MEMS Investor Journal -- The Largest MEMS Publication in the World

Through substrate vias: opportunities for CMOS MEMS and 3D integration

TSVs, or through substrate vias, have become an increasingly important building block for CMOS MEMS integration, as well as for stacking of multiple IC chips.  In this interview, we spoke with Tomas Bauer, VP of Sales and Business Development at Silex Microsystems about his perspective on the latest TSV trends.  In particular, Tomas discusses TSV process parameters and sizes, existing and emerging applications, integration challenges, fill material comparisons and costs.  He also discusses other materials for TSV substrates such as glass and silicon-glass hybrids.

MEMS foundry IMT appoints new CEO

Innovative Micro Technology (IMT), announced this week that Craig Ensley has joined IMT as President and CEO effective immediately.  He succeeds Dr. John Foster, who is resigning from the company to become the CEO of one of IMT's major customers.  Mr. Ensley brings over 30 years of executive leadership and semiconductor industry experience to IMT.  "We're delighted to have Craig on board," commented Jose Suarez, an IMT Board Director.  "Over the last decade MEMS has emerged as a mainstream technology and now represents one of the highest growth areas in the electronics industry.  Craig's track record leading high growth entrepreneurial companies is a great addition to the company, and will build upon IMT's solid foundation as the leading MEMS manufacturer in the United States."

Bonding reliability testing for wafer level packaged MEMS devices

by Michael Shillinger
Vice President of Operations, Innovative Micro Technology

Devices, especially MEMS that have moving actuators, perform best inside the cleanroom.  When taken out of the cleanroom, particles can hinder or degrade the performance, and lead to device failure.  IMT, like many others in the industry, recognized the need to package these delicate devices at wafer level to ensure and optimize the device performance and shelf life.  With the advancement of wafer bonding technologies and equipment, many MEMS devices in the market today are packaged at wafer level.  At the same time, this progression has also led to the need for development of bond quality testing, especially useful for applications and devices that operate in either pressurized or vacuum environments.  The most accurate method to determine the quality of a bond is to test for package hermeticity, which consists of fine and gross leak testing.

Overview of wafer bonding techniques for MEMS applications

Wafer bonding is a critical part of most MEMS process flows.  Especially with the increased importance of wafer stacking and 3D technologies, selecting the best wafer bonding process will likely determine the cost structure, and therefore, the ultimate market success of many MEMS devices.  We recently spoke with Eric Pabo, MEMS Business Development Manager of EV Group, about trends and developments with bonding techniques for MEMS applications.  In this interview, Eric discusses the history of wafer bonding, emerging MEMS bonding techniques, equipment providers, and bonding process cost drivers.

Tronics expands MEMS manufacturing facilities

Tronics, one of the leading international MEMS foundries, is expanding its headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Grenoble.  After 14 years of operations, and several recent significant investments in the US, this is an important milestone in the growth of the company.  Following several years of solid performance and a recent increase in bookings, Tronics has invested in a much larger headquarters in Grenoble and is expanding its manufacturing facilities.

EV Group to expand manufacturing, hire 100 more employees

EV Group, a supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, announced this week that it broke ground on expanding the company's manufacturing capacity at its headquarters in Austria earlier this month.  In addition, the company reports that it has witnessed a 40 percent increase in order intake in fiscal year 2011 compared with fiscal 2010, and is currently looking to recruit approximately 100 additional employees.

X-FAB releases IP design blocks for MEMS accelerometers

X-FAB Silicon Foundries this week added ready-to-use design IP blocks for acceleration sensors to its MEMS foundry service offerings.  Developed in cooperation with MicroMountains Applications and HSG-IMIT, the new IP blocks can be incorporated into customer designs of MEMS capacitive accelerometers covering 2G, 10G and 100G ranges.  The company says that the MEMS accelerometer IP design blocks further shorten design times and reduce customer learning cycles for new product introduction.  Running on X-FAB's inertial sensor fabrication process, the IP blocks  are aimed to give customers faster development times for volume manufacture of gyroscope and accelerometer designs.

Silex, Philips partner on MEMS commercialization

MiPlaza, part of Philips Innovation Services, has entered into an agreement with Silex Microsystems, a MEMS foundry based in Sweden.  According to the companies, the agreement will enable Philips to offer its customers a "seamless transfer" from concept to production of MEMS devices.  At the same time, Silex will be able to offer its customer base the opportunity to work with MiPlaza on the concept phases of their MEMS projects.

MEMS foundry IMT adds to its arsenal of hermetic wafer level packaging capabilities

IMT, a MEMS foundry with wafer level packaging capabilities, introduced its hermetic gold-to-gold (Au-Au) thermo compression bonding process this week.  In development for nearly a year, this bond is  repordedly now being used in production.  According to the company, this type of bonding is one of the lowest cost methods of achieving a hermetic wafer level package (WLP) bond available in the market.

UMC launches production of CMOS MEMS sensor products

Taiwan-based semiconductor foundry, United Microelectronics Corporation, announced this week that the company has started production of MEMS sensor products for one of its customers, with high-volume production scheduled for later this year.  This milestone follows three years of  MEMS technology development at the foundry.  The initial product is a MEMS microphone and uses UMC's CMOS MEMS process technology.