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Omnitron Sensors raises $2.4 million to build next-generation MEMS based capacitive and optical sensors

Omnitron Sensors has successfully closed an over-subscribed $2.4 million Seed round, coming soon after being highlighted by TechCrunch and this year’s Demo Day at 500 Startups. The round was led by Corriente Advisors, with participation from Emerging Ventures, Stratminds, and Break Off, as well as others. “We are thrilled to back Eric Aguilar and Trent Huang, two impressive founders who we believe can revolutionize MEMS technology and create superior sensor products,” said Mark L. Hart III, Founder and CEO of Corriente Advisors.

MEMS timing device maker SiTime files to go public to raise $100 million

SiTime, a market leader in MEMS timing devices, announced last week that it has publicly filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of its common stock. SiTime had revenues of $101 million in 2017 and $85 million in 2018. For the nine months ended on September 30, 2019, the company reported revenues of $56 million, compared to $62 million for the same period in 2018. Barclays and Stifel are acting as book-running managers for the proposed offering. Needham & Company, Raymond James, and Roth Capital Partners are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. SiTime has applied to list its common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "SITM".

MEMS and sensors CAE startup OnScale raises $3 million, emerges from stealth mode

Emerging from stealth mode this week, OnScale announced $3 million in strategic seed funding and unveiled the industry's first solver-as-a-service platform that gives engineers the power to accelerate innovation in the $40 billion MEMS, sensors, 5G, biomedical, IoT, and automated car markets. OnScale was co-founded by CEO Ian Campbell, VP of Product Development Dr. Robbie Banks, and VP of Engineering Dr. Gerry Harvey as a spin-off from Thornton Tomasetti, a large science and engineering consulting company. The seed round was led by Thornton Tomasetti, with participation from Silicon Valley investors such as Michael Lehman, former CFO of Arista Networks, Palo Alto Networks, and Sun Microsystems, and CampbellKlein, an early stage high-tech venture fund.

Next big applications for MEMS and sensors: robotics, wellness, and smart factories

In this detailed interview, Dr. Peter Hartwell, Senior Director of Advanced Technology at InvenSense, discusses current MEMS and sensors technology trends. He also highlights emerging applications such as personal robotics, health and wellness, and smart manufacturing. Dr. Hartwell discusses some of the most interesting MEMS and sensors companies that he has seen recently, and he also comments on the applications of MEMS and sensors in ADAS and autonomous vehicles applications.  Peter also reviews the history of InvenSense and its planned future roadmap, now as part of TDK.  And we discuss the main challenges of integrating sensors in IoT applications.

Tronics opens MEMS production facility for healthcare applications

Tronics, a TDK Group company that designs and manufactures nano and microsystems, has announced the opening of a MEMS production facility located in Addison, Texas, near Dallas.  The fab expands Tronics' MEMS development and manufacturing capabilities in North America.  Tronics aims to utilize the full control of its manufacturing assets to provide custom MEMS services tailored for healthcare applications such as diagnostic chips, microfluidics, lab-on-chips, and also suitable for chemical sensors, infrared sensors, and optical grating devices needed in the industrial field.

MIPI Alliance releases I3C interface specification for more seamless sensors system integration

The proliferation of sensors in mobile devices requires an increasing number of logic pins for sensor communication and control.  In a typical application, multiple digital communication interfaces (e.g. SPI, I²C, UART, and others) are used along with supporting logic signals for interrupt and sleep functionalities.  Top tier smartphones include 10 or more sensors, which are supported by 20 or more logic signals.  This takes up a lot of “real estate” and requires many dedicated pins.  The MIPI I3C interface is a new standard that improves on the features of the two-wire I²C, while maintaining backward compatibility.  MIPI’s new interface aims to standardize sensor communications by reducing the number of physical pins used in sensor system integration, and it supports low-power, high-speed communications.  We had an opportunity to speak with Ken Foust, who has been chairing the MIPI Alliance Sensor Working Group, and discussed the feedback from the sensors community to date, comparison to the other sensor interface standards, and next steps in the interface development roadmap.

TDK to acquire MEMS maker InvenSense for $1.3 billion in cash

TDK Corporation and MEMS maker InvenSense entered into a definitive agreement this week with TDK agreeing to acquire all of the outstanding InvenSense shares for cash for a total acquisition price of $1.3 billion. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies. Completion of the transaction is expected in second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018.  According to TDK, this acquisition promotes further growth in sensor and actuator products, which is an important part of the company's strategic growth plan.  The transaction brings together a more complete portfolio of sensor and software solutions spanning inertial, pressure, microphone, and ultrasonic sensor products from InvenSense, with TDK's existing pressure, temperature, electric current and various other sensors.  The acquisition will be completed through a merger of a newly created subsidiary of TDK with and into InvenSense, with InvenSense continuing following the merger as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TDK.

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.

Sensors attract $3.4 billion in funding over past decade

Developers of innovative sensors attracted $3.4 billion, or nearly 80% of the $4.3 billion funding for sensor modules over the past decade, underlining their importance in the fast-emerging IoT market, according to Lux Research.  Overall investment in innovative sensors tripled between 2006 and 2015, reaching $486 million in 2015.  Over the past decade, sensor processing-related technologies received over $620 million in funding, while packaging solutions attracted just over $200 million and developers of energy harvesting solutions for sensors raised around $100 million.