by R. Colin Johnson, Contributing Editor
MEMS Investor Journal
A new MEMS gyroscope architecture with no moving parts will debut later this year from Qualtre Inc. (Marlborough, Mass.). The startup's inertial sensor designs are based on bulk acoustic wave (BAW) propagation.
Qualtre was formed back in 2007, but its first round of venture funding of $5 million came in 2008 from Matrix Partners (Waltham, Mass.) and Pilot House Ventures (Boston). Since then the development team has been working on commercializing the BAW technology conceived at the Georgia Tech microelectronics lab by Professor Farrokh Ayazi, who is now on sabbatical and serving as Chief Technology Officer at Qualtre.
MEMS Investor Journal
A new MEMS gyroscope architecture with no moving parts will debut later this year from Qualtre Inc. (Marlborough, Mass.). The startup's inertial sensor designs are based on bulk acoustic wave (BAW) propagation.
Qualtre was formed back in 2007, but its first round of venture funding of $5 million came in 2008 from Matrix Partners (Waltham, Mass.) and Pilot House Ventures (Boston). Since then the development team has been working on commercializing the BAW technology conceived at the Georgia Tech microelectronics lab by Professor Farrokh Ayazi, who is now on sabbatical and serving as Chief Technology Officer at Qualtre.
"We are now in the final stages of transferring our technology to the commercial fabs that we think we can build a company around and base a product line on," said Rich Mannherz, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Qualtre.
BAW technology has traditionally been an analog signal processing technique for building filters that use the wave propagation properties of the material as a delay line for ladder, lattice or stacked filter topologies. When used for gyroscopes, an array of capacitive sensors around the edge of the vibrating silicon disk detect its deformations in response to motion, enabling no-moving-part gyroscopes that the company claims are smaller, cheaper and more reliable that traditional MEMS gyros.
"Our devices are much smaller than our competitors – our 600 micron disks are generally two to three times smaller than resonators used by STMicro or InvenSense – and our power consumption is lower since we are doing a lot of the signal amplification in the mechanical domain. They're also more temperature stable and immune to shock and vibration, providing a very stable low-drift device," said Mannherz.
Applications include gaming, navigation and optical image stabilization for digital cameras and camcorders.
"We think we bring a combination of performance, low cost and environmental benefits that will allow us to participate in the consumer marketplace," said Mannherz. "We are hoping to begin supplying customers with samples in the next few months, with our first standard product probably by the end of the year."
Copyright 2010 MEMS Investor Journal
BAW technology has traditionally been an analog signal processing technique for building filters that use the wave propagation properties of the material as a delay line for ladder, lattice or stacked filter topologies. When used for gyroscopes, an array of capacitive sensors around the edge of the vibrating silicon disk detect its deformations in response to motion, enabling no-moving-part gyroscopes that the company claims are smaller, cheaper and more reliable that traditional MEMS gyros.
"Our devices are much smaller than our competitors – our 600 micron disks are generally two to three times smaller than resonators used by STMicro or InvenSense – and our power consumption is lower since we are doing a lot of the signal amplification in the mechanical domain. They're also more temperature stable and immune to shock and vibration, providing a very stable low-drift device," said Mannherz.
Applications include gaming, navigation and optical image stabilization for digital cameras and camcorders.
"We think we bring a combination of performance, low cost and environmental benefits that will allow us to participate in the consumer marketplace," said Mannherz. "We are hoping to begin supplying customers with samples in the next few months, with our first standard product probably by the end of the year."
Copyright 2010 MEMS Investor Journal
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