MEMS

Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) players are poised to seize a new growth opportunity after the chip shortage pushed manufacturers to announce fab capacity expansions worldwide. Driven by the wafer production volume increase, ALD solutions are now expected to grow and enter the MtM devices market.

Jens Fabrowsky, executive VP of Automotive Electronics at Robert Bosch GmbH, spoke about changes in the European electronics industry necessary for the region to become more resilient, sharing his views during the panel discussion at SEMI ISS Europe on May 30 2022 in Brussels, Belgium.

The latest MEMS and sensors advancements in markets ranging from displays to biotech and in key areas of manufacturing including sensor devices and fabrication came into sharp focus at the 2022 MEMS & Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) in late April as 120+ industry experts gathered in Berkeley, CA.

To help build the MEMS and sensors industry’s understanding of the Smart City challenges facing city technical and management personnel (and their integrators), MSIG held an invitation-only Sensorize Your City workshop for sensor device manufacturers and integrators on April 5 in Columbus OH.

SEMICON Europa, SEMICON West, SEMICON Japan, & SEMICON Taiwan welcome back exhibitors and visitors to show floors starting in mid-November as four of SEMI’s seven flagship events gather visionaries and industry leaders to explore the latest semiconductor trends and innovations by the end of 2021.

Areas packed with dense foliage. Mile-deep mines and tunnels. Urban canyons. Indoor environments. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology has long been a boon to location tracking of aerial, terrestrial and aquatic vehicles — as well as to people in motion — but in many cases it can’t function with a high degree of reliability, either because the GPS signal is somehow obstructed, or worse, is jammed or spoofed. Delivering higher precision and higher reliability in GPS-denied environments — as well as immunity to jamming and spoofing — positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) represents the next evolutionary step in location positioning and tracking. With PNT so critical to a range of defense, commercial and industrial applications — and with sensors the building blocks of PNT solutions —the MEMS Sensors Industry Group, a SEMI Technology Community, is ensuring that our members play a transformative role in PNT innovations. We’ve secured $14.9 million in research dollars for PNT R D over the past 18 months, marking Phase I of a project funded through a public-private consortium with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL). With the typical funding structured as a 50/50 cost share with the industry participant, the research dollars go farther, and the level of commitment that each recipient makes is more pronounced. As we look ahead to Phase II of the MSIG PNT R D project, the details of which we’ll announce later this year, we’d like to reflect on the companies and research labs that won bids through a competitive process supported by the SEMI-MSIG PNT Technical Advisory Council and the SEMI-MSIG PNT Governing Council. Winners submitted proposals that both met our criteria for advancing PNT technologies relative to mobility, size and weight, and that laid a path toward greater cost efficiency and lower product price. “PNT doesn’t displace GPS,” said Tim Brosnihan, executive director of SEMI-MSIG. “Rather, getting the two technologies to work together improves position and tracking. While current PNT solutions use inertial measurement units, or IMUs, to effectively maintain positioning accuracy in the absence of a GPS signal, it’s also true that accumulated bias and noise-related errors in the IMUs make positional determination unreliable. Like most great pairings, GPS and PNT can work together. We can use IMUs when GPS is unavailable, and when GPS returns, it can be used to reset the IMU errors. So when the GPS signal is lost again, the IMU can maintain navigation and location. “We’re focusing this PNT project on technologies that will allow accurate positional determination in the absence of a reliable GPS signal for prolonged periods,” added Brosnihan. Here are snapshots of the 10 companies and research institutions that won awards for their PNT-focused developments. Analog Devices is developing an optimal size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) solution for applications requiring high-accuracy navigation and uncompromised reliability. The company’s mode-matched navigation-grade gyroscope with system ID leverages an innovative sensor and its associated process design, a robust high-volume manufacturing flow, and system-control algorithms to achieve very high-performance (0.01 degree/hour bias instability and 0.005 degree/√hr angle random walk). Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is developing a CMOS MEMS high-stability accelerometer through machine learning (ML). If embedded in footwear, these ML-optimized accelerometers could be used in personal navigation. If embedded in a golf ball, baseball or hockey puck, the accelerometer could extract the trajectory of the object in motion by measuring its shock (force). The CMU device validates state-of-the-art performance of the university’s high-dynamic-range accelerometer systems-on-chip. It also validates and tests ML models by measuring the accelerometer and auxiliary sensor output over long time periods (e.g., 1 hour, 10 hours, days) to collect independent long-duration time-series data. By modeling drift from environmental influences — along with possible overall system changes from extreme events, such as high-temperature excursions and shock — designers can dramatically reduce navigation errors to support more accurate navigation over longer time periods. GE Research is developing a novel MEMS gyrocompass that will enable high-end north-finding systems, traditionally unaffordable for automotive and consumer applications. The device will be available in mass-market applications such as robotics and autonomous vehicle navigation in GPS-denied environments. The MEMS gyrocompass enables a 10x reduction in SWAP-C with high accuracy. An additional benefit of this work is that GE will offer a foundry service process development kit (PDK) for its Polaris MEMS process, speeding the development and manufacture of MEMS devices in an advanced processing facility. Georgia Institute of Technology is developing high-aspect-ratio monocrystalline silicon carbide-on-Insulator (SiCOI) MEMS devices that will reduce navigation angle errors, potentially making widescale pedestrian navigation available in mass-market applications such as smartwatches and smartphones. The platform for ultra-high-performance bulk acoustic wave (BAW) gyroscopes and timing resonators will feature material properties that allow a much better structural symmetry and a higher-resonant quality factor (Q) than silicon MEMS (Si MEMS). Honeywell is working to enhance the navigation accuracy of commercial and military vehicles in GPS-denied environments through an innovation that dramatically improves the performance of a MEMS IMU by both refining candidate ML algorithms, including recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and by combining deep neural network (DNN)-based calibration and sensor fusion algorithms. PARC is developing a new materials platform for photonic integrated circuits (PIC). Aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN), an ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor, is epitaxially grown to produce single-crystal layers for fabrication of optical components, such as waveguides and micro-ring resonators for optical signal processing. The project includes design and fabrication of specialized laser diodes at wavelengths needed to probe qubits based on atomic ions (e.g., strontium and ytterbium). The new platform offers several benefits: low optical loss from the ultraviolet (UV) to infrared spectral bands excellent non-linear optical properties for efficient frequency-generation processes (e.g., optical frequency combs); and enabling technology to realize compact, field-deployable quantum systems for PNT applications, such as ultra-fast distance measurements, microcombs for optical atomic clocks, photonic radar, optical coherence tomography, and coherent communications — all applications that benefit from the lower cost and small chip size of these integrated photonic circuits By expanding its proprietary EpiSeal encapsulation process to include new materials and topologies, SiTime is developing low-impedance and low-noise MEMS resonators with an ultra-stable wafer-level package. Because these novel MEMS resonators are highly reliable and very compact — while using less power and providing lower RF noise — they’re ideal for 5G RF timing applications, IoT devices, and smart vehicles. Teledyne Scientific Imaging (CSAC project) is conducting a study to identify paths to reduce the cost of battery-operated chip scale atomic clocks (CSAC) that provide affordable precision timing for denied environments. The project goal is to identify viable paths of reducing cost by an order of magnitude, without sacrificing performance. In addition to exploring design and manufacturability solutions, project researchers are performing short loop experiments as proof-of-concept validation. Through a second award, Teledyne Scientific (IMU project) is advancing packaging and integration for compact, navigation-grade six degrees of freedom (DOF) MEMS IMUs. Featuring reduced bias instabilities associated with packaging stresses and ambient temperature influences, the Teledyne Scientific IMUs promote environmentally robust low-stress packaging of wafer-level vacuum packaged (WLVP) MEMS gyro resonators, facilitating a lower-cost, smaller and more accurate IMU for performance-driven PNT applications. Twinleaf is developing a new light source module ideally suited for integration directly into quantum sensors. This project integrates a bright, tunable distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) near infrared (IR) 795nm wavelength laser made by the project’s subcontractor (Photodigm) into a package that locks the laser to an atomic reference line in a microfabricated vapor cell. The laser module’s high-output intensity and low magnetic signature will enable breakthrough performance levels for Twinleaf’s magnetometer and other quantum sensors requiring the light source integrated into the sensor module. Request for Proposal for Phase II of SEMI-MSIG PNT Program Opens Q4 2021 SEMI-MSIG will accept request for proposal (RFP) submissions for Phase II of its PNT program starting in Q4 2021. This year, in addition to funding IMU and timing device projects, MSIG will also consider proposals on imaging-based navigation solutions. If you’d like to submit for Phase II, sign up to receive more information on the RFP by visiting SEMI’s R D Programs page. You can also connect with Paul Carey by email, [email protected] or LinkedIn. Paul Carey, Ph.D., is the director of the MEMS Sensors Industry Group. With deep domain expertise in X-ray imaging backplane platforms — and their supply-chain technologies such as flexible substrates, laser annealing for semiconductors and silicides, thin film transistors (TFT) for flexible OLED displays, and polysilicon-on-plastic TFT technology — Carey has held technical leadership positions at dpiX, Applied Materials, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He received a double-major B.S. from UC Berkeley in Electronical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). Carey holds an M.S. in EECS from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in MSE from Stanford University.

Our home state of California has wilderness areas of extreme climates, from desert to high-altitude snow-capped mountains. Every year, people need rescue because they’ve ventured into the wilderness without proper training, or even essential gear, such as water or a warm parka. Many MEMS product development teams get a similar start. They undertake a challenging multi-year journey without enough of the most precious resource needed for success – enough money to finish. As a MEMS product development firm that's completed more than 400 projects, 25% of these with startup companies, we’ve been having many of the same conversations about the road to commercialization with MEMS entrepreneurs. Through that experience, we’ve seen a share of these entrepreneurs – many of whom come right from graduate programs or from outside the semiconductor industry – experience disappointing outcomes. And it’s not because of their technology. Rather, their lack of familiarity with electronic product integration and wafer-based manufacturing often influences a too-optimistic development plan that doesn’t factor in enough time and budget. As technologists, it was tough for us to see companies with promising young technologies struggle due to lack of planning or funding. We would like to see more entrepreneurs succeed, and that was the impetus for our new book, MEMS Product Development: From Concept to Commercialization, some highlights of which follow. Time and money What can MEMS startups do to pave the way for a successful commercial launch, particularly when a long period of scaling up manufacturing is often needed during the go-to-market process? Since money is usually a limited resource, it’s important to prepare a realistic development timeline supported by sufficient funds allocation from the start. As this is easier said than done, we’ve seen both startups and established companies make common financial blunders during MEMS product development. These include: Reserving inadequate funding for developing the entire MEMS product, including packaging, electronics and software Creating an unrealistic timeline for development, resulting in a cash-flow problem Only securing enough funding for the first run at a foundry when, in fact, numerous runs are far more typical Unplanned gaps of months or more between funding tranches, which slows momentum Based on our varied client experience, the engineering costs of developing a MEMS product of medium complexity to the point of validated foundry production (i.e., ready for mass production and product sales) requires on average four years and US$4 million. And that’s just for engineering. Business administration, sales, marketing and other company costs are additional. While it’s common to spend much more for more complex devices or product systems, it’s rare to spend less, unless you’re working with existing IP, such as a foundry process platform, which also could accelerate development time. Typical engineering-only budget required to develop a MEMS product through four stages of development, to the point of volume-production readiness. Reprinted with permission from MEMS Product Development: From Concept to Commercialization (Springer, 2021). Don’t go thirsty in the desert No one wants to get stranded in the desert without enough water, which is why it’s so important to carefully articulate your timeline and secure adequate funding before starting MEMS development. In MEMS development, just as in wilderness adventuring, things rarely go exactly as planned: Wafers break, engineers take a long time to debug, customers change their minds, and random events like storms (or a pandemic) disrupt supply chains. That’s why adding some buffer to your development timeline and your budget will sustain your company through the inevitable delays and setbacks. Plus, there’s generally a ripple effect to a delayed new-product introduction. A slower-than-predicted launch places a burden on a company’s finances because the fixed overhead costs of the entire organization will continue to consume cash while waiting for product launch. Not a lump-sum game Although you might wish to receive one big funding check when you get started, the reality is that investors and executives won’t provide the entire development funding in one sum. They give money in tranches, generally demanding you meet some pre-determined criteria or demonstrate set benchmarks before they’ll release more funds. To best manage tranche funding, a company must carefully plan and set their investors’ expectations for realistic outcomes in advance. A common crisis for startup companies occurs when investors only provide enough budget to execute the very first run at a foundry and then demand to see functional chips before providing the next tranche. However, the aim of the foundry’s first wafer run isn’t to produce working chips. It’s to begin the year-long process of setting up for high-volume manufacturing. The first wafers are unlikely to yield well, or at all, putting the startup at great risk with its frustrated investors. Setting investors’ and executives’ expectations correctly from the start, realistic budgeting and having regular communication about progress and upcoming needs all help to keep the money flowing. Any gaps in funding will waste valuable momentum, which ultimately leads to more expense and delay in the overall product development. It can become especially damaging when the wait for money forces the foundry to stop work, because processes go stale after a few months, and also during busy times, when your product could be sent to the back of the foundry’s queue. As experienced outdoors people know, to enjoy wilderness adventures, you need to plan where you’re going, anticipate common risks, and then prepare accordingly. It’s the same in MEMS product development. Having a good grasp of your timeline and realistic expectations about the funding required to reach commercialization are essential steps in a successful journey. Want to learn more about MEMS Product Development: From Concept to Commercialization (Springer, 2021)? Order the book based on A.M. Fitzgerald Associates’ extensive experience helping entrepreneurs and other innovators commercialize their MEMS devices. Alissa M. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., founded A.M. Fitzgerald Associates, LLC, a MEMS product development firm based in the Bay Area, California, in 2003. She has over 25 years of engineering experience in MEMS design and fabrication and now advises clients on the entire cycle of MEMS product development, from business and IP strategy to supply chain and manufacturing operations. Carolyn D. White, Ph.D., has a background in mechanics of materials and specializes in the design and fabrication of MEMS devices for a wide range of applications. She has additional experience in foundry transfers and technology strategic analysis, including of the evaluation of patent portfolios, feasibility studies, and cost/performance analysis. A.M. Fitzgerald Associates (“AMFitzgerald”) is longtime member of MEMS Sensors Industry Group®(MSIG), a SEMI technology community that connects the MEMS and sensors supply network in established and emerging markets to enable members to grow and prosper. Visit us today.

What does it mean to identify as LGBTQIA+ in the semiconductor industry? It’s an interesting question to ask, but a difficult one to answer. Because we live in a world in which cisgender heteronormity is assumed, it’s possible to self-identify as LGBTQIA+ without sharing that information publicly. Coworkers and managers might not even realize that their colleague or employee is gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary or other. Unlike other minorities, notably people of color, LGBTQIA+ people may choose to keep their identities invisible.As I began outreach for this article, I recognized that some people might not want to expose a potential vulnerability to both their co-workers and a broader global audience of SEMI members, so I tried to make them feel more comfortable. I told them I’m a lesbian. I said that I’d send content for their review before publishing. But I quickly discovered that wasn’t enough, despite sweeping cultural and legal advances around LGBTQIA+ attitudes and identity. According to a 2020 Gallup Poll, 5.6% of U.S. adults now identify as LGBTQIA+, up from 4.5% just three years ago. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage, and in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. The semiconductor industry has been historically conservative. The times, however, are changing. Large chip companies such as AMD, Intel and Lam Research actively support diversity and inclusion efforts across minority groups, including LGBTQIA+, and that’s a good thing, but is it enough? And if not, what actions can SEMI members take to help LGBTQIA+ people in semiconductors feel safe enough to choose visibility?According to Antoinette Hamilton, global head of Inclusion and Diversity at Lam Research, more than 46% of LGBTQIA+ employees in the industry aren’t out in the workplace. That tells us there’s still work to be done, a challenge that Lam is embracing. With its Pride employee resource group (ERG) leading the way, partnerships with organizations such as PFLAG and Out Equal, and recruitment efforts made through organizations such as Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (oSTEM), Lam has earned a score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index and was named one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.“At Lam, we understand the importance of empowering employees to bring their authentic self to work,” says Hamilton. “We believe when employees feel valued and included, each person can reach their full potential.”Back in 1992 when Intel paid to relocate Judi Goldstein, her partner and their son from New Jersey to Oregon, mainstream cultural attitudes toward gays and lesbians were very different. According to a June 1992 Gallup poll, only 48% of Americans thought that “gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should be legal,” with 44% saying they should be illegal. A May 2020 Gallup poll recorded a dramatic shift in attitudes, with 72% affirming the legality of same-sex relations and only 24% opposed.By the late 1990s, Intel had extended domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples. “I registered my partner – now my wife – and our son, and realized that from then on, my whole family would have health insurance through Intel,” says Goldstein, who identifies as a gay woman and uses she/her pronouns. “Both relocating my family and providing family health coverage solidified my attachment to Intel, which was way ahead of other companies at the time.”By 1995, Goldstein became one of the first members of IGLOBE, Intel’s ERG for LGBTQ+ employees. Since that time, she’s observed further progress at Intel, first with the addition of gender identity and expression to Intel’s anti-harassment policy, and later with the inclusion of gender-neutral bathrooms at all major US sites. And advancement didn’t stop there.“We now have international IGLOBE chapters, a celebration of Pride Month in June, company support for the Equality Act and other legislation, a provision for transgender health benefits, and the launch of Self-ID efforts in 2017,” she says.From her start as software engineer more than 32 years ago to her current positions as director of the Open Source Audio and Security Engineering teams, Goldstein has played an instrumental role pioneering new technologies and mentoring other engineers at Intel – in addition to serving as a role model for LGBTQIA+ employees coming through the ranks. Now a grandmother with a five-year-old granddaughter, Goldstein lives in Oregon with her wife of more than 30 and two dogs. Location, Location, LocationAs social animals, we tend to value safe and welcoming places to live. When you’re LGBTQIA+, this may mean moving to an urban area that is more likely to embrace diverse orientations and cultures.After getting his master’s in astrophysics, Chuck Chung had a decision to make. Remain in the same field, which would limit his options on where to live, or get a doctorate in engineering, which would expand them.“In the ‘90s when I was making this choice, things were very different, and I knew that where I worked and lived would have a huge impact on how open I could be,” said Chung. “While I would have loved a career in astrophysics, I realized that engineering would be a more practical choice because I was more likely to find work in a city.”Both personally and professionally, engineering has proved a good choice for Chung. He’s lived in San Francisco and Silicon Valley for the past 18 years, where being out in the workplace is rarely an issue. “I compartmentalize my personal and professional lives when necessary, such as when business colleagues who are overseas talk about their families in casual conversation. Most of the time, though, my identity as a gay man is a non-issue, and I work for a company that really cares.”From his pioneering work in MEMS and genetic sequencing to his current focus on the next generation of microarchitectures at IBM, Chung has long thrived. Now, with a new book on MEMS Product Development – co-authored with two other Ph.D.’s, Alissa Fitzgerald and Carolyn White of A.M. Fitzgerald Associates – the best days of Chung’s career may still be ahead of him. He lives in the Bay area with his husband and their two children.Kunal Garg’s identity didn’t influence his career choices because when he started in semiconductors, he wasn’t out to himself or others. A few years into his engineering career at his former company, Garg realized his identity as a gay man at a time when the national discussion about same-sex marriage was at its apex – leading to some uncomfortable situations at work. “As some of my colleagues and managers openly debated same-sex marriage, they seemed oblivious to the fact that there were LGBTQIA+ people at work,” says Garg. “I knew then that I wanted to steer such conversations in a way that would feel safe and inviting for people like me, who work in this industry while being true to their identities.”Once he’d come out to his family and friends, particularly after he married his husband, Garg wasn’t willing to stay silent at work. “Although it took courage and internal struggle to come out to colleagues, my identity as a gay man wasn’t something I wanted to hide or deny anymore,” he says. “Some people laughed when I mentioned my ‘husband.’ The idea that their colleague, an engineer, an Indian immigrant, a man, could be gay and married to another guy was so foreign, it was almost laughable. Luckily, this didn’t stop me from being myself at work, and over time, these types of conversations became very rare.”Nonetheless, Garg looked around for ways to be part of the LGBTQIA+ engineering community. When he moved to AMD in Austin, he wanted to start with a clean slate. “When my manager called to invite me to join his team at AMD, I casually brought up the fact that my husband was going to need to start looking for a new job in Austin. And, very casually, he asked me what my husband did for a living, and we went on to discuss how Austin would be a great city for us to live in,” says Garg. “The fact that this was such a normal conversation was a big factor in my decision to join AMD.”Soon after starting as a design engineer at AMD, Garg found that LGBTQIA+ engineering community for which he’d been searching. He joined AMD’s Pride ERG, a group that he now chairs. “Being a part of this ERG has been transformational for me on a personal level and has allowed me to connect with my fellow engineers and people in my industry, beyond our mutual love for science and technology.”Become a change agentWhile some chip companies actively promote inclusion and diversity of LGBTQIA+ employees, others still have a long way to go. SEMI and the SEMI Foundation are uniquely positioned to help advance LGBTQIA+ equity issues in the microelectronics industry. "The SEMI Foundation is committed to promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in our industry for the benefit of our workers and our member companies,” says Shari Liss, executive director of the SEMI Foundation. “We are designing programs for human resources departments, company leaders, and DEI allies to make the case for stronger DEI practices that will attract, retain, and promote LGBTQIA+ individuals and other underrepresented groups in our industry. We will soon publish SEMI's Roadmap to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and DEI Toolkit, which will contain tools to help companies strengthen their workplace cultures so everyone – including those that identify as LGBTQIA+ – will feel welcome, and will be able to do their best work."“If we want to truly see the semiconductor industry flourish on a global level, we need to push for equitable treatment of LGBTQIA+ and other minority employees,” says Garg. “SEMI can help by educating industry leaders, especially in countries outside North America and Europe, on how diversity and inclusion through policy are vital to their sustained productivity. These workshops and trainings should be data-driven to encourage companies to hire more LGBTQIA+ employees and to create policies that promote the well-being of all employees.”It’s not just at the company level or the industry association level that matters. Just as individuals are necessary change agents in proliferating greater equity among women and people of color, they’re also needed as allies of LGBTQIA+ people.“Like so many of us, I’d love to wave a magic wand to end discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, but like any cultural shift, most change comes in small steps, not in giant leaps,” said Karen Lightman, executive director, Metro21: Smart Cities Institute – Carnegie Mellon University. “Fortunately, it’s easy to help make those small steps by becoming an ally to LGBTQIA+-identified people. When you see an injustice, don’t stay silent. Use your voice. There’s transformative power in that act alone. As one step, I’ve started using my pronouns when I introduce myself and now include them in my digital signature. It’s an easy way for me to express that I am an ally to LGBTQIA+-identified people.”Help us make the change. Use your voice. Get involved. Encourage your company to advocate for LGBTQIA+ inclusion and diversity.Maria Vetrano, principal of Vetrano Communications, is a PR consultant at SEMI Foundation.

While flying cars have been a science fiction mainstay for decades, new sensors, software and other technology put personal air travel vehicles within reach. MEMS and Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) interviewed Dr. Alberto Speranzon, Fellow at Honeywell Aerospace Advanced Technology, about his upcoming keynote Sensors and Software Enabling Autonomy for Urban Air Mobility at the MEMS and Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC 2021) virtual event, April 13-15. Dr. Speranzon will discuss Honeywell’s challenges in enabling air taxis and the path forward to building out the necessary infrastructure. SEMI: People have dreamed of flying cars for decades. What has changed recently that makes them a near-term reality? Speranzon: There certainly are multiple factors that have contributed to pushing both new startups and established aerospace companies to make this dream a reality. Advances in battery technology are bringing electric aviation closer to being viable. There is still more to be done to achieve higher energy density in batteries, but already with today’s technology we can have vehicles that can fly from the suburbs to the downtown of a large U.S. city. At the same time, urbanization has created a lot of congestion, so finding new, efficient ways to move people and goods across megacities is becoming a critical need. Undeniably, the autonomous car industry has contributed to demonstrating that it is possible to achieve levels of automation and autonomy that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. The advances in sensing and computation required to make self-driving cars a reality is certainly going to help the aviation industry to develop autonomy in the air. SEMI: An air taxi must be highly sensorized. What types of sensors pose your biggest development challenge? Speranzon: Aircraft based on today’s battery systems simply cannot accommodate the size, power requirements and weight of sensors used by standard airliners. So there still is work to be done to reduce the SWaP (Size, Weight and Power) of these systems. Honeywell, for example, has developed a multipurpose radar, the IntuVue RDR-84K, that is only about the size of a paperback book. It can detect traffic, terrain and even weather, and was specially designed for air taxis and cargo UAS (unmanned aerial systems). Today, however, we still rely on human pilots to make the very complex decisions and, despite all the limitations that human eyes have, we do rely on them in a multitude of complex situations. There is also growing interest in integrating cameras into autonomous air taxis and similar platforms. Cameras can’t work alone, because they are affected by foggy, rainy and dim conditions. But they are lightweight, inexpensive, and require little power. That can make them very useful when combined with a compatible radar system like the RDR-84K. While these sensors bring new opportunities to the aerospace industry, they also pose some big challenges. For example, today’s state-of-the-art algorithms for image processing are machine learning algorithms called deep neural networks. They’re capable of extracting high-level information from pixels. But when it comes to aircraft certification, these algorithms face major hurdles. There is no software of this kind in any certified air vehicle, and it is unclear how regulators would certify neural network-based software components. Developers could avoid these new machine-learning algorithms and use standard computer vision methods instead. But they still face the challenge of deciding the type and quantities of images sufficient to declare the software “bug-free.” A similar set of questions will be also be true for radars, as they will be used to feed data more directly into the autonomy modules of future air taxis. So in the short term, we need to tackle the challenge of reducing the size and weight of sensors. But in parallel, we need to develop new ways to take advantage of machine learning: utilizing cameras and radars for autonomous decision making while still ensuring the highest standards of safety. SEMI: How is autonomous air mobility more or less challenging than autonomous ground vehicles? Speranzon: They are both challenging in their own ways. Autonomy on the ground – and I am thinking specifically of autonomous cars – is challenging as their “normal” behavior is very complex. We humans can drive from point A to point B over the public road network without a second thought. But to a machine, the heterogeneity of the people driving on the road, their sometimes unpredictable behavior, the changing weather conditions and shifting environments pose huge challenges. These things make what we call “normal driving” a very difficult problem to solve. At the same time, however, “off-nominal” scenarios in ground autonomy, while complex, are not orders of magnitude more complex than “nominal” scenarios. Ground vehicles can brake and stop, change lanes or move to the side of the road to avoid a crash or manage a malfunction. For autonomous air vehicles, the difference between nominal and off-nominal scenarios is more extreme. “Nominal” flying can rely on some of the existing aviation infrastructure, like communication between air traffic control and other aircraft. Air taxis can follow predefined paths and long-established aviation procedures as they move from vertiport A to vertiport B. This results in more automation than autonomy: everything is prescribed in advance and the onboard computer will follow what is pre-defined. Thus, nominal conditions will be fairly simple. However, in case of accidents or emergencies, aircraft face situations that are orders of magnitude more complex than nominal scenarios. An air vehicle cannot easily just “stop.” It could be 1,000-2,000 ft above ground, possibly above a bustling city. Human pilots go through rigorous training to be able to deal with emergencies like these. Consider the split-second judgments and airmanship behind the 2009 “miracle on the Hudson” landing. Asking autonomy to make the right decisions and execute emergency behaviors is a huge challenge. And these systems will need to be certified to the aviation industry’s very high standards. At present, we do not even have a well-established set of certification rules that an autonomous flying vehicle should comply with. SEMI: How soon might I be able to take an air taxi ride? Speranzon: Initial deployment of air taxis will happen around 2025. They will have human pilots but will use simpler interfaces than today’s cockpits. This first step will provide technologies that make it easier to take off and land, and to avoid traffic. That will reduce the need for highly experienced pilots and should help alleviate the overall shortage of pilots in the aviation industry. Fully autonomous air taxis are likely not going to show up until after 2030. In the beginning, they will likely fly only in regions where the weather is good most of the time. The autonomous car industry has already adopted this strategy, mostly deploying their technology in regions where the weather is dry and sunny. Soon, however, we’ll start seeing operations in “all-weather” scenarios and an increasing number of air vehicles within the same airspace. There is one critical stepping stone on the way to fully autonomous passenger aircraft: the success of fully autonomous cargo drones. For light parcels we will see initial deployments in 2022 or 2023, followed by larger UAS capable of transporting heaver cargo in 2024-2025. But whatever the timing, these are very exciting times. The aviation industry is witnessing a revolution with new vehicle manufacturers, new technologies and, likely, new applications we have not even dreamt of yet. Learn more about Honeywell’s work in urban air mobility and unmanned aircraft at aerospace.honeywell.com/uam. Alberto Speranzon is a Fellow within Honeywell Aerospace Advanced Technology. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden in 2006. Since joining Honeywell, Alberto has been working on various aspects of autonomous systems for urban air mobility, leading such research areas as program manager and principal investigator. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Control Systems Society. Nishita Rao is product marketing manager at SEMI.

MEMS actuators transform electronic signals into something that can be sensed or touched by the end user of an electronics device. A case in point: MEMS actuators such as print heads in inkjet printers transform electronic files into text or beautiful images. In 3D printers, actuators can produce real objects. Inside smart glasses, tiny MEMS mirrors can create virtual objects. Little surprise, then, that integrating these powerful devices into the end products is a multidisciplinary enterprise. STMicroelectronics has been successfully leading the deployment of dedicated MEMS actuator solutions with customer products in various market segments. SEMI spoke with Anton Hofmeister, group vice president and general manager of the MEMS Actuator Division at STMicroelectronics, about MEMS actuator trends. Hofmeister shared his views at the SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Forum as part of the virtual SEMI Technology Unites Global Summit. Watch the STMicroelectronics’ presentation on-demand until March 26, 2021. Registration is open. SEMI: What is the difference between MEMS devices that sense and MEMS devices that actuate? Hofmeister: MEMS sensors gather data from the world around us including motion, pressure and air temperature and transform them into an electrical signal. Actuators work the other way round. They receive an electrical signal and transform it into some well-controlled actuation such as ejecting a fluid, moving a membrane or deflecting a laser beam. SEMI: How can MEMS actuators’ integration be simplified to be embedded in new applications so they appeal to consumers? Hofmeister: The challenge of integrating MEMS sensors into devices has been simplified by demo kits and evaluation boards, which customers use to embed the sensor into a system. MEMS actuators are more difficult to integrate. They often power the core function of a system and therefore require deep system understanding. Reference designs are a big step forward in simplifying integration. My presentation at the SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Forum showcased some examples. MEMS micro-mirror projection for augmented reality (AR) glasses is an example of a complex system that requires multiple types of components to function. Together with several partners, STMicroelectronics recently announced the LaSAR Alliance, which will develop reference designs to enable the AR glasses market. SEMI: MEMS sensors and actuators are considered the backbone of many consumer products. Are MEMS actuators also mostly used in automotive? Hofmeister: The widest use of MEMS actuators has so far been in print heads for inkjet printers. In recent years, we have seen actuators adopted in emerging applications ranging from piezo heads for 3D printers to MEMS mirrors for laser beam scanning systems or 3D sensing solutions for consumer applications. The first high-volume application in automotive will likely be MEMS mirrors for LIDAR systems. SEMI: What market growth trends do you see for MEMS sensors and actuators? Hofmeister: The sensorization trend, which aims to collect data from homes, cities, factories, cars and personal devices, continues to drive the adoption of sensors and actuators for a wide variety of applications. While the last wave of MEMS growth was triggered by one end product – the smartphone – the next wave will be driven by multiple applications and use cases in industrial, medical, automotive and personal electronics. SEMI: How can technology unite us? Hofmeister: In recent months, we have all experienced vividly how vital technology has become. MEMS, and semiconductors in general, are an integral part of many products and services that make our lives easier. Communications technologies have been particularly important during this pandemic, whether using the personal devices as our interface to the digital world or the complex infrastructure that they operate through. I hope that my participation at the summit helped increase awareness of the new possibilities and opportunities that technologies like MEMS actuators have to offer to create products and services that further improve people’s lives. Anton Hofmeister is group vice president at STMicroelectronics, general manager of the company’s MEMS Actuator Division and managing director of its German subsidiaries. Hofmeister has been with STMicroelectronics for more than 30 years, working in Germany, France, the U.S. and Italy. He has held managerial positions in key account management, product and strategic marketing, advanced R D and general management. For the past 10 years, he has managed various product divisions in the MEMS sector. Hofmeister has also served as a board member of the Singapore-based molecular diagnostics company Veredus Laboratories. Serena Brischetto is senior manager of Marketing and Digital Engagement at SEMI Europe.