps;
  • Supply voltage from 1.71 to 3.6V, independent IOs supply down to 1.62V;
  • SPI/I2C serial interface data synchronization feature;
  • Embedded temperature sensor.

“Very often people use the phone camera with outstretched arms, which can degrade the image quality,” said Andrea Onetti, General Manager, Volume MEMS and Analog Division, STMicroelectronics. “Our new multi-function motion sensor sets to minimize blurring in any photo situation while extending battery life because of the ultra-low power consumption.”

In what may be a first for the MEMS industry, CEA-Leti has manufactured micro-accelerometers on 300mm wafers, a development that could lead to significantly lower MEMS manufacturing costs.

“With more than 200 people involved on micro-systems R&D, Leti is one of the world’s leading research institutes on MEMS, and this demonstration that our 200mm MEMS platform is now compatible with 300mm wafer fabrication shows a significant opportunity to cut MEMS production costs,” said Leti CEO Marie Semeria. “This will be especially important with the worldwide expansion of the Internet of Things and continued growing demand for MEMS in mobile devices.”

Leti is a pioneer and leader in MEMS research and development for sensors and actuators. Building on more than 30 years of MEMS R&D, Leti continues to focus on innovative sensor technologies.

The most advanced is its M&NEMS technology platform based on detection by piezo-resistive silicon nanowires, which reduce sensor size and improve performances of multi-axis sensors. Leti’s inertial-sensor manufacturing concept enables the design and fabrication of combo sensors, such as three-axis accelerometers, three-axis gyroscopes and three-axis magnetometers on the same chip.  This is a key component for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Leti’s M&NEMS concept, developed with 200mm technology, is currently being transferred to an industrial partner. Demonstration of this technology on 300mm wafers has shown very promising results.

In addition to lowering costs, manufacturing MEMS with 300mm technology enables 3D integration using MEMS CMOS processes in more advanced nodes than on 200mm, and the use of 3D through-silicon-vias (TSV), which is already available in 300mm technology.

Jean-René Lèquepeys, head of Leti’s Silicon Components Division, will present the latest results in Leti’s MEMS technology R&D at the European MEMS Summit 2015, Sept. 17-18 in Milan, Italy.

GE creates GE Digital


September 17, 2015

GE announced the creation of GE Digital, a move that brings together all of the digital capabilities from across the company into one organization. GE Digital will integrate GE’s Software Center, the expertise of GE’s global IT and commercial software teams, and the industrial security strength of Wurldtech. This new model will be led by Bill Ruh, chief digital officer.

“As GE transforms itself to become the world’s premier digital industrial company, this will provide GE’s customers with the best industrial solutions and the software needed to solve real world problems. It will make GE a digital show site and grow our software and analytics enterprise from $6B in 2015 to a top 10 software company by 2020,” said Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE.

“With this alignment – backed by sustained investment – we will accelerate our efforts to build GE’s digital strength and win in the Industrial Internet. We are building the playbook for the new digital industrial world by harnessing our horizontal capabilities including Predix, software design, fulfillment and product management, while also executing critical outcomes for our customers. This is the strength of GE.”

Ruh has been leading GE’s Software COE and building the foundation of software experience for GE since 2011. Under his direction, GE has grown to over 1,200 software experts at the Software Center in San Ramon, CA. He is leading the team as they work on a diverse set of projects to deliver better outcomes for customers.

To advance research in nanoscale science, engineering and technology, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will provide a total of $81 million over five years to support 16 sites and a coordinating office as part of a new National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI).

The NNCI sites will provide researchers from academia, government, and companies large and small with access to university user facilities with leading-edge fabrication and characterization tools, instrumentation, and expertise within all disciplines of nanoscale science, engineering and technology.

The NNCI framework builds on the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), which enabled major discoveries, innovations, and contributions to education and commerce for more than 10 years.

“NSF’s long-standing investments in nanotechnology infrastructure have helped the research community to make great progress by making research facilities available,” said Pramod Khargonekar, assistant director for engineering. “NNCI will serve as a nationwide backbone for nanoscale research, which will lead to continuing innovations and economic and societal benefits.”

The awards are up to five years and range from $500,000 to $1.6 million each per year. Nine of the sites have at least one regional partner institution. These 16 sites are located in 15 states and involve 27 universities across the nation.

Through a fiscal year 2016 competition, one of the newly awarded sites will be chosen to coordinate the facilities. This coordinating office will enhance the sites’ impact as a national nanotechnology infrastructure and establish a web portal to link the individual facilities’ websites to provide a unified entry point to the user community of overall capabilities, tools and instrumentation. The office will also help to coordinate and disseminate best practices for national-level education and outreach programs across sites.

Funding for the NNCI program is provided by all NSF directorates and the Office of International Science and Engineering.

OMRON Corporation, which is in the field of automation based on its core sensing and control technology, and Adept Technology, Inc., a provider of intelligent robots, autonomous mobile robot solutions and services, today announced that the two companies have entered into an agreement whereby OMRON will acquire Adept.

OMRON plans to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Adept common stock through an all-cash tender offer followed by a second-step merger. OMRON will offer Adept investors $13.00 per share of Adept common stock, which represents a 63% premium over the closing price for Adept’s common stock on September 15, 2015. This values Adept at approximately $200 million. OMRON will fund the tender offer through cash on hand.

The tender offer is expected to commence on or about September 23, 2015, and the transaction is expected to close on or about October 23, 2015. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including at least a majority of shares of Adept common stock being tendered in the offer, expiration of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 and receipt of required foreign antitrust approvals. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies.

Commenting on the acquisition, Yutaka Miyanaga, OMRON Industrial Automation Business Company President, said, “We are delighted Adept Technology, a world leader in robotics, has agreed to join OMRON. This acquisition is part of our strategy to enhance our automation technology and position us for long term growth. Robotics will elevate our offering of advanced automation.”

Rob Cain, President and Chief Executive Officer of Adept, added, “We are excited about the opportunity to join OMRON, a global leader in automation. Together, our products will offer new innovative solutions to customers all around the globe.”

Following the transaction, Rob Cain will continue to lead Adept and will report to Nigel Blakeway, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Omron Management Center of America, Inc., OMRON’s wholly owned United States subsidiary.

As global manufacturing comes under even more pressure to cut costs, shorten supply cycles and operate across global environments, production sites around the world strive to improve productivity. Increased use of labor-saving robots is one of the solutions. By adding the robotics technology of Adept to its current offering, OMRON will be positioned to provide manufacturers in the automotive, digital device, food and beverage, packaging, and other industries with solutions to these challenges, as well as engineering support.

Founded in 1983, Adept is listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol ADEP. The company recorded annual sales of $54.2 million and gross margin of 42.0% in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015. The company is a U.S. based manufacturer of industrial robots. Adept’s product lines include autonomous mobile robots, industrial robots, configurable linear modules, machine controllers for robot mechanisms and other flexible automation equipment, as well as machine vision systems and software. Adept’s strategy is to provide a broad range of highly reliable integrated products along with world-class service to allow manufacturers to maximize productivity, safety, flexibility and product quality. This acquisition is a part of the acceleration of OMRON’s “ILO+S” (Input, Logic, Output and Safety) strategy for its Industrial Automation Business, which provides automation solutions for the manufacturing industries.

September 30 – October 2, 2015, Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino, Chandler, AZ, USA

Chandler, AZ – September 8, 2015 – ICPT 2015 provides the largest forum for academic researchers, industrial practitioners and engineers from around the world dedicated to the exchange of information on the state-of-the-art in Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) and other planarization technologies. It represents the collaborative effort of CMP Users Groups from all six major semiconductor technology regions of the world (USA, Japan, South Korea, Europe, Taiwan and China). This year’s conference includes over 100 technical presentations and poster papers, with 10 invited talks and 2 keynote speakers. A total of 36 sponsors and exhibitors will also be participating, which represents the majority of major consumables vendors and tool suppliers in the industry. To date, we have over 300 registered attendees and the list is still growing.

Technical topic areas include:

  • Front end and back end CMP applications
  • Process integration, control & reliability
  • Consumables, equipment and metrology
  • Defects and Post CMP cleaning
  • CMP fundamentals, modeling and simulation
  • 3D ICs/TSV applications
  • CMP for MEMS
  • Environmental issues related to CMP
  • Emerging technologies in CMP
  • Alternative planarization technologies

ICPT 2015 is jointly hosted by CMP User’s Group of the Northern California Chapter of the American Vacuum Society, Clarkson University Center for Advanced Materials Processing (CAMP), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The format for Thursday morning of this year’s conference has been adapted to be all invited talks similar to the traditional CAMP format. The speakers were selected by Professor Babu and the organizing committee from top-tier suppliers and major semiconductor manufacturers in the industry.

IBM today announced two new business units that will apply the company’s considerable knowledge in Big Data, advanced analytics and cognitive computing to the Internet of Things (IOT) and Educations markets, respectively. Harriet Green, formerly CEO and executive director of the Thomas Cook Group and of Premier Farnell plc, has joined the company as vice president and general manager for the new units, and will be responsible for developing these and other new growth businesses.

“Harriet brings to IBM a strong, proven track record as a transformative leader,” said John E. Kelly, senior vice president, solutions portfolio and research. “Throughout her career, across multiple geographies and cultures, she has consistently shown a deep understanding of the needs of her customers and clients, and how to help them achieve their goals and aspirations. Her creativity and vision will help organizations transform themselves to take fuller advantage of emerging data and cognitive technologies.”

IBM announced in March 2015 that it will invest $3 billion over the next four years to deliver new industry-specific cognitive computing technologies, cloud data services and developer tools to help clients and partners integrate data from an unprecedented number of sources across the Internet of Things. Ms. Green will lead a team that will soon comprise more than 2000 consultants, researchers and developers dedicated to helping clients unlock value in new insights. IBM has helped thousands of organizations to deploy IOT solutions, working with partners such as The Weather Company, ARM, AT&T and others on projects including smart cities, automobile and electronics manufacturing, and to safeguard food and water supply chains, among other applications.

The new Education unit will formally launch later this year.

“I’m honored to join IBM and to become part of a team that is shaping this exciting and transformative moment for industries,” said Ms. Green. “The Internet of Things will help enterprises and governments at every level unlock entirely new areas of opportunity and growth, and no company is better positioned than IBM to be the partner of choice as these organizations embrace its potential.  Likewise, education is being transformed by technology and IBM is incredibly well positioned to help leaders in the field enable this change.”

Earlier in her career, Ms. Green spent over a decade in executive roles at Arrow Electronics, a global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions.

Ms. Green was named Leader of the Year 2013 in the UK National Business Awards, as well as the Sunday Times Business Leader of the Year 2013. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to electronics in June 2010.

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Life, Inc., has acquired Capsule Technologie, a global provider of medical device integration and clinical data management solutions with more than 1,930 hospital clients in 38 countries. Capsule will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Life.

The acquisition of Capsule extends Qualcomm Life’s connected health offerings into the hospital, ultimately creating a more seamless care continuum from hospital to home and points in between. By combining Qualcomm Life’s wireless expertise and ecosystem of connected medical devices outside of the hospital with Capsule’s leadership for connecting medical devices, EMRs and IT systems across the hospital enterprise, Qualcomm Life is creating an open connected health ecosystem to deliver intelligent care everywhere.

Capsule’s medical device integration and clinical data management platform enables data collection, EMR and health IT system integration and monitoring in the ecosystem of connected devices inside the hospital. Capsule’s smart networking goes beyond device integration by delivering timely clinical data to various in-hospital decision support systems, alarm and notification systems and asset management tools, which help reduce latency and transcription errors to ensure timely, informed care.

“Qualcomm is focused on strengthening its position in specific Internet of Everything verticals, like healthcare,” said Derek Aberle, president, Qualcomm Incorporated. “The acquisition of Capsule expands the breadth of our healthcare platform, enabling us to provide connectivity solutions for the entire care continuum and create one of the world’s largest connected health ecosystems. This will be an important step in advancing the Internet of Medical Things.”

“As health care continues to move into the home and ambulatory settings and outside of traditional care areas such as the hospital, the convergence of medical device data from wherever the patient is located is critically important,” explained Gene Cattarina, CEO, Capsule. “Together, Qualcomm Life and Capsule will power this convergence by making data more accessible and interoperable among care teams to provide true continuity of care at the hospital, in the home and at all points in between.”