16th
September 2004
Toshiba
Corp. has
developed a MEMS-based pump for fuel
cells, a move seen as an important step forward in miniaturizing the
devices for portable systems. Toshiba's
prototype
device uses microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology to pump
fuel and air into a passive fuel cell stack for a portable phone
recharger. The company eventually expects to use MEMS
pumps in hybrid passive/active fuel cells for cellphones and PDAs.
http://www.eetimes.com/at/se/news/OEG20031003S0039
3rd June 2004
Packaging of MEMS devices
presents a technological challenge,
Hymite
have developed a Magnetic Proximity Switch for in-vivo medical
applications. The switch is targeted to replace much bigger
conventional reed switches and comes in a 1.8x1.8x0.8mm fully
SMT-compatible package.
The
package is realized by a silicon lid or "cap" (
HyCap®) a chip size
hermetic seal. which is provided with
electrical through-wafer interconnects (µ-VIAS). The cap itself is a
flip chip device with solder balls and sealing ring on the front side,
and SMD pads on the back side. Sealing and soldering of the electrical
interconnections is performed within one flip chip assembly process
step. Sealing rings and pads on the cap and MEMS sides are perfectly
aligned by solder surface tension forces (eutectic AuSn solder is
used).
25th May 2004
Next Generation Viscometer
MEMS
USA, Inc. announced today that it has filed a patent application
for its
next generation Viscometer. The sensor is installed directly into
process pipelines and provides real-time viscosity measurement. MEMS
USA, Inc. is a California-based professional scientific and
technical services company.
www.memsusa.com.
16th May
2004
Advanced Sensor Technologies Inc. ( AST) has
developed a
miniature
device that can be applied as easily as a Band Aid
TM,
for non-invasively extracting interstitial fluid through the skin. The
device includes integrated sensing technology for measurement of
various biologically-relevant components within the fluid as well as
integrated features for therapeutic control (i.e. drug delivery).
AST, is a
privately held medical device research and development corporation, and
was founded in 1997. The company primarily focuses on the research and
development of MEMS-based sensors and micro fluidic systems for the
biotechnology market. AST's R&D facilities in Farmington Hills,
Michigan, include a tissue culture laboratory, a cell biology
laboratory, a wet laboratory, an electronics laboratory, and a machine
shop.
Hal Cantor said his small biotechnology firm "will begin selling small
ceramic wafers to researchers
later this year". Each wafer is about 1-inch square and has 320
sensors.
When testing new drugs, researchers can put cell samples on the wafers
and the sensors will allow them to study a wide range of cell-drug
reactions (for example, type I diabetes, psychiatric disorders, and
sleep disorders).
2 April 2004
Following a highly successful European project
(TUNVIC) on tunable semiconductor lasers, two researchers from the
Technical Univeristy of Darmstadt
have formed a company to commercialise long-wavelength tunable VCSELs
("VCSEL" = Vertical Cavity
Surface Emitting Laser).
The start-up Two-Chip
Photonics
is now considering the market potential for its tunable lasers that
have a centre wavelength of 1550 nm and a tuning range of about
30 nm
-- the largest to date for a singlemode VCSEL. The lasers consist of an
InGaAs VCSEL which has its top mirror removed and
replaced with a movable MEMS mirror membrane. The laser’s emission
wavelength is tuned by applying a small current which causes the
position of the mirror membrane, and hence the length of the laser
cavity, to change.
11th February 2004
Continuum
Photonics Inc., are in the optical networking market and supply
advanced photonic switch products. They have announced a series of optical
switches using piezoelectric forces to angle tiny mirrors. The
switch is aimed at the test market and sits
between test equipment and the devices being tested (line cards, for
instance). The switch's programmable nature means engineers could build
arbitrary topologies in the lab without rewiring all the equipment
being tested. Networks arranged in a ring, for instance, could be
converted to a mesh via software, saving time.
This technology is
similar to a Thin-film Micromirror Array (TMA), a reflective type of
spatial
light modulator fabricated with optical MEMS technology.
Scientists
at Xerox Corporation are also conducting research into
micro-opto-electromechanical systems (MOEMS
- Xerox technology).
8th
February 2004
AKN part of a group that is raising
US$20mil for
Nanochip. AKN
Technology Bhd is joining software giant Microsoft Corp and others to
raise more than US$20mil in
mid-2004 for Nanochip Inc, a US-based company involved in the research
and development of MEMS based data
storage devices. The high growth markets targeted are flash memory
cards, cache
memory drives, and embedded telecommunication chips, requiring high
memory storage capacity. It is reported that these MEMS data storage
devices have the capacity to store up to four gigabytes of data.
AKN
Company Profile.
2nd
February 2004
Scientists at Philips Research claim
to have made a significant step
towards perfecting new MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical System) devices
that will enhance the performance and minimise the size of
RF
circuits
in mobile phones. A variable
MEMS
capacitor solution for the impedance matching network will
typically require
less than half the printed circuit board area needed to accommodate
today's discrete component networks. In addition, within a mobile phone
system this will
significantly increase the power amplifier's efficiency and hence
conserve battery power.
28th
January 2004
Ion Optics,
Inc. today announced $4.0 million funding for the development
of some lowcost high-volume device packaging for their "
Sensorchip".
This is an Infrared gas sensor providing conclusive identification and
measurement of the target gas with little interference from other
gases. Ion Optics' patented optical technology platform allows
the building all the optical components -- emitter, filter, detector --
onto a single silicon chip.
27th January 2004
Analog Devices Inc. developer
of MEMS and integrated circuits for analog
and digital applications, introduced its ADXL32x family of iMEMS
accelerometers.The dual-axis accelerometers come in a 4 x 4 x 1.45
millimeter plastic lead frame chip scale package, according to a
news release.The new family was designed with
consumer electronics
applications in mind, specifically mobile phones and hand-held
computers that respond to a user's movements and gestures, notebook
computers with anti-theft protection and automotive CD and DVD drives
with vibration compensation.
12th
January 2004
Specialized chip developer
Akustica Inc.
raised $8 million in a second round of equity financing. Akustica
use
MicroElectroMechanical Systems-based (MEMS) technology to enhance the
sound in hearing aids and cell phones. They claim to be fabless and
build acoustic membrane structures on each chip directly
out of standard CMOS hence saving capital investment on a costly CMOS
facility. There's little detail on their web site with which to gauge
the technology. Akustica's first microphone product, an Analog
Microphone Chip,
is a
multi-membrane, MEMS condenser microphone with an on-chip amplifier.
Their
Speaker
Chips combine "MEMS speakers" with software and microelectronics
onto a single standard CMOS chip. Typically these MEMS membrane devices
suffer from resonance in the audio
band greatly reducing the quality of the audio output. This can be
overcome by shaping the membrane and combining dozens of small speakers
to achieve unprecedented sound reproduction.
Akustica claim to be "refining the performance characteristics of these
exciting new devices"! The company is also currently seeking a product
test engineer and clearly need to overcome obstacles to short term
production targets.
Ken
Gabriel is on board as co-founder. Ken also founded
Xactix, Inc. a four year
old startup, and he serves
on the strategic advisory boards of
Microcosm
Inc., a microscope company "problem-solving technologies for the
analytical micro-imaging sciences".
Microheater arrays and thermo
responsive surface chemistry may provide the means to more easily grow
replacement tissue
for injured patients and form the basis for medical sensors that could
quickly detect pathogens, according to researchers at the
University of
Washington who are the first to demonstrate the process.
The key to the technique, according
to Associate Professor
Karl
Böhringer in the UW’s Department of Electrical Engineering, lies in
temperature-driven changes in the material with which the
less-than-one-millimeter-wide electric heaters are coated. Proteins
stick to the material as its temperature rises, and release when it
goes back down. That, according to Böhringer, opens the door to a wide
array of possibilities.
SUNNYVALE, Calif.,
Cepheid (Nasdaq: CPHD),announced that it has been issued a U.S. Patent
for a "Device Incorporating a Microfluidic Chip for Separating Analyte
from a Sample." This patent covers the design of a sample preparation
cartridge containing a microfluidic chip for extraction and
purification of multiple DNA targets simultaneously.
http://www.cepheid.com