MEMS Journal -- The Largest MEMS Publication in the World

MEMS foundry Silex joins $17.5 million program to develop RF solutions for 4G mobile systems

Silex Microsystems, the world's largest pure-play MEMS foundry, announced this week that it has joined an international European Union-funded program aimed at developing a new technology platform for advanced RF solutions for 4G base stations and mobile handsets.  The program, "Energy-efficient piezo MEMS tunable RF front-end antenna systems for mobile devices," or EPAMO, is developing new technologies to realize future high performance RF systems, energy efficient mobile communication systems, highly miniaturized and integrated RF components, and cost efficient solutions to the mobile phone industry.  Silex's contributions in this effort include high performance metal through-silicon vias (TSVs) for RF applications, PZT piezoelectric thin film technologies for actuator manufacture, and advanced integrated passive devices utilizing through-wafer processing and advanced materials development.

Magnetics and MEMS: trends, opportunities and emerging applications

Magnetic materials in microfabrication technologies are increasingly being used to enable new MEMS devices and applications.  We recently spoke with Al Sidman, Chief Technical Officer at Advanced MicroSensors, about the ongoing trends and developments that relate to magnetics and MEMS.  In this interview, Al reviews the main applications for MEMS and non-MEMS magnetic sensors, emerging MEMS applications, developments with MEMS actuators based on magnetics, MEMS and CMOS integration challenges, and current market drivers.

ST launches world's first dual-core MEMS gyro

The design of ST's dual-core MEMS gyroscope employs separate output paths optimized for the two different functions in a 4x4x1 mm package.  The device addresses, at the same time, motion and gesture recognition and optical image stabilization for sharper mobile camera photos.  "ST's dual-core gyroscope lights two candles with one flame," said Benedetto Vigna, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of ST's Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group.  "Instead of using two dedicated sensors with significantly different specifications, phone and tablet manufacturers can now simply integrate a single gyroscope for both gesture recognition and camera image stabilization, which enables more reliable performance, sleeker form factors, and lower costs."