imaging sensors

The MEMS & Imaging Sensors Summit in September in Grenoble, France made clear that the technologies are playing a growing role in powering the global semiconductor industry’s projected expansion to the landmark $1 trillion in revenue by 2023.

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.

SEMI spoke with Tom Doyle, founder and CEO of Aspinity, about the challenges of packing more localized intelligence into portable Internet of Things (IoT) devices without draining their batteries. Doyle shared his views on Aspinity’s system-level approach – solve the power problems by performing machine learning in analog – ahead of his presentation at the SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Technology Showcase, 18 February, as part of the SEMI Technology Unites Global Summit, 15-19 February 2021, online event. Join us to meet experts from Aspinity and other key industry influencers. Registration is open. SEMI: Why is power efficiency so important for IoT devices? Doyle: Hundreds of millions of IoT devices are improving our lives at home and at work. Always on and always sensing the environment for data, these smart devices have traditionally been wall-powered and have relied on the cloud for their data processing needs, but clogged networks, as well as privacy and performance issues, have necessitated the migration to edge processing.Spanning consumer, medical and industrial, these IoT devices are becoming smaller and more portable. And a portion of them is operating remotely in hard-to-access locations. So now we are packing more functionality into the device and we are moving to battery power and the batteries need to last a long time. That is a big challenge before us, and to answer it, we need to find the most power-efficient ways to integrate always-on sensing capability into IoT devices because we cannot afford to have short battery life limit market adoption.SEMI: Why is it so challenging to deliver low-power, always-on solutions and how can sensors suppliers achieve improvements in system power? Doyle: In today’s always-on IoT devices, all sensor data – which are naturally analog – is immediately digitized at high resolution, and then it’s analyzed to determine whether a wake word has been spoken, a specific motion has been made, or some other anomaly has occurred. But since most of the data collected will not contain the information for which the device is waiting, this digitize-first approach wastes significant battery life by continuously running irrelevant data through the ADC and the digital processor.Sensors suppliers have some options to consider for reducing power. If they are satisfied achieving incremental improvements in battery life, both sensors and digital processor suppliers can continue to drive down the power of each individual component in the system. But to achieve revolutionary power savings, we must look at a more holistic system solution.The fundamental problem is that moving data through a system costs power. That is why the most efficient way to save power is to reduce the amount of data down to what’s actually important as early as possible, right at the start of the signal chain, where the physical world becomes data. If we can minimize the amount of data that require downstream processing, then we can maximize battery life.SEMI: Aspinity aims to solve the battery-life problem in IoT devices by introducing a new system architecture. Could you explain how your approach differs from digitize-first?Doyle: Aspinity’s solution, called the Reconfigurable Analog Modular Processor (RAMP), is an analog processing technology that combines analog machine learning (analogML™) and analog compression to enable accurate, ultra-low-power analog event detection and system wake-up. RAMP technology enables a new system architecture, which we call analyze-first, that allows an always-on system to spend just a little bit of analog power up front at the sensor to determine whether sensed data are relevant to the task at hand before waking the digital system for further processing. The analyze-first architecture can extend battery life by months or years over digitize-first architectures because it keeps the higher-power digital components asleep unless important data require digitization and analysis, which in some applications – such as voice-first or acoustic event detection – may occur very rarely. Aspinity RAMP voice activity detection with preroll from Aspinity on Vimeo. SEMI: Can you give us an example?Doyle: Here is a practical example of how this works: For most voice-enabled systems, such as smart speakers, voice-activated TV remotes and hearables, voice is only present 10%-20% of the time – but the digitize-first architecture on which these devices are traditionally based is digitizing 100% of the sound data captured by the microphone, even when most of that data are irrelevant and could not possibly contain a wake word.In contrast, the RAMP-based analyze-first architecture is highly efficient since it uses feature extraction and a neural network to analyze the sound at the microphone, right where it enters the device, to determine if the sound contains voice before waking the digital wake word engine. Additionally, the accuracy of most wake word engines relies not just on waking up and analyzing the wake word, but also on analyzing the 500ms of sound prior to the wake word (preroll). To support wake word engine performance, the RAMP also continuously compresses 500ms of preroll that can be stored in just 2k of memory and delivered to the wake word engine along with the voice data. So, this new analyze-first approach using RAMP technology can extend battery life by 10 times over older digitize-first designs, without sacrificing performance and accuracy.SEMI: What solutions can Aspinity bring to address the current market needs? Doyle: Aspinity offers the only analogML chip for always-on IoT devices that run on battery: the RAMP chip.The RAMP is trainable and programmable to detect many different types of sensor events directly from the raw analog sensor data. One application that benefits from a RAMP chip are devices that are always-listening for voice, for glass break or alarms, or for some other type of sound. Other examples include vibration sensors that monitor industrial equipment for predictive and preventative maintenance, and heartrate sensors that are used to detect anomalies in wearables and other biomedical applications.Aspinity just recently introduced our voice-first evaluation kit – which we will be demonstrating during the Technology Showcase at Technology Unites – to enable our customers to get first-hand experience with our RAMP-based analog voice wake-up solution. With this complete hardware and software kit, customers can experience all of the benefits of analogML and analog data compression – 10x power savings without a reduction in wake word detection accuracy –for their next generation of voice-enabled devices.SEMI: How can technology unite us? What do you expect from your participation at SEMI Technology Unites Global Summit?Doyle: I think this past year has shown us that when time gets tough – and for many of us, the COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most difficult challenges we have faced – that innovation is critical to solving major problems. The microelectronics industry has played an important role in providing critical components for COVID-19 testing, ventilators, air-purification systems, and other equipment used in healthcare settings. COVID-19 has also accelerated the move to voice as a preferred interface to many devices in an effort to stem the spread of germs on surfaces.The biotech industry is gearing up to provide the vaccines that we hope will restore more normalcy to our daily lives. We can thank the successful collaborations between R D innovators and established companies in many different markets for the new devices and drugs now going into production.With traditional in-person conferences still on hold until the pandemic eases up, attending industry conferences with exceptional speakers presenting interesting content is more important than ever. SEMI Technology Unites Global Summit provides that opportunity, and I’m genuinely looking forward to participating.Tom Doyle, Founder and CEO of Aspinity, brings over 30 years of experience in operational excellence and executive leadership in analog and mixed-signal semiconductor technology to Aspinity. Prior to Aspinity, Tom was group director of Cadence Design Systems’ analog and mixed-signal IC business unit, where he managed the deployment of the company’s technology to the world’s foremost semiconductor companies. Previously, Tom was founder and president of the analog/mixed-signal software firm, Paragon IC solutions, where he was responsible for all operational facets of the company including sales and marketing, global partners/distributors, and engineering teams in the US and Asia. Tom holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from West Virginia University and an MBA from California State University, Long Beach.Serena Brischetto is senior manager of Marketing and Communications at SEMI Europe.

MEMS and image sensors are shining stars in the chip industry as technology companies worldwide accelerate innovation in the fight against COVID-19. The tiny devices are behind advances in areas of electronics ranging from thermal imaging and faster point-of-care testing to microfluidics-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tools and techniques to detect SARS-CoV-2.SEMI recently spoke with Yole Développement analysts Dimitrios Damianos and Chenmeijing Liang about MEMS and imaging sensors market trends and how microelectronics-enhanced technologies are supporting the worldwide push to contain the spread of COVID-19.For additional insights on the technologies, join the SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit, held for the first time at SEMICON Europa, 12-13 November 2020 in Munich, Germany. Registration is open.SEMI: Despite the global pandemic, the MEMS and sensors market is still growing and is one of the healthiest industries, not only in Europe, but globally. What is driving this growth?Damianos: MEMS have been continuously evolving from the first sensors that were measuring pressure and acceleration to rotation sensing and visible light management followed by light sensing beyond visible and the expansion to ultrasound and multi-spectral. Now we are heading towards an era where we want to sense every aspect of our environment, with more processing and eventually analytics bringing more quality to the data.COVID-19 has impacted various global markets in very different ways. While automotive, mobility and civil aviation have suffered, the impact on telecommunications and medical has been positive. The effects on the consumer, mobile and industrial markets have been moderate. Moreover, COVID-19 is changing the perception of the current global supply chain in manufacturing, potentially leading to more localized value chains and further regionalization in order to minimize similar risks posed by the pandemic and the first lockdown.SEMI: Who are the main MEMS players based on your research? Damianos: For MEMS players, the picture in 2019 was not the same as 10 years ago, when Texas Instruments (TI) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) were leading the scene, with Bosch and ST Microelectronics following, all at comparable revenue levels. Now, Broadcom and Bosch lead with almost $1.4 billion in revenue each, and the rest of the MEMS key stakeholders compete in the $400 million to $600 million league. Microphone players profited from the voice interface adoption trend, while players active in MEMS for mobility and smartphones suffered slightly due to weak end-system demand.SEMI: What scenarios can we expect for each market with regard to the impact of COVID-19 on MEMS for 2020? Damianos: For 2020, at Yole Développement we expect the consumer market to contract slightly by 2.6%, with the automotive market to dip by 27.5%, and defense and aerospace by 20.5%. For the defense market, no major effect is expected, as all major programs still run for the year. The market may experience some slight delays in deliveries due to supply chain and logistics problems. However, sensors integrated in commercial/civil aerospace applications will suffer due to the general paralysis of the air travel industry. On the positive side, telecommunications could increase by 4.7%, medical applications by 10.6%, and industrial by 11.5%.Due to the global pandemic, some types of MEMS have spiked in demand this year. For example, demand for thermopiles and microbolometers used in temperature guns and thermal cameras has increased because of the need for contactless monitoring of people’s temperatures. Moreover, microfluidics for DNA sequencing and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic tests for detecting COVID-19 are gaining market relevance, with the latter serving as a premier method of detecting a bacteria or virus on the molecular level with high degrees of accuracy. Furthermore, pressure and flowmeters in ventilators will grow because of huge demand by hospital intensive care units (ICUs).SEMI: What growth trends do you predict for the long haul?Damianos: In the longer term, we expect global MEMS volumes to almost double, from 24.4 billion units in 2019 to 50.8 billion units in 2025, with a 13% CAGR during the same period. The global MEMS market could reach $17.7 billion in revenue by 2025.We see a trend to more wearable devices integrating a lot of sensors but also a move to a more consumer-oriented healthcare. Moreover, everything related to voice interfaces and voice/virtual-personal assistants (VPAs) will continue to see strong growth, increasing demand for MEMS mics with better quality and high-fidelity voice capture. MEMS devices are shifting to higher accuracy, ultra-low power, embedded intelligence and possibly some bio-compatibility for medical applications.MEMS players will try to escape the commoditization cycle and deliver more value by increasing the value of the data, either grouping many sensors to create sensor hubs or by adding processing, algorithms and software. Industry players are employing strategies such as adding extra processing close to the sensor (e.g. Knowles) or ameliorating the use cases of their applications of their clients (e.g. Bosch or ST). AI on the edge seems very alluring for extra value acquisition, with many startups already working on it. Some examples include always-on-sensing (Aspinity in collaboration with Infineon, Syntiant), echolocation (IMERAI) and predictive maintenance using inertial sensors (Cartesiam). This will be the next pit stop for MEMS technology for sure. SEMI: The CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) is a cornerstone technology in the development of devices powered by machine sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) for applications such as advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). CIS powers many of the ongoing revolutions in new technical products and use cases. What is the status of the image sensors industry? Liang: Last year was exceptional with a combination of high demand and high prices due to capacity limitations. Q4 2019 went way above the forecast, and, in the end, the CIS industry reached $19.3 billion for the full year. This year, we think it will return to normal, and, despite the pandemic impact, we expect significant growth in the range of 7% to 12%. Last year’s 25% year-over-year (YOY) growth was the highest we’ve seen over the past decade. Mobile still dominates the marketplace for CIS with 69% market share. Two markets, computing (8%) and consumer (5%), are adjacent to the mobile market but progressively losing ground due to the smartphone disruption.Security, at 6% market share, will probably be the second largest CIS market in the future. Although this is an area of excellence for the emerging Chinese players, unfortunately, they could be hit by the current trade war. The automotive market did very well from 2018 to 2019 because of the numerous applications recently developed for ADAS, viewing, and in-cabin applications. Lastly, the industrial camera applications benefited from large investments in automation, especially in the semiconductor and automotive industries, but here again many uncertainties remain as these markets will reshuffle in the post COVID-19 world. SEMI: Which CIS markets are most susceptible to seasonality and the impact of COVID-19?Liang: According to our quarterly CIS monitor, automotive and security were both negatively impacted by the pandemic beyond what we expected in terms of seasonality. For computing, the situation improved just prior the lockdown. Q1 got a positive impact with high sales results for laptops and tablets, but no significant impact was seen for security equipment. For automotive, the demand for cameras was very high in Q1, which is seasonally normal, despite the decrease of car shipments that followed later. The automotive CIS market in 2020 should remain relatively flat compared to 2019 due to the higher attachment rates of cameras despite the lower number of cars produced. Consumer and industrial segments dropped in Q1, which is typical early in the year.The next five years might be a bit slow, and although we forecast growth for the next year, in the future the market share will be lower in mobile. In fact, mobile CIS growth will fall below the CIS growth average, but we will see an increase of market share for the security, automotive and industrial segments. The CIS market could reach $28 billion in 2025.At first, COVID-19 had a limited impact on the production side, as factories in China are usually closed for the New Year holiday, when the pandemic started. While supply is currently recovering, we still consider the limited impact on demand. Smartphone production for 2020 will be down 6%, but camera shipments for mobile should increase about 10% this year. Another positive trend for the mobile market is optical fingerprint implementation. Currently, high-end Android phones use this kind of technology. For 2023, we estimate optical fingerprint technology revenue to be over $1 billion.The roadmap for the automotive market is driven by camera proliferation. We’ll see 10 cameras per car and more for some high-end vehicles. Increasing demand for safety and convenience will mean more cameras per car in the future. With a strong attachment rate, the market average in automotive is around 2.0 cameras per car nowadays, and we expect the market average to reach 3.5 cameras per car in 2025. In security, Charge Coupled Device (CCD)-based cameras are nearly out of the market, as CMOS-based IP cameras are most important now.SEMI: What are current key technology trends?Liang: 3D semiconductor technology is the hot topic. CIS wafer staking technology is indeed at the center of the CIS technology race. Future applications could be AI analytics or recently developed applications on new types of CIS. So far, we have seen the introduction of variants of the CIS pixel. Global shutter (GS) and indirect Time of Flight (iToF) were recently introduced, and now direct time-of-flight (dTOF) pixels are being used in high volume. 3D semiconductor technology is a bonanza for the industry, as it allows to pack more value in a single chip. While the surface of silicon is still increasing, additional silicon is added through stacking.With COVID-19 still a problem, the endpoint for smartphones in 2020 remains uncertain. The short-term impact for CIS will be slower growth with respect to the 25% YoY of last year. The downturn in car production will be mitigated by an increased attachment rate for automotive cameras. The security market will also help maintain CIS growth.For more insights, see the following reports: Status of the MEMS Industry 2020 3D Imaging and Sensing 2020 CIS Market Monitor Q2 2020 Dimitrios Damianos is a technology and market analysts at Yole Développement covering MEMS, Sensors, Photonics and Imaging. Chenmeijing Liang is a technology and market analysts at Yole Développement covering Imaging. Serena Brischetto is senior manager of Marketing and Communications at SEMI Europe.

SEMI spoke with Dr. Mikko Söderlund, sales director for Beneq’s semiconductor business, about trends in Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) applications. Söderlund shared his views ahead of his presentation at SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit, 25-27 September, 2019, at the WTC in Grenoble, France. Join us at the event to meet Beneq and other key industry influencers. Registration is open.SEMI: The Backside Illuminated (BSI) CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) market continues to experience steady growth. Which applications are currently driving market growth?Söderlund: BSI CMOS Image Sensor market continues to be driven by mobile, security, automotive and Internet of Things (IoT) applications – so there seems to be plenty of opportunities for BSI CIS market to grow further.SEMI: What is critical for advanced thin-film deposition methods to extract best electrical performance?Söderlund: It is critical to control the material properties of the deposited layer (such as charge density, resistivity or barrier property) and of course, film uniformity and conformality. Furthermore, controlling material interfaces is also important, especially for sensitive III-V materials. {% video_player "embed_player" overrideable=False, type='scriptV4', hide_playlist=True, viral_sharing=False, embed_button=False, width='350', height='197', player_id='12721134435', style='margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: right; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 350px;' %} Coatings and material features based on existing standard techniques can be very expensive, or not feasible at all. What does Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), as a thin film coating method, offer in particular?Söderlund: ALD offers dense, highly conformal and pinhole-free best-in-class functional layers for dielectrics, passivation, encapsulation and much more. As a gentle and precise layer-by-layer method, ALD is extremely well-suited for deposition of such performance critical layers over large surface areas such as a cassette of wafers.SEMI: Please describe the Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) coating process. Söderlund: ALD is based on a self-limiting surface reaction controlled thin film deposition. During coating, two or more chemical vapors or gaseous precursors react sequentially on the substrate surface, producing a solid thin film (see schematic below). Most ALD coating systems use a flow-through traveling wave setup, where an inert carrier gas flows through the system and precursors are injected as very short pulses into this carrier flow. The carrier gas flow takes the precursor pulses as sequential waves through the reaction chamber, followed by a pumping line, filtering systems and, eventually, a vacuum pump.SEMI: What are the two leading edge ALD applications?Söderlund: Today’s leading-edge ALD applications are in logic (high-k/metal gate, multiple patterning) and memory (DRAM capacitor, 3D NAND). Within the More-than-Moore (MtM) markets, CIS and MEMS (actuators and sensors, RF) have been early adopters of ALD, and we also see ALD being introduced in GaN Power and RF, as well as photonics.SEMI: Give us one prediction about the opportunities offered by advanced imaging applications.Söderlund: The large diversity of imaging applications will continue to drive growth and innovation. For example, machine vision is expected to transform the imaging landscape. We see this as a big opportunity for advanced thin-film deposition methods such as ALD, provided that the tools are versatile enough to address the diverse manufacturing requirements.SEMI: What are your expectations for SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit and why do you invite your peers to attend? Söderlund: The summit brings together all key RF stakeholders in the MEMS and imaging sensors industry, and we are looking forward to a great event. It’s a special event for us as we are officially launching a new ALD cluster tool product specifically engineered for the MtM applications – so this brings great excitement that we want to share with the attendees.Dr. Mikko Söderlund is Sales Director for Beneq’s semiconductor business. He has more than 20 years of experience in product development, product management, technical sales and business development across the photonics, OLED, and semiconductor industries. Mikko received his Ph.D. in Micro- and Nanotechnology from the Helsinki University of Technology. Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.

Stefano Zanella, Head of Automotive, Industrial and Location Businesses, TDK InvenSense will present at next month’s SEMICON Taiwan (September 18-20, 2019 in Taipei City, Taiwan). SEMI Taiwan’s Emmy Yi spoke with Stefano for a preview of his talk.SEMI: What macro market trends are driving automotive manufacturers to increase the variety and volume of MEMS sensors in cars?Zanella: The car world is changing. Consumers increasingly view car ownership as less desirable, yet the number of miles traveled and of hours spent in a car are rising steadily. At the same time, cars are changing profoundly, and the pace of change is rapid. To thrive in this new world, automakers are becoming transportation enablers and providers.Many vehicles today autonomously interact with humans and the world around them, operate with less or no human control, and are powered by electric batteries. MEMS sensors – which mimic and augment the five human senses – are front and center in these advancements.Unlike other types of sensors – such as cameras, radar and GNSS/GPSS – MEMS gyroscopes are functional in every environment. Gyroscopes, as well as accelerometers, can supplement those other sensors when they are not available and boost the accuracy of their outputs when they are available. Both camera stabilization and dead reckoning when GNSS is unavailable are good examples of the latter. Other prevalent sensors include MEMS microphones, used to capture voice commands, ultrasonic sensors, which can be leveraged for parking and gesture recognition, and fingerprint sensors, which can improve car security.SEMI: How can automakers stay competitive in this changing landscape?Zanella: Automakers can future-proof their relevance in the transportation market in several ways. By embracing consumer migration toward ride-sharing over car ownership, many are transforming from manufacturers to mobility providers. Carmakers that invest in ride-sharing and other modes of transportation (e.g., scooters) can sustain their profitability, even if the number of vehicles sold eventually shrinks or simply doesn’t grow as much as anticipated.Automakers will need to pursue new avenues of product differentiation. Traditionally, automakers have kept performance and aesthetics to themselves by owning the engine and the body design of the car, leaving nearly everything else to suppliers. Autonomous driving and electrification, however, are pushing automakers to own the battery pack and the autonomous driving software stack.While we are just beginning to see standardization in battery packs, automakers are likely to own the autonomous driving stack for many years to come. Automakers that offer cars with highly functional and efficient batteries and driving stacks stand to gain market share.Automotive infotainment systems will become increasingly crucial as autonomous driving turns everyone into a passenger. Audio subsystem providers such as Harman Kardon, Bose, and Bang Olufsen, for example, jockeyed for attention at the most recent Geneva Motor Show, demonstrating sophisticated surround-sound systems that rival premium-quality home audio setups.With more and more consumers using voice interfaces to interact with devices in the home, drivers are less willing to accept spotty accuracy in the car. Hence, automakers are using more higher-performing MEMS microphones to accurately capture voice commands. This will come as a relief to those of us who routinely yell at our steering wheels while using voice command to try to call home. Demand for higher quality infotainment systems has prompted some automotive OEMs to own the entire infotainment system and work directly with sensor and chipmakers, a level of intimacy that gives automakers a chance to tune sensor and chip development to their own needs. This tighter relationship also positions device suppliers to forge more direct links with drivers.SEMI: Which MEMS sensors are particularly important to tomorrow’s automobiles and why?Zanella: For many years the automotive industry has been integrating more electronics into cars to improve safety, advance the driver and passenger experience, and, more recently, power the car. As vehicles rely less on human control, automakers must replace the senses of the driver with something else. That something else is a bunch of sensors, microphones, cameras, radar and LIDAR to replace vision and hearing.Since MEMS sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and pressure sensors are much more robust than other types of sensors to operate in snow, rain and darkness and other imperfect environments, automakers use them to ensure that the vehicle never gets lost when other sensors and/or the GPS/GNSS signal become unavailable in tunnels or urban canyons. Gyros help determine direction, accelerometers velocity and distance driven, and pressure sensors height, such as when taking a fork on a multi-level highway. At the same time, fingerprint sensors, ultrasonic parking sensors, and temperature sensors are improving convenience, safety and security for the car’s occupants. Automakers increasingly use inertial and environmental sensors, MEMS microphones, fingerprint sensors, and vision/imaging sensors to augment or replace the five human senses on which car drivers have relied for over 100 years. Source: TDK InvenSense SEMI: To what degree can MEMS sensors enable automotive security?Zanella: MEMS sensors are used widely to enhance security today. Some of their mechanisms are easy to understand while some are unexpected. For instance, ultrasonic fingerprint sensors can authenticate the driver of a vehicle to prevent car theft or something less onerous, like a teenage driver taking the car out without permission.Accelerometers and gyroscopes can prevent a new type of spoof on keyless entry systems. Imagine that you are very close to your vehicle. Your car senses the remote control in your pocket and automatically opens the doors when you pull the handle. Now suppose that your car is parked on the street, not far from your house. You leave the remote control home, and the car doesn’t sense the proximity of the remote control. Great! No one can enter your car, unless ... a thief has a big signal amplifier that makes your car think that the keyless entry device is next to the car. In this case, what can an automaker do? Add an accelerometer that restricts the keyless device from broadcasting the entry signal unless you are walking to the car with the device on your person.SEMI: What would you like SEMICON Taiwan attendees to take away from your presentation?Zanella: I would like them to embrace the transformations afoot in the automotive market as well as their associated design challenges since, by overcoming these hurdles, they can offer significant societal benefits such as safer and cleaner transportation. At the same time, these transformations mean significant opportunities for semiconductor industry revenue growth. And while design-to-delivery cycles in automotive are longer than in consumer and mobile, the automotive market supports higher-value devices as well as the chance to fold dozens of MEMS sensors into a single model.To paraphrase Lord Kelvin: If you can’t sense it, you can’t manage it. As suppliers of many key technologies that make intelligent transportation possible, the MEMS sensors industry is in an excellent position to help automakers manage the many challenges ahead.Stefano Zanella, Ph.D., is Head of Automotive, Industrial and Location Businesses at TDK InvenSense, where he brings MEMS sensors (including accelerometers, gyroscopes and microphones) and location solutions to the automotive and industrial markets. Zanella holds an MS and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padova, Padova, Italy as well as MBAs from both the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and from Columbia University.He will present MEMS Sensors Enabling the Smart Car Revolution on Wednesday, September 18, 2019, at SEMICON Taiwan at 1F 4F, Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei City, Taiwan. Register today and save 20% to learn how MEMS sensors are transforming the human experience with cars.Connect with Stefano Zanella at SEMICON Taiwan or via LinkedIn. You can also get more information on TDK’s automotive solutions and application guides online.Interested in engaging with the MEMS sensors supply chain? SEMI MEMS Sensors Industry Group is a technology community that enables professionals in the MEMS and sensors industry to innovate, address common challenges and accelerate business results.Emmy Yi is a marketing specialist at SEMI Taiwan.

SEMI spoke with Thomas Fries, founder and CEO of FRT GmbH, about how hybrid metrology is shaping multi-sensor metrology tools to enhance measurement precision as the industry moves away from a single-sensor approach.Fries offered his views ahead of the SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit, 25 to 27 September 2019 in Grenoble, France. Join us at the event to meet experts from FRT Metrology and many other MEMS, imaging and sensors companies. Registration is open. SEMI: Metrology in front-end used to be straightforward. But then, as the number of tasks to be implemented increased, we moved to a multi-sensors approach. What drove this transition?Fries: I believe it´s more about software than about sensors. But of course the basis is the hardware. So, most metrology tools were designed around a specific sensor, e.g. a white light interferometer.A rigid frame, wafer fixtures, scanning tables etc. were then added to develop a complete system. In manufacturing more machinery was added, like handling systems, cleanroom equipment and more sensors, mainly for additive functions such as reading IDs or measuring temperature. The center was still the one and only sensor, being pimped more and more by some hardware features and a lot of software.SEMI: How are sensors and software shaping the way metrology is applied today?Fries: Today a huge number of optical sensors are available to provide various measurement options. But sometimes there are only very slight differences from one sensor to the other. A tiny variation may determine whether we solve a problem or end up fishing in troubled waters.And of course using different machines with those sensors requires high budgets for capital investment, used floor space, measuring time, etc. A multi-sensor platform solves all these problems. But again, it is the software that makes the real difference.SEMI: What lead to those advancements in metrology? What problems did they set out to solve?Fries: Metrology has been evolving ever since the measurement standards were established. The first challenge was to create a flexible mechanical platform that was also reliable and stable. All components were designed to be integrated into one system, mechanically, electrically and of course in the software.This level of integration requires not only an appropriate user interface, but also data formats and evaluation algorithms that leverage multi-sensor hardware. Today every metrology tool in the fab is justified by the application, not by specific sensors or specs. Of course the application leads to a set of specs, but the solution for the metrology task is realized within the software.New developments in metrology combine expertise in system design, physical knowledge in metrology and materials, mechanical engineering and also mathematical and software skills.The last step was the implementation of hybrid metrology functionality into a multi-sensor system that opens totally new doors in metrology. Before multi-sensors development, quite a few hitches could not be properly solved. SEMI: This is especially true when we consider applications in advanced packaging and MEMS manufacturing. What is in your opinion the main challenge?Fries: Specifically, in MEMS and advanced packaging we face multiple metrology challenges, as various processes run in one step and conditions on the wafer may vary quite often. In this case, a high degree of flexibility, up to the option to upgrade the metrology tool at any time or place, is a priceless advantage. Besides, cost effects for footprint, throughput and investment play a key role.A central task for nearly every customer application is to combine global measurements (complete wafer) and local measurements (per die) within one recipe. This is a perfect case for a multi-sensor platform. Measuring step heights and film thickness in one take is also an everyday routine. Combining those characteristics to measure hidden structures (hybrid metrology) is unique.SEMI: How will hybrid metrology enhance measurement precision and where do you expect the multi-sensor approach to be more applicable?Fries: The first advantage is the ability to measure properties that you cannot access directly. On top of that, all the previously mentioned features such as facing multiple metrology tasks, the combination of complete wafer and per die measurement are playing key roles. The precision of specific measuring tasks can be optimized by calibrating sensors against each other or combining results to get rid of noise or artefacts.MEMS and advanced packaging are natural playgrounds for hybrid metrology. But already today we see applications in high volume manufacturing in the 300mm fabs. As structures on wafers shrink, wafers are getting thinner and the whole process is becoming more and more complex. The classic one-sensor metrology tool is running out of gas. SEMI: What are your expectations regarding the summit in Grenoble, and for the future of the MEMS Sensors technology?Fries: FRT has always been very strong in MEMS and sensors and we have attended and exhibited at the SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit from the very beginning. The summit is always a very good meeting point for the community, and a perfect training session that gives participants extended updates in all fields. And of course, it grows our network and gives us the opportunity to show our latest products and applications.If you really want to know how the future of MEMS and sensors will look like, join the summit and don´t miss the chance to pass by the exhibition to meet FRT and many other industry leaders.Dr. Thomas Fries lives with his family close to Cologne. He is engaged in a variety of activities: as technical advisor to various ministries, supervisory board of PlanOptik AG, board and advisory board of IVAM, board member of COPT.NRW e. V., just to name a few. FRT supports many social projects as well as kindergartens and schools. Motorcycles and cars are still a great passion alongside his family.Serena Brischetto is senior marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.