KEYNOTE—Building the Metaverse: Scaling Production of PMUTs for the Future of Human Interaction
ABSTRACT
The pandemic has only highlighted how much humans need social connection and emotional interactions. Emerge, a startup based in Los Angeles, has developed an exciting new consumer product which creates bare-hands tactile sensations within VR/AR environments. Imagine mid-air virtual objects, textures and surfaces that you not only see, but also feel with your bare hands, as well as feeling the hands of a loved one in a virtual environment - bringing us closer to author Neal Stephenson’s imagined Metaverse. The underlying technology in Emerge’s product is an ultrasonic phased array powered by piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducers (PMUTs). In this talk, we will present Emerge’s exciting technology and its product applications. We will also explain our strategy for timely and cost effective MEMS product development and describe the collaboration among partners needed to achieve scalable mass production and to go to market.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Fitzgerald founded A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, LLC, a MEMS product development company, in 2003. She has over 25 years of engineering experience in MEMS design, fabrication and product development. She now advises clients on the entire cycle of microelectronic product development, from business and IP strategy to supply chain and manufacturing operations. Prior to founding AMFitzgerald, Dr. Fitzgerald worked in various high tech companies in engineering and management positions. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from MIT and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics. Dr. Fitzgerald co-authored the book “MEMS Product Development” (Springer, 2021), is a member of the SEMI-MSIG standards committee and served as a board director on the MEMS Industry Group (MIG) Governing Council from 2008-2014. In 2013, she was inducted into the MIG Hall of Fame. She is currently a board director for Rigetti Computing and the Transducer Research Foundation.