MEMS Journal -- The Largest MEMS Publication in the World

SEMI and MSIG strategic partnership: what does it mean for the MEMS and sensors industry?

In September of this year SEMI and MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) announced that they will be joining together in a strategic partnership starting on January 1, 2017.  SEMI has 2,000 member companies and  connects more than 250,000 professionals worldwide to advance the science and business of electronics manufacturing.  MSIG has nearly 200 companies and industry partners, and has been focused on MEMS and sensors.  We spoke with Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI, and Karen Lightman, executive director of MSIG, about what this partnership means for the MEMS and sensors industry worldwide.

MEMS maker InvenSense sees big opportunities for sensors in drone and virtual reality applications

With a saturated smartphone market where the number of sensor units per device appears to have peaked, MEMS product companies are pursuing new market opportunities.  Two emerging sensor-rich applications are drones and virtual reality (VR).  Drones use an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for positioning, orientation, maintaining direction and flight paths, and a slew of other sensors for stability control (tilt sensor), navigation (magnetic sensor) and elevation control (pressure sensor).  VR headsets and accessories rely on fast and accurate motion sensors to track movements and gestures.  So how are the major consumer MEMS product companies approaching these new opportunities?  We recently sat down with Behrooz Abdi, CEO of InvenSense, at the 5th annual InvenSense Developers Conference in Santa Clara, California to get some answers about the latest trends in MEMS and sensors.

MEMS, sensors, and energy harvesting: where are the applications?

Energy harvesting (EH) has long been hailed as the remedy to replace primary batteries and provide reliable, perpetual power for applications ranging from industrial sensors, to tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS), to medical implants.  In reality, however, the adoption of energy harvesters has been sluggish at best, and a major challenge has been to identify applications and use cases where there is true value.  We recently spoke with Mike Perrotta, CEO at microGen, about the latest trends in energy harvesting technologies and applications.

Fiber laser bonding for MEMS applications

We recently spoke with Antti Peltonen, Sales Manager at Primoceler, about his company's fiber laser bonding process.  In this detailed interview, Antti compares fiber laser bonding to traditional approaches such as anodic, fusion, and adhesive bonding techniques.  He also provides pros and cons for Primoceler's approach, as well as the best applications and uses cases which they've encountered so far.