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The high-volume consumer applications driving the fast growth of the micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) market are putting new demands on MEMS development and manufacturing. Goals? Get products to market faster, make them easier to integrate into systems, reduce die size; and better control processes to bring down costs. That’s attracted investment from the supply chain in a range of new solutions, from innovative new process technologies and tools developed specifically for MEMS sector needs, to more efficient integrated design software.

June 27, 2012 — The MEMS sector is poised for a multiyear period of steady double digit growth, with 20% average annual increases in unit demand, as systems makers find ever more uses for low cost, easy-to-integrate silicon sensors and actuators, reports Jean Christophe Eloy, founder and CEO of Yole Développement, driving the MEMS market to double, to reach $21 billion by 2017. Volume consumer markets are driving much of this growth, as consumer applications accounted for more than 50% of total MEMS industry revenue in 2011. And that’s turning the once artisanal niche into a high volume production business, and bringing rapid technology change, with a push for speeding time to market, sharply scaling down die size, increasing integration of multiple sensors into combination units, and bringing more packaging value to the wafer level. “2011 has been the year of the transition of the MEMS market into big business with wide diffusion,” says Eloy. “But the ability of MEMS manufacturers to continue to scale size and cost, and to simplify development and system integration will directly impact the growth of MEMS business.”

Figure. Common model of an accelerometer being used as a block in the control system design stage. A common model reduces design iterations by allowing teams to easily move between design stages to identify failures and optimize the system. SOURCE: Coventor.

 

Meeting time-to-market needs with more efficient design tools
While decreasing time to market and cost reduction have always been key drivers, the short product cycle times associated with mobile consumer devices have forever changed the industry. “Development time is now measured in months, not years,” notes Mattan Kamon, Coventor’s Principal Technologist. “However, design is still mostly done using traditional research approaches, where different models are used at different stages of the design, costing valuable time.” Coventor’s approach accelerates MEMS product development by using a common model for all stages of design. An engineering team can use a single model to develop and optimize the MEMS device concept, tune and validate the design using 3D simulations, perform system simulation together with the ASIC, investigate packaging effects, and optimize yield. All of these steps can be performed using a single model, enabling MEMS teams to easily move back and forth between the design stages, identify failure mechanisms, and optimize the system.

Kamon argues this methodology has the accuracy to address integration effects and can optimize the nominal behavior and the range of behavior across a wafer due to fabrication variations. Coventor’s approach couples a library of high-order finite element models specialized for MEMS with judicious use of low-order finite element simulations, and uses the same simulators, namely MATLAB, Simulink, and Cadence Virtuoso, that are most widely used for analog/mixed-signal design. This holds potential for a MEMS verification flow that closely parallels the verification flow for analog/mixed signal design, and paves the way for a fabless MEMS industry complete with MEMS design kits (MDKs).

New processes to make low-cost cavities without etching

Finnish startup Scannano proposes that MEMS die size and cost could be significantly reduced, and performance improved, by creating sealed cavities in devices by using a controlled diffusion process, instead of by the traditional method of etching sacrificial layers and bonding on a cap wafer.

Following on from research with Nokia’s Research Center and Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, company founders Andrei Pavlov and Yelena Pavlova came up with the idea of shrinking away buried layers in a device by through diffusion to create a vacuum gap, allowing the use of standard CMOS materials and equipment. The process deposits a proprietary multi-layer diffusion material, builds the MEMS structure over it, and then submits it to a series of processing steps to shrink the diffusion material. This creates a very accurate sealed vacuum cavity of the desired dimensions and configuration. “The gaps can be from a few nanometers to up to a micron deep, and can be vertical or at an angle, or multiple gaps could surround a structure, opening up the possibility of new types of MEMS designs,” says Pavlov. He also claims that shrinking features to 50-100nm can also reduce operating voltage to only a few volts and reduce heat, while the very smooth surfaces help to improve sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio and performance.

The first application for Scannano’s Deep Vacuum Gap Technology is a tunable capacitor and switch for multiband tunability for mobile phones, under development with STMicroelectronics and tentatively targeted for initial trial production on a CMOS line by the end of the year. The new device adjusts operating frequencies by changing capacitance through moving membrane-like MEMS structures, created by adjusting gap dimensions above and below the membrane. Pavlov says work with ST has been progressing for about a year, and is now moving towards final device design and testing. Scannano is also working with other European CMOS device manufacturers to develop sensors for the automotive market, monolithically integrated with the ASIC in their CMOS fabs.

Figure. MEMS structures with aspect ratios of >100:1. SOURCE: Applied Materials.

Volume markets attract investment in dedicated MEMS processes and tools

Fast growing MEMS volumes have also attracted the attention of more semiconductor players, including equipment giant Applied Materials. Applied has invested aggressively in development of new film and process technologies to support current and future generations of MEMS production at ≤200mm wafer sizes, focusing on shrinking die size, improving throughput, and integrating MEMS processes into CMOS fabs, says Mike Rosa, MEMS product line manager. This includes DRIE technology critical for both increased productivity and process flexibility as next generation MEMS devices enter the sub-micron range of critical dimensions, with aspect ratios of >100:1 (see the figure above).

Applied Materials is also working on modifying its PVD and CVD equipment to make a variety of enabling films of new materials for MEMS, including thick (>20µm), low temperature CVD films (SiO2, SiGe, etc.); and PVD films such as magnetically aligned NiFe, high uniformity AlN and thick Al.

Tool vendors will need to be increasingly attuned to the MEMS device capability and technology requirements of their customers’ customers, the fabless device designers and systems companies, notes Rosa. “In the MEMS industry there is no traditional roadmap, like the ITRS, to define the future,” he says. “It will take a much more collaborative effort by all parties — tool vendors, device manufacturers, and end-market product developers — to define and deliver the next generation MEMS designs that are destined for the newest ‘next big thing’ products.”

Also focusing on enabling tools for next generation MEMS is Nikon, with a new stepper with a large depth of focus specifically for the 200mm MEMS market. Though MEMS makers have traditionally used lower cost aligners to make their relatively large patterns, now finer features and tighter design rules may increasingly require the higher resolution and better alignment accuracy of steppers. But IC steppers are typically expensive and not well suited to the extreme topographies of MEMS. This Mini Stepper has ≤0.35µm overlay accuracy and resolution to 2µm, and depth of focus capabilities up to 26 µm for the thick resists and deformed substrates typical of MEMS, reports Junpei Fukui, Nikon Engineering assistant manager. It also offer flexible alignment to compensate for MEMS’ process-induced distortions, as well as alignment by pattern matching and backside marks.

These and other speakers including IDT, Hanking Electronics, Teledyne DALSA, Micralyne and NIST discuss solutions for growing the MEMS sector to the next level at SEMICON West, July 10 -12 in San Francisco. See http://semiconwest.org/Segments/MEMS for the complete agenda, and http://semiconwest.org/Participate/RegisterNow to register.

Read on for a SEMICON West preview from Doe on collaboration in the MEMS ecosystem.

June 27, 2012 — Canon Inc. launched the FPA-3030i5+ i-line stepper for manufacturing micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) and energy-efficient “green” devices such as power semiconductors in solar and wind applications and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Several upgrades were incorporated to the FPA-3000 series to meet the “unique process requirements” in these markets. The FPA-30303i5+ provides imaging resolution below 350nm while maintaining overlay accuracy of <40nm and throughput in excess of 104 wafers per hour (WPH).

The FPA-3030i5+ features an updated software structure and electrical control system that allow the application of advanced hardware and software options to support next-generation semiconductor manufacturing.

The FPA-3030 platform allows processing of silicon (Si), sapphire (Al2O3), silicon carbide (SiC) and a wide variety of wafer materials used in “green” device manufacturing. FPA-3030i5+ options include warped-wafer handling systems to allow processing of distorted substrates. The FPA-3030i5+ stepper can also be configured to process multiple wafer sizes, and hosts various options to improve productivity and efficiency.

Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ) provides digital imaging solutions. Internet: http://www.canon.com/.

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MEMS in the mainstream — Music to my ears

June 25, 2012 — For the second year in a row, MEMS Industry Group was host to the Sensors Expo Pre-Conference Symposium, and this year’s theme was “MEMS in the Mainstream: Commercialization and Product Realization — Leveraging the MEMS Infrastructure.” I felt like a bandmaster — not trying to make the music, just trying to get the band with all its different instruments, rhythms, and tones to harmonize. 

It’s not a simple piece to orchestrate, because when you talk about commercialization and product realization and leveraging the micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) infrastructure, you are talking about lots of different perspectives from equipment vendors to materials suppliers, from foundries to device manufacturers (some captive-fab, some fab-lite, some fabless), as well as from end-users and OEMs. Each of these “bands” has its own instrument, its own sheet music, its own style and its own “special sauce.” You can see where I am going with this analogy. Like in music, MEMS can either work like a 10-piece orchestra in total sync and harmony, or it can sound like something the cat dragged in!

Thankfully, at our Sensors Expo pre-conference, we sounded a lot more like the 10-piece orchestra. We focused on utilizing the MEMS infrastructure to produce harmonious communication with our customer and our customer’s customers, in order to get the product out in time, at cost, and in the right form factor.

Each of our presenters and panelists shared their own perspectives.  They didn’t always agree (oftentimes they didn’t) and that’s OKAY — because MEMS by its nature is not one-size-fits-all.  Approaching the topic of MEMS foundry models from differing angles, John Chong of Kionix and Rob O’Reilly of Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) both gave fantastic overviews of MEMS foundry models, digging into which approaches work for them and why.

IMT’s Craig Trautman and Silex’s Peter Himes carried the foundry discussion a little further. As foundry companies, they were able to rise above the idea that everyone should go fabless, in support of the diversity and maturity of the MEMS industry. I think Craig summed it up well when he said: “There’s no free lunch. There are pros and cons for various models of MEMS fabrication: fabless vs. captive). As a foundry, we have five customers ‘living’ at IMT. We give them free office space because a lot of the things that we do are really hard. The customer needs to collaborate to make it all work.”

I loved hearing from the end-users, and those working closest to the end-users as these are the people who are truly driving the market for MEMS (and our future). As eloquently stated by Jim Clardy of Dell, “I want to avoid end-user scenarios where people have to wave a tablet around to get magnetometer calibrated. Sensors are collecting ambient data. What are the privacy and security concerns? Data must be shared with the cloud. Someone must track the user, his/her location, etc. Whoever controls those ecosystems is going to know A LOT about the end-user. This could be an adoption barrier.”

We in the MEMS industry really need to listen to folks like Jim! We need to be thinking about the sensor fusion of all of these sensors; the security of that data; and the human who is interfacing with the device. We need to remember that MEMS is just an instrument. Sitting by itself untouched, it is nothing.  But when it’s played by the right artist, placed in the right band, it can harmonize and make beautiful music. And yes, that is music to my ears.

Contact Karen Lightman, managing director of MEMS Industry Group at [email protected], 412-390-1644. Read her other blogs:

June 22, 2012 — Motion processing technology company Movea is collaborating with Freescale Semiconductor, provider of embedded processing solutions. Freescale will integrate Movea’s MotionCore motion processing software modules with its ColdFire-based processors, creating an intelligent motion-sensing platform. MotionCore software modules are optimized for mobile, motion-based applications, helping reduce power consumption at an economical price point.

Photo. In the demonstration, the chip is plugged into a larger applications board for testing and programming. The smaller chip on the right is a magnetometer.

Demonstrated at the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) Americas, this week in San Antonio, TX, the combination targets mobile applications. At FTF, the companies integrated Movea’s MotionCore Foundation package, including calibration and orientation modules, with a Freescale ColdFire-based processing platform. The system used onboard micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) sensors to drive mobile applications such as gesture recognition, pedometer functionality, tilt-compensated eCompass, and continuous auto calibration. The combined system is part of Freescale’s Xtrinsic family of intelligent sensor platforms.

Movea’s MotionCore data-fusion software is platform agnostic, with customers from sensor, processor and mobile platform vendors targeting smartphone and tablet designs. Consumers are rapidly adopting motion-sensing-enabled devices for a more adaptive and aware user interface and enhanced services, said Bryan Hoadley, EVP of marketing and sales and president of Movea Inc.

Also read: You make MEMS. Should you make sensor fusion software?

The Xtrinsic family of intelligent sensors with embedded compute capability offers a sophisticated motion processing solution, said Wayne Chavez, consumer & industrial sensor operations manager of Freescale’s Sensor & Actuator Solutions Division. The SmartMotion IP from Movea enables Freescale’s Xtrinsic hardware.

Movea and Freescale will co-promote their combined solution to handset manufacturers, mobile operators and device manufacturers for applications including:  indoor/pedestrian navigation, activity monitoring, motion gaming, augmented reality and gesture-based device/application control. MotionCore IP cores are available for licensing from Movea.

Movea provides motion sensing and data fusion software, firmware, and IP for the consumer electronics, mobile and tablets, sports and fitness and eHealth industries. For more information, visit www.movea.com

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June 21, 2012 — Wafer processing equipment supplier SPTS Technologies joined the MEMS Consortium, led by the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a member of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.

Micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) are used in next-generation motion sensors, microphones, oscillators, and other devices. IME established the consortium to spearhead research and development of these cutting-edge MEMS technologies with the support and participation of key manufacturing suppliers. The three focused product areas for the consortium’s work are oscillators for mobile phone timing circuits, magnetometers for compassing functions in mobile phones and energy harvesters; and devices that capture energy such as wearable components to convert self-generated kinetic energy into a power resource.

“Our goal is…to boost MEMS manufacturing within Singapore and in the region,” said Professor Dim-Lee Kwong, Executive Director of IME. “The MEMS consortium provides a platform for researchers and key players spanning the value chain to form a strategic alliance, share knowledge, and develop innovations to tap into new opportunities in the global MEMS market.” IME announced Phase II of the MEMS Consortium this month.

IME is one of Asia’s leading organizations focusing on microelectronics research and development.

SPTS Technologies (a Bridgepoint portfolio company) designs, manufactures, sells, and supports etch, PVD, CVD and thermal wafer processing solutions for the MEMS, advanced packaging, LEDs, high speed RF on GaAs, and power management device markets. With manufacturing facilities in Newport, Wales, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and San Jose, California, the company operates across 19 countries in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. For more information about SPTS Technologies, please visit www.spts.com

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June 20, 2012 — A major high-volume micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) maker has purchased a FOGALE nanotech T-MAP DUAL 3D 200A metrology tool for its US manufacturing facility. The tool will be equipped with 2 load ports and will be fully automated.

The T-MAP DUAL 3D will perform thickness, total thickness variation (TTV) and stress measurement.

With the microscopy capability, the tool will also perform in-plane registration and out-of-the-plane registration for wafer bonding alignment process control. A new out-of-the-plane overlay metrology enables 0.1µm accuracy.

The tool will also be able to measure critical dimensions (CDs) and the depth of high-aspect-ratio cavities.

FOGALE also recently installed T-MAP DUAL 3D metrology at SPTS, a leader in deep reactive ion etch (DRIE) and plasma etching process tools. SPTS will use the T-MAP DUAL 3D 300M for its application lab in Newport, Wales to perform metrology on through silicon via (TSV) formations.

FOGALE T-MAP DUAL 3D technology was also qualified by a major Korean IDM for back-side wafer processing from temporary wafer bonding to TSV reveal.

FOGALE nanotech provides high-accuracy dimensional metrology tools. FOGALE nanotech provides process control and characterization solutions for MEMS and semiconductor manufacturers and labs around the world. Learn more at www.fogale-semicon.com.

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Driven by the volume consumer business, the maturing MEMS sector starts to look at ways to reduce costs and speed time to market by coming together on things like easing integration, common test methods, and tool replacement parts. Fast-moving high-volume markets may also drive MEMS makers toward paring down the vast diversity of  processes and packages used, and into more collaboration on a mature ecosystem.

June 19, 2012 — The micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) sector is poised for a multiyear period of steady double digit growth, with 20% average annual increases in unit demand, as systems makers find ever more uses for low cost, easy-to-integrate silicon sensors and actuators, reports Jean Christophe Eloy, founder and CEO of Yole Développement.  That means that even with steady price declines, the MEMS market will double, to reach $21 billion by 2017.  Volume consumer markets are driving much of this growth, as consumer applications accounted for more than 50% of total MEMS industry revenue in 2011.  “But growth will depend in part on how well MEMS makers manage to make these devices easier to use,” he notes. “A strong collective push will be needed to create a MEMS ecosystem to simplify the integration of MEMS into larger modules and systems, enabling non-specialists to use them without a steep learning curve.”

Measuring the same things in the same way

In another sign of the growing maturity of the MEMS industry, there’s been some real progress on agreement on measuring the same things in the same ways, to be able to compare results and agree on dimensional and property specifications. 

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working with the MEMS community towards standard measurement methods for eight key parameters, to allow validation of in-house measurements, and enable meaningful comparisons of parameters measured by different tools, different labs, or different companies, to ease characterizing and trouble-shooting processes, calibrating instruments, and communicating among partners.

NIST will start to offer MEMS test chips with cantilevers, fixed-fixed beams, and structures for measuring step height, in-plane length and thickness, with reference data for parameters such as Young’s modulus, residual strain, strain gradient, step height and in-plane length and thickness measured on these structures by NIST, using SEMI and ASTM standard test methods, the consensus best practices developed by industry committees at these organizations.  Companies can then validate their own measurements on these chips against those made by NIST, supported by a user guide, the data analysis sheets for each measurement, a MEMS parameter calculator and additional information accessible online via the NIST Data Gateway (http://srdata.nist.gov/gateway/) with the keyword “MEMS Calculator”. 

At least one inspection and metrology equipment supplier is considering supplying the test chips and including software to automate running of the standard tests with its tools.

“We want to work with the MEMS community to facilitate widespread adoption and consistent usage of these standard test methods, and to make the reference materials available to as many people as possible,” says Janet Cassard, electronics engineer in NIST’s Semiconductor and Dimensional Metrology Division, who will explain these tools at the MEMS session at SEMICON West. “Developing the best practices and reference materials are typically prohibitively expensive for a single company to invest in on its own.”

The reference materials measure Young’s modulus, residual stress and stress gradient using the method in SEMI MS4, step height and thickness with SEMI MS2, residual strain with ASTM E 2245, strain gradient with ASTM E 2246, and in-plane length with ASTM E 2244. One test chip covers  material and dimensional properties for a composite oxide layer fabricated in a multi-user 1.5 µm CMOS process followed by a bulk-micromachining etch.  The other uses a polysilicon layer fabricated in a polysilicon multi-user surface-micromachining MEMS process with a backside etch. 

Maturing industry may move towards more commonality

Consumer markets, with their fast product iterations and price pressures, may be driving MEMS makers towards more common platforms and consistent package families to speed time to market and reduce costs.  “The high cost of packaging and test is a big challenge for the industry,” notes Micralyne director of strategic technology Peter Hrudey. “So we, as a MEMS community, should be starting the discussion about ways to increase commonality.”  He suggests the best near term possibility could be cooperative co-funding of research for base technology for emerging market needs. Could something like the model employed for the ARM common platform, licensed at reasonable rates for wide use and then further individually enhanced by users be a model for MEMS?   Or perhaps a combination of equipment makers and product designers can drive a move toward process commonality.  As product designers better understand the process characteristics they can design for manufacture more effectively, while the equipment manufacturers may tend toward increasing commonality through a desire to meet the needs of the biggest MEMS manufacturers.  “In a maturing industry the base technology becomes more common. No one player can drive the entire market forward on their own,” he notes.

Keeping legacy tools up and running by identifying common needs

Volume manufacture also means the MEMS industry will need start to think more about keeping its legacy equipment up and running.  While most parts can be relatively easily replaced with something similar, replacing the obsolete printed circuit boards that fail is more of a problem, especially for the more complex boards in 200mm tools that can no longer be fixed in house.  “The aftermarket of scavenged boards of unknown quality, unknown software version, and unknown availability is not a functional supply chain,” says SEMATECH ISMI obsolescent equipment program manager Bill Ross. “Plus chopping it up for parts takes a 200mm tool out of the available inventory forever.”

To help keep the 200mm tool base viable for the wider semiconductor industry, ISMI aims to facilitate the re-manufacture of critical boards, by identifying the key parts needs, then bringing together the original tool makers who have the IP but no longer support the parts, and potential re-manufacturers who could then make the needed quantities of the boards, if they had license to the IP and a market of potential users.  The organization is also setting up an online exchange for its members to speed the search for needed legacy parts.  Ross and others will be discussing this and other legacy tool issues in the Secondary Market session Wednesday afternoon, July 11 at SEMICON West.

These speakers from Yole, NIST and Micralyne join those from Hanking Electronics, IDT, Teledyne DALSA, Coventor, Applied Materials, Nikon and Scannano to talk about solutions for growing the MEMS sector to the next level at SEMICON West, July 10-12 in San Francisco. See http://semiconwest.org/Segments/MEMS for the complete agenda, and http://semiconwest.org/Participate/RegisterNow to register.

More on SEMICON West:

SEMICON West 2012 exhibits preview: Wafer processing and handling

SEMICON West preview: Conference keynotes and "Extreme Electronics"

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June 19, 2012 — Plasma etch and deposition processing system maker Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology won an order for its recently launched PlasmaPro Estrelas100 deep silicon etch tool from the University of Toronto.

The PlasmaPro Estrelas100 deep silicon etch tool offers flexibility for R&D uses. It forms nano and micro structures via Bosch and cryo etch technologies in the same chamber. It performs smooth sidewall processes and high-etch-rate cavity etches without changing the chamber hardware.

UToronto will use the system in its Emerging Communications Technology Institute (ECTI) in the central micro- and nanofabrication facility, serving academic research and development needs, as well as training functions. Professor Yu Sun, Director of ECTI, cited the PlasmaPro Estrelas100’s equipment quality, performance and capabilities, as well as system support.

The PlasmaPro Estrelas100 will be used for collaborative research with strategic partners in key research areas, including nanotechnology and nanofabrication, photonic materials and devices, micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (M/NEMS), biotechnology, micro- and nano-electronic devices, integrated optics, and photovoltaic devices.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funded the purchase and commissioning of important tools including deep reactive ion etch (DRIE) and other tools for the Centre for Microfluidic Systems in Chemistry and Biology.

Oxford Instruments provides high-technology tools and systems for research and industry. The company designs and manufactures equipment that can fabricate, analyze and manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular level. Learn more at www.oxford-instruments.com.

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June 19, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Timing device maker Sand 9 Inc. raised $23 million in its Series C financing round, led by Intel Capital and with significant participation from Vulcan Capital.

Sand 9 will use the Series C capital to “migrate from research and development toward shipping product into the market,” said Vince Graziani, CEO, Sand 9, who plans to commercialize the first Sand 9 product, ramp volume production, and rapidly expand the company’s product portfolio.

Intel Capital and Vulcan Capital join existing investors Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, General Catalyst Partners, Khosla Ventures and CSR.

In November 2011, Sand 9 held an equity funding round, aiming for $6 million. Earlier that year, the company bolstered its Board with Skyworks EVP Greg Waters to plan for commercial launch.

Sand 9’s timing devices for wired and wireless applications use micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) technology to ensure synchronicity and stable operation in complex electronic devices. Sand 9’s MEMS timing device platform reportedly achieves stringent phase noise and short-term stability requirements. The spurious-free resonator design can enhance network efficiency due to reduced packet loss. The components offer high immunity to noise and shock and withstand high lead-free reflow temperatures. They challenge the conventional temperature compensated crystal oscillators (TCXO) for applications from smartphones and tablets to industrial test and measurement systems and communications infrastructure equipment.

Semico Research recently reported the MEMS oscillator market at <1% of the total timing market of $6.3 billion. Sand 9’s “drop-in replacement and technical benefits over established silicon quartz crystal timing devices,” will capture market share from the legacy quartz components,” said Tony Massimini, chief of technology, Semico Research.  

Intel Capital noted the limitations of quartz timing products in adding Sand 9 to its portfolio, said David Flanagan, managing director, Intel Capital, who added that Sand 9 MEMS components could make mobile devices easier to design and manufacture, as well as improving the end-product’s performance. As part of the funding, Intel Capital appointed Dr. Siva Sivaram, an industry veteran with significant semiconductor process and operational experience as well as founder and CEO of Twin Creeks Technologies, Inc., to join the Sand 9 Board of Directors.

Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment and M&A organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. For more information on Intel Capital, visit www.intelcapital.com.

Sand 9 offers a precision MEMS technology platform that enhances quality and performance, simplifies system design, and promotes space and power savings in integrated electronic systems. For more information on Sand 9, visit www.sand9.com.

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June 14, 2012 — Micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) oscillators are poised for steep growth in the next few years, says Semico. MEMS represented only 1.4% of all oscillator and clock generator circuits in 2011, but by the end of 2012, Semico expects to see at least a dozen vendors.

Semico projects the 2011-2016 CAGR for MEMS oscillators will be 85.6%, approaching $1.2 billion by 2016, with the market taking off in 2013. Established companies will leverage existing applications those with innovative designs will target key high-growth markets.

Also read: MEMS oscillators occupy 1% of timing market, but lure more makers

A MEMS oscillator may be secondary to system designers, who look more to microprocessors and SoCs, but the timing circuit is an important enabling technology that ties together the entire system design. Semico foresees the main driving markets for MEMS oscillators will be portable applications such as smart phones, tablets and ultrabooks. These are fast-changing designs that can benefit from the advantages offered by MEMS oscillators: lower cost, lower power consumption, and smaller thinner packages.

There are currently over 50 crystal oscillator suppliers worldwide, and some will pursue a MEMS-based product line. More MEMS oscillator vendors will emerge over the next few years, with some raising funds (like Sand9), and others being acquired (like VTI). A MEMS oscillator vendor needs to deliver on reliability, performance, cost and the right package for an application while marketing their product aggressively to overcome the entrenched position of quartz oscillators.

Semico is a semiconductor marketing & consulting research company. For more information, visit www.semico.com.

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