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Vladimir Mostepanenko, Chief Research Associate of KFU Cosmology Lab and Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, explains, “Despite graphene layers’ extremely small width, it has proven to be a firm material which conducts electricity even under zero temperatures when density of charge carriers also equals zero. But something absolutely unexpected was that this residual conductivity can be expressed through fundamental physical constants – electron charge and Planck constant. Graphene has been used successfully in dozens of electronic devices and has been found in interstellar matter.”

Graphene’s unusual qualities led to speculation that the causality principle may not be observed for it. The authors, Vladimir Mostepanenko and Galina Klimchitskaya, proved that the principle is preserved for graphene. Through the direct analytic calculation it was shown that the real and imaginary parts of graphene conductivity, found recently on the basis of first principles of thermal quantum field theory using the polarization tensor in (2+1)-dimensional space-time, satisfy the Kramers-Kronig relations precisely.

The results are important for further inquiries into reflective and absorptive qualities of graphene.

EV Group (EVG), a supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that it has received an order for its EVG®120 automated resist processing system from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT). An existing customer of EVG’s wafer bonding and alignment systems, VTT is among the first to place an order for the newest version of the EVG120 system, which has been enhanced to provide even greater reliability, throughput and process performance compared to the previous-generation platform. VTT will use the new EVG120 system to increase capacity for supporting parallel R&D projects involving new and different coating materials, as well as to enable new research applications in “More than Moore” technology areas such as MEMS, optoelectronics, photonics and compound semiconductors.

“Lithography plays a vital role in the production process for devices that power our digital society,” stated Heini Saloniemi, manager, process engineering, at VTT. “After a thorough product evaluation of lithography coating systems, VTT selected the EVG120 in a competitive tender, with coating uniformity and repeatability of coating thickness among the key evaluation criteria. We look forward to receiving the new EVG120 system, which will enhance our lithography process capabilities and allow us to explore new avenues of research.”

The EVG120 automated resist processing system provides reliable and high-quality coating and developing processes in a universal platform. Its versatility and flexibility, as well as its low cost of ownership, makes it an ideal system for research environments where many development projects may be running in parallel, while its high throughput rates enable its use in volume production.

The updated EVG120 platform maintains all industry-leading capabilities of the previous-generation platform, including: compact design for minimal footprint; customizable module configurations for spin and spray coating, developing, bake and chill; EVG’s CoverSpin™ technology, which provides optimized coating uniformity of odd-shaped and square substrates; EVG’s proprietary OmniSpray® technology for conformal coating of extreme topographies; and wafer-edge handling.

The EVG®120 automated resist processing system from EV Group provides reliable and high-quality coating and developing processes in a universal platform.

The EVG®120 automated resist processing system from EV Group provides reliable and high-quality coating and developing processes in a universal platform.

New features on the updated platform include:

  • Separation of wet processing modules to enable constant conditions chamber to chamber
  • Integrated chemistry cabinet for resist pumps and bottles (including support for high-viscosity resists), for improved process control and short dispense cycles
  • New robot handling system that provides the highest reliability and increased throughput
  • Optional humidity and temperature control for constant environmental conditions

“As the leading research institute in Finland, VTT has a strong global network of industry partners throughout the world to transform breakthrough research into new products and services in renewable energy, health care, smart industry and smart city, as well as beyond. EVG is working tirelessly to support our key customers such as VTT in these endeavors,” stated Thomas Wagenleitner, product management director at EV Group. “As part of that effort, we have leveraged more than 20 years of experience in resist processing to drive continuous improvements to our industry benchmark EVG120 platform. This allows us to enable even greater levels of coating performance for our customers at a lower cost of ownership, which is critical for both production fabs and research labs at the cutting edge of technology like VTT.”

The future of electronic devices lies partly within the “internet of things” – the network of devices, vehicles and appliances embedded within electronics to enable connectivity and data exchange. University of Illinois engineers are helping realize this future by minimizing the size of one notoriously large element of integrated circuits used for wireless communication – the transformer.

Three-dimensional rolled-up radio frequency transformers take 10 to 100 times less space, perform better when the power transfer ratio increases and have a simpler fabrication process than their 2-D progenitors, according to a paper detailing their design and performance in the journal Nature Electronics.

“Transformers are one of the largest and heaviest elements on any circuit board,” said principal investigator Xiuling Li, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “When you pick up an LED light bulb, it feels heavy for its size and that is in part because of the bulky transformer inside. The size of these transformers may become a key obstacle to overcome in the future for wireless communication and IoT.”

Transformers use coiled wires to convert input signals to specific output signals for use in devices like microchips. Previous researchers have developed some radio frequency transformers using a stacked conducting material to solve the space problem, but these have limited performance potential. This limited performance is due to inefficient magnetic coupling between coils when they have a high turns ratio, meaning that the primary coil is much longer than the secondary coil, or vice versa, Li said. These stacked transformers need to be made using special materials and are difficult to fabricate, bulky and unbendable – things that are far from ideal for internet of things devices.

The new transformer design uses techniques Li’s group previously developed for making rolled inductors. “We are making 3-D structures using 2-D processing,” Li said. The team deposits carefully patterned metal wires onto stretched 2-D thin films. Once they release the tension, the 2-D films self-roll into tiny tubes, allowing the primary and secondary wires to coil and nest perfectly inside each other into a much smaller area for optimum magnetic induction and coupling.

The nested 3-D architecture leads to high turns ratio coils, Li said. “A high turns ratio transformer can be used as an impedance transformer to improve the sensitivity of extremely low power receivers, which are expected to be a key enabler for IoT wireless front ends,” said electrical and computer engineering professor and co-author Songbin Gong.

Rolled transformers can also receive and process higher frequency signals than the larger devices.

“Wireless communication will be faster and use higher-frequency signals in the future. The current generation of radio frequency transformers simply cannot keep up with the miniaturization requirements and high-frequency operation of the future,” said lead author and postdoctoral researcher Wen Huang. “Smaller transformers with more turns allow for better reception of faster, high-frequency wireless signals, as well as high-level integration in IoT applications.”

The new transformers have a robust fabrication process – stable beyond standard foundry temperatures and compatible with industry-standard materials. This study used gold wire, but the team has successfully demonstrated the fabrication of their rolled devices using industry-standard copper.

“The next step will be to use thinner and more-conductive metal such as graphene, allowing these devices to be made even smaller and more flexible. This advancement may make it possible for the devices to be woven into the fabrics of high-tech wearables,” Li said.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London, University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research have discovered how a pinch of salt can be used to drastically improve the performance of batteries.

They found that adding salt to the inside of a supermolecular sponge and then baking it at a high temperature transformed the sponge into a carbon-based structure.

Surprisingly, the salt reacted with the sponge in special ways and turned it from a homogeneous mass to an intricate structure with fibres, struts, pillars and webs. This kind of 3D hierarchically organised carbon structure has proven very difficult to grow in a laboratory but is crucial in providing unimpeded ion transport to active sites in a battery.

In the study, published in JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society), the researchers demonstrate that the use of these materials in Lithium-ion batteries not only enables the batteries to be charged-up rapidly, but also at one of the highest capacities.

Due to their intricate architecture the researchers have termed these structures ‘nano-diatoms’, and believe they could also be used in energy storage and conversion, for example as electrocatalysts for hydrogen production.

Lead author and project leader Dr Stoyan Smoukov, from Queen Mary’s School of Engineering and Materials Science, said: “This metamorphosis only happens when we heat the compounds to 800 degrees centigrade and was as unexpected as hatching fire-born dragons instead of getting baked eggs in the Game of Thrones. It is very satisfying that after the initial surprise, we have also discovered how to control the transformations with chemical composition.”

Carbon, including graphene and carbon nanotubes, is a family of the most versatile materials in nature, used in catalysis and electronics because of its conductivity and chemical and thermal stability.

3D carbon-based nanostructures with multiple levels of hierarchy not only can retain useful physical properties like good electronic conductivity but also can have unique properties. These 3D carbon-based materials can exhibit improved wettability (to facilitate ion infiltration), high strength per unit weight, and directional pathways for fluid transport.

It is, however, very challenging to make carbon-based multilevel hierarchical structures, particularly via simple chemical routes, yet these structures would be useful if such materials are to be made in large quantities for industry.

The supermolecular sponge used in the study is also known as a metal organic framework (MOF) material. These MOFs are attractive, molecularly designed porous materials with many promising applications such as gas storage and separation. The retention of high surface area after carbonisation – or baking at a high temperature – makes them interesting as electrode materials for batteries. However, so far carbonising MOFs has preserved the structure of the initial particles like that of a dense carbon foam. By adding salts to these MOF sponges and carbonising them, the researchers discovered a series of carbon-based materials with multiple levels of hierarchy.

Dr R. Vasant Kumar, a collaborator on the study from University of Cambridge, commented: “This work pushes the use of the MOFs to a new level. The strategy for structuring carbon materials could be important not only in energy storage but also in energy conversion, and sensing.”

Lead author, Tiesheng Wang, from University of Cambridge, said: “Potentially, we could design nano-diatoms with desired structures and active sites incorporated in the carbon as there are thousands of MOFs and salts for us to select.”

An international research team from Russia, France, and Germany has proposed a new method for orienting liquid crystals. It could be used to increase the viewing angle of liquid-crystal displays. The paper was published in the journal ACS Macro Letters.

“This is first and foremost a fundamental study exploring the mechanisms of liquid crystal orientation,” says Dimitri Ivanov, the head of the Laboratory of Functional Organic and Hybrid Materials at MIPT. “That said, we expect that these mechanisms might have applications in new LCD technology.”

Subpixel structure in a twisted nematic LCD. Credit: Lion_on_helium/MIPT Press Office

Subpixel structure in a twisted nematic LCD. Credit: Lion_on_helium/MIPT Press Office

Liquid crystals

Most solids are crystals. In a crystal, molecules or atoms form an ordered three-dimensional structure. Unlike solids, liquids lack this internal long-range order, but they can flow. Matter in a liquid-crystal state has properties that are intermediate between those of liquids and crystals: It possesses both the molecular order and the ability to flow. A liquid crystal can thus be viewed as an “ordered” liquid.

Not all materials can exhibit a liquid crystalline state, and the phase transition mechanisms may vary. Among other things, the molecules of an LC material have to be anisometric — that is, rod- or disk-shaped. Some compounds become LCs in a certain temperature range. These are called thermotropic. By contrast, lyotropic LCs adopt the liquid crystalline state when a solvent is added.

The properties of an LC material vary depending on the direction. For example, polarized light propagates in a liquid crystal at different speeds along different directions. Also, in an electric or magnetic field, the orientation of LCs can rapidly change. This phenomenon is known as the Fréedericksz transition. Thanks to the optical properties of LCs and their ability to be easily realigned, they are widely used in the electronic displays of TVs, computers, phones, and other devices.

Liquid-crystal displays

In an LCD, the image is generated by changing the intensity of light in each pixel via an electric field, which realigns liquid crystals. There are several LCD configurations, but the one most commonly used is based on twisted nematic LCs. These are rod-shaped thermotropic liquid crystals that can adopt a twisted configuration by using special aligning substrates. Applying an electric field to these LCs can untwist them. This reproducible and predictable response can be used to control light intensity.

Each pixel in a color LCD consists of three subpixels: red, green, and blue. By varying their intensities, any color can be displayed. A subpixel in a twisted nematic-based LCD (figure 1) consists of a light source, a color filter, two polarizers, and an LC cell between two glass plates with electrodes. If the liquid crystals were not there, no light would pass through the cell, because whatever light is let through by the vertical polarizer would be blocked by the horizontal polarizer before reaching the color filter. However, special substrates with groovy surfaces can be used to twist LCs in a spiral between two polarizers so as to turn the light precisely by the amount needed to pass through the second polarizer. The fully illuminated state of the subpixel is actually its “off” state. When voltage is applied, the liquid crystals untwist, changing the light polarization to a lesser degree. As a result, some of the light is blocked. Eventually, as some voltage no light can reach the color filter, and the subpixel goes dark.

One of the limitations of this technology is the viewing angle of a display: From a sideways perspective, the LCD will not render the colors accurately. This is due to the co-alignment of liquid crystals. The issue can be solved using multidomain displays, in which pixels belong to a number of domains, whose LC orientations are different. This means that at least some of the domains are always oriented in the right way. The international team of researchers led by Professor Dimitri Ivanov, who heads MIPT’s Laboratory of Functional Organic and Hybrid Materials, has proposed a brand new solution for multidomain display design.

Going orthogonal

The authors of the paper reported in this story worked with liquid-crystal polymers. These are substances composed of long molecules with chainlike repetitive structure. It turned out that a slight variation in the structure of polymers can drastically alter their orientation on the substrate. The polymers used in the study are poly(di-n-alkylsiloxanes), or PDAS. Each molecule is a chain containing alternating silicon and oxygen atoms. The silicon atoms in PDAS bear two symmetric hydrocarbon side chains (figure 2). The n in the name of the compound stands for the length of the side chains, which was varied between 2 and 6.

In the experiment, polymers from the PDAS family were deposited on a Teflon-rubbed aligning surface with a regular pattern of grooves. Generally, crystalline polymers are known to align on such substrates, but only when the lattice parameters of the substrate match those of the deposited polymer. The researchers examined the orientation of the liquid-crystal polymer chains relative to the direction of the grooves on the aligning surface. The side chain length n was increased in steps of just one methylene group (CH?) at a time.

It was found that, contrary to expectations, the liquid-crystal orientation varied depending on side-chain length. At n equal to 2, the needlelike polymer superstructures known as lamellae co-aligned with the Teflon grooves. Because lamellae are known to be perpendicular to the polymer chains, the researchers concluded that the polymer chains are perpendicular to the grooves on the substrate (figure 3, left). When n was increased to 3, the orientation of the lamellae changed by 90 degrees, making them perpendicular to the grooves. As a result, the LC polymer chains were now oriented parallel to the grooves (figure 3, right). At n equal to 4, no further change in orientation was observed. However, when the side-chain length was further increased to 5 and 6, the lamellae again co-aligned with the Teflon grooves.

The researchers have thus found that by merely adding one methylene group to the side chain of the polymer, they could switch the LC orientation, which is crucial for most applications of liquid crystals, including LCDs. According to the authors, the effect they discovered could be used to design LCDs with improved viewing angles. This could be achieved using a multidomain technology that works by orienting subpixels of one color in different directions. As a result, the pixels compensate one another when the display is viewed at an angle, improving color rendition. The researchers expect this technology to be considerably simpler and cheaper than other multidomain approaches that are currently used.

University of Waterloo chemists have found a much faster and more efficient way to store and process information by expanding the limitations of how the flow of electricity can be used and managed.

In a recently released study, the chemists discovered that light can induce magnetization in certain semiconductors – the standard class of materials at the heart of all computing devices today.

“These results could allow for a fundamentally new way to process, transfer, and store information by electronic devices, that is much faster and more efficient than conventional electronics.”

For decades, computer chips have been shrinking thanks to a steady stream of technological improvements in processing density. Experts have, however, been warning that we’ll soon reach the end of the trend known as Moore’s Law, in which the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits double every year.

“Simply put, there’s a physical limit to the performance of conventional semiconductors as well as how dense you can build a chip,” said Pavle Radovanovic, a professor of chemistry and a member of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. “In order to continue improving chip performance, you would either need to change the material transistors are made of – from silicon, say to carbon nanotubes or graphene – or change how our current materials store and process information.”

Radovanovic’s finding is made possible by magnetism and a field called spintronics, which proposes to store binary information within an electron’s spin direction, in addition to its charge and plasmonics, which studies collective oscillations of elements in a material.

“We’ve basically magnetized individual semiconducting nanocrystals (tiny particles nearly 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) with light at room temperature,” said Radovanovic. “It’s the first time someone’s been able to use collective motion of electrons, known as plasmon, to induce a stable magnetization within such a non-magnetic semiconductor material.”

In manipulating plasmon in doped indium oxide nanocrystals Radovanovic’s findings proves that the magnetic and semiconducting properties can indeed be coupled, all without needing ultra-low temperatures (cryogens) to operate a device.

He anticipates the findings could initially lead to highly sensitive magneto-optical sensors for thermal imaging and chemical sensing. In the future, he hopes to extend this approach to quantum sensing, data storage, and quantum information processing.

SILTECTRA GmbH, a developer of advanced wafering technology solutions and services, today announced that it has fortified its market position by adding three new patents to its global portfolio of intellectual property (IP). The first patent covers new technical capabilities relating to the company’s COLD SPLIT laser process and extends the approach to non-polymer applications. The second patent secures COLD SPLIT for all substrate materials.

The third patent covers an extension of the company’s silicon carbide (SiC) process capability to split materials with sub-100-micron material loss, regardless of vendor-specific SiC crystal-growing processes. SILTECTRA’s relentless effort to drive down SiC material loss aims to help accelerate adoption of the superior substrate for power devices and other ICs. Up to now, high cost has inhibited fast adoption. Substantial cost reductions enabled by SILTECTRA’s technology could speed deployment of SiC for a broader range of applications, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and 5G technology.

SILTECTRA’s IP portfolio now consists of 70 patent families with 200 patents. Collectively, the patents cover every innovation associated with the company’s breakthrough laser-based wafer-thinning process.

The growth of SILTECTRA’s IP portfolio reflects the company’s steady march toward commercializing its solution. COLD SPLIT demonstrated early differentiation by thinning wafers to 100 microns and below in minutes with extreme precision and virtually no material loss. These enabling advantages drew high interest from integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) who had previously relied on grinding to thin their wafers. Grinding is a slower, less precise process that generates material loss and reduces overall yield. In contrast, COLD SPLIT is a much faster laser-based thinning approach with higher yield and strong cost-of-ownership benefits.

In a development announced earlier this year, SILTECTRA reported a breakthrough new capability for COLD SPLIT that vastly increased the value of the technology for cost-sensitive IDMs. Thanks to a novel adaptation known as “twinning”, the company demonstrated that COLD SPLIT can reclaim substrate material generated (and previously wasted) during backside grinding and create a second fully optimizable bonus wafer in the process. SILTECTRA validated the breakthrough by producing a gallium nitride (GaN) on SiC high electron-mobility power transistor (HEMT) device on a split-off (or “twinned”) wafer at its new facility in Dresden. The HEMT showed results that were superior to a non- COLD-SPLIT-enabled HEMT when measured for CMP characterization, as well as GaN EPI, metal layer and gate layer outcomes.

The developments drew keen interest from IDMs, as well as substrate manufacturers, and even providers of certain process technologies.

SILTECTRA’s CEO, Dr. Harald Binder, pledged to maintain the rapid pace of innovation at the company to enable IDMs with superior wafering solutions. He noted: “Like all technology companies, SILTECTRA’s leadership and future growth depend on continually innovating to extend our capabilities and further enrich the value of our solution. Naturally, therefore, it’s a strategic priority to protect the innovations along the way so that our competitive differentiation and enabling advantages remain strong in all regions where customers are located. Our robust IP portfolio reflects this priority.”

Dr. Jan Richter, SILTECTRA’s CTO, stated: “Our R&D team is relentlessly pushing the limits of our COLD SPLIT technology to fulfill its enormous potential. The additional patents further strengthen our market position, while enabling us to drive COLD SPLIT’s material loss far below 50 microns.”

Houston Methodist researchers developed a new lab-on-a-chip technology that could quickly screen possible drugs to repair damaged neuron and retinal connections, like what is seen in people with macular degeneration or who’ve had too much exposure to the glare of electronic screens.

In the May 9 issue of Science Advances, researchers led by Houston Methodist Research Institute nanomedicine faculty member Lidong Qin, Ph.D., explain how they created a sophisticated retina cell network on a chip that is modeled after a human’s neural network. This will further the quest for finding the right drug to treat such retinal diseases.

“Medical treatments have advanced but there is still no perfect drug to cure any one of these diseases. Our device can screen drugs much faster than previous technologies. With the new technology and a few years’ effort, the potential to develop a new drug is highly possible,” said Qin.

Named the NN-Chip, the high-throughput platform consists of many channels that can be tailored to imitate large brain cell networks as well as focus on individual neural cells, such as those found in the retina. Using extremely bright light to selectively damage retina photoreceptors in the device, they discovered the damaged cells are not only difficult to recover but also cause neighboring cells to quickly die.

“This so-called ‘bystander killing effect’ in retina cone photoreceptors leads us to believe that once retina cells are severely damaged, the killing effect will spread to other healthy cells which can cause irrevocable damage,” said Qin. “What surprised us was how quickly the killing effect progressed in the experimental model. Damage went from 100 cells to 10, 000 cells in 24 hours.”

The NN-Chip is an improvement on Qin’s BloC-Printing technology, which allowed researchers to print living cells onto any surface in any shape within the confines of a mold. With this latest iteration, Qin’s lab loaded and tested cells with micro-needles in an open dish so they could tailor the neural network device, study individual cells as well as the progression of drugs through the platform’s many channels.

Retinal degeneration is a leading cause of blindness that, together with glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, and age-related macular degeneration, will affect 196 million people worldwide in 2020.

Qin hopes the platform will have additional applications in creating models for Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and screening therapeutic drugs.

Microfluidics focuses on the behavior of fluids through micro-channels, as well as the technology of manufacturing micro devices containing chambers and tunnels to house fluids. In addition to the BloC-Printing chip, Qin’s lab at Houston Methodist also successfully developed a nonconventional lab-on-a-chip technology called the V-Chip for point-of-care diagnostics, making it possible to bring tests to the bedside, remote areas, and other types of point-of-care needs.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, and Newsight Imaging, today announced production of Newsight’s advanced CMOS image sensor (CIS) chips and camera modules, customized for very high volume LiDAR and machine vision markets, combining sensors, digital algorithms and pixel array on the same chip. Newsight’s CIS chips are used in ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) and autonomous vehicles as well as in drones and robotics.

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a detection system which works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser, is considered a must have for autonomous driving due to its high resolution at long distances, and market growth is expected to be exponential once L4/L5 autonomous vehicles become mainstream. IHS estimates the automotive LiDAR semiconductor market will reach $1.8 billion by 2026, with 37% CAGR (2018-2026). By utilizing TowerJazz’s advanced 180nm technology, featuring a wide range of customizable pixel architectures and technologies, Newsight is well-positioned to address the vast opportunities in the automotive market as well as in the security, defense, medical, industrial, and consumer markets.

Newsight’s innovative image sensor chips are ideal for high volume, competitive applications requiring cost effectiveness, low power consumption, high performance, and analog and digital integration. The NSI3000 sensor family, currently in mass production at TowerJazz’s Migdal Haemek, Israel facility, offers extremely high sensitivity pixels, enabling the replacement of expensive CCD (charge-coupled device) sensors in many applications and is designed for programmable high frame rate speeds, allowing better analysis and reaction to events.

In addition, Newsight’s innovative NSI5000, currently in development with TowerJazz at its fab in Israel, is an integrated LiDAR solution for long-range applications and includes a top DSP (digital signal processor) controller which enables complex calculations for depth and machine vision. NSI5000 is used in cutting-edge 3D pulsed based LiDARs for automotive applications and is based on Newsight’s eTOF (enhanced time-of-flight), which bridges the gap between short-distance iTOF (indirect time-of-flight) and the long distance automotive requirement, by extending the dynamic range while retaining high accuracy.

“We chose TowerJazz for its advanced pixel technology, specially customized for our CMOS image sensor chips addressing very high volume markets. Together with our technology, we were able to demonstrate a 4X better sensitivity to our customers. TowerJazz’s CIS offering is proven in the industry and we are pleased to manufacture locally in Israel with a leader in the global analog foundry space,” said Eli Assoolin, Chief Executive Officer, Newsight Imaging.

“With our high-end pixel offering, tailored to specific product and application needs, we are able to provide advanced technology used for high dynamic range CMOS sensors and solutions for the growing LiDAR and automotive markets. We are very happy to work closely with Newsight Imaging to provide market leading solutions and achieve quick time to market. They have shown to be an extremely fast-moving customer and we have a lot of confidence in their success,” said Dr. Avi Strum, TowerJazz Sr. Vice President and GM, CMOS Image Sensor Business Unit.

SMI (Silicon Microstructures, Inc.) introduces the SM933X Series of ultra low MEMS pressure sensor systems. The fully temperature compensated and pressure calibrated sensor with pressure ranges as low as 125 Pa (0.50 inH2O) enables precise pressure sensing in HVAC, industrial and medical applications. Industry leading output accuracy (1% FS) and long term stability is achieved by combining SMI’s proprietary MEMS pressure transducer with a state-of-the-art signal-conditioning IC in one package.

The differential pressure sensor system is available in two configurations: SM9333, with a pressure range of +/- 125 Pa (0.50 inH2O), and SM9336, with a pressure range of +/- 250 Pa (1 inH2O). The total accuracy after board mount and system level Autozero is less than 1%FS over the full compensated temperature range of -20 to 85ºC. The 16 bit resolution provides the ability to resolve signals as small as 0.0038 Pa. The excellent warm-up behavior and long term stability further assures its expected performance over the life of the part.

The system supply ranges from 3.0 to 5.5V and it is well suited for low power applications with its low current consumption and available sleep mode. The ASIC architecture and higher order noise filtering provides low noise and extremely low EMI susceptibility.

The small SO16 package with dual vertical port allows for easy system integration and pressure connection, while the MEMS sensor itself is robust with high burst pressure and virtually no mounting or vibration sensitivity.

 

Key applications: HVAC, CPAP and pressure transmitters

The SM933X is the best solution for flow sensing applications, delivering high performance regardless of the tubing length and is not affected by particles in the airflow. It is versatilely applicable as an HVAC sensor, to determine the air flow in variable air volume (VAV) systems and detection of filter cleanliness in eg. air handling units (AHU).

In the medical market ultra low pressure sensors are used for CPAP flow sensing. The integration and use in CPAP devices is eased by the insensitivity of the sensor to the mounting orientation, its high resolution and low noise performance. Furthermore the SM933X improves pressure measurement in industrial applications, replacing costly, bulky equipment consisting of several components with one single sensor system in a small outline package and inherent long term stability. Key applications include pressure transmitters and pressure switches.

“SMI has had a tradition of being on the cutting edge of MEMS low pressure sensors dating back to the mid 90’s. With the launch of the SM933X series, the company looks to extend that leadership into its 3rd decade,” says Omar Abed, President and CEO of SMI. “We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our lead customers. We are convinced that the launch of this new product line will set the benchmark for ultra-low pressure sensors below 2 inH2O and usher in a new wave of innovation in medical and industrial flow and ultra-low pressure applications.”