actuators

Autonomous human-like soft robots promise new applications in fields including healthcare, education, and space and ocean exploration.

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 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.

Despite market saturation and stagnation saddling many business sectors, MEMS remains a shining star in the semiconductor industry. Opportunities in automotive, consumer electronics, mobile, medical are rising. What is supporting this industry growth? Who are the big players on the horizon?SEMI spoke with Dimitrios Damianos, Technology Market Analyst, Photonics, Sensing and Display division at Yole Développement, about MEMS market dynamics and future trends. Damianos 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 experts from Yole and many other key industry influencers. Registration is open.SEMI: MEMS and sensors is one of the healthiest industries not only in Europe but globally. Despite a global economic slowdown, the MEMS and sensors is still growing. What is fueling this growth?Damianos: The value of the global MEMS and sensor market will almost double from $48 billion in 2018 to $93 billion in 2024. In 2018 the MEMS and sensor market represented more than 10% of the total IC market, as more and more MEMS devices and sensors, such as MEMS, image sensors, and RF filters, are integrated in end products in consumer and automotive. In particular, the value of the MEMS-only market reached $11.6 billion in 2018, with consumer applications accounting for more than 60% of the total market. From 2019 to 2024 the MEMS market will grow 8.3% annually in value driven by pressure (for TPMS), RF (for V2X 5G communications), inertial (for ADAS) and future MEMS (such as pMUT for ultrasonic fingerprint) (Source: Status of the MEMS Industry report, Yole Développement, 2019). SEMI: How are MEMS shaping the semiconductor industry today? Damianos: MEMS have a make-smarter enabling capability. They are providing context for new applications and services in transportation, mobility, health, and security. Large companies such as Alibaba and Google are considering MEMS as a critical element in their business solution domains covering the upcoming smart home, smart campus, smart city and smart industry applications. MEMS have key features that correspond to these companies’ criteria for accuracy, small size (without performance degradation), low power and always on (e.g. microphones). Furthermore, with the advent of sensor fusion and edge computing, more sensor data can be processed, maximizing the qualitative and useful information about us and our surroundings. This has a huge impact in all markets, especially consumer.SEMI: MEMS foundries performed well thanks to the boom in industrial and medical applications. Who are the big players right now?Damianos: During 2018, all foundries saw their revenue increase. STMicroelectronics, Teledyne Dalsa, Silex, IMT, Micralyne and Philips Innovation Service are important MEMS foundry players that offer services for various MEMS devices used in medical and industrial markets, among others. On one hand, medical applications were driven mostly by microfluidics, flowmeters, pressure and inertial MEMS. On the other hand, industrial applications were driven by inkjet heads, microbolometers and pressure MEMS. The market prospect, however, is huge for RF MEMS and oscillators that will be used in next-generation 5G infrastructure. SEMI: What is the current status of MEMS for automotive applications? What are the related market drivers? Damianos: In automotive applications, accelerometers and pressure sensors still account for the lion’s share in units. Pressure sensors will grow at more than 8% with Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) implemented in Chinese vehicles in the near future. After 2019 and 2020, with the new Chinese standard, GB 2614, TPMS will become compulsory: 100% of all new vehicles will have TPMS. Also, automotive MEMS could grow quicker than the corresponding car market (currently at approximately 3%). The reason is a higher number of many different MEMS devices that are being integrated in cars, such as MEMS inertial measurement units (IMUs), TPMS, environmental MEMS for gas and particle monitoring in-cabin and microphones for hands-free voice commands.SEMI: After years of decline, the inkjet heads industry is growing again. What other segments are benefiting from MEMS technology applications? Can you name two examples?Damianos: RF MEMS (BAW filters) is also benefiting from applications in smartphones and will continue to benefit with the arrival of 5G. 5G means additional high frequency sub-6 GHz bands that can only be addressed by BAW filters. Moreover, new infrastructure approach using active antennas will create an expanding market for BAW.Another segment is inertial sensors. Inertial MEMS already have a high potential in wellness and fitness wearables and are gaining support for medical wearable applications to monitor patient activity, with the aim to prevent seizure in cases of epilepsy and other mental disorders. Compared to other types of sensors, MEMS is the golden technology for inertial sensors integrated into medical wearables. They are used for rehabilitation systems, activity trackers and assistance living/fall detection. Specifically, the IMU market will continue to grow for consumer and automotive applications as their price and form factor continue to shrink and they replace traditional standalone MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes. However, the inertial sensor market will mostly grow for smartphone applications (mostly 6DOF, with 9DOF volumes being comparatively low).SEMI: Give us one prediction about the opportunities offered by the MEMS technology. Damianos: Sensor fusion is becoming more and more relevant since billions of MEMS sensors are made every year. The upcoming 5G revolution will make connectivity easier than ever, creating exponentially more data. To make these data meaningful, data processing is mandatory. Big data is an industry born of recent advancements in AI and machine learning, built upon and fueled by a wealth of new data from ever-expanding sensor applications. An upcoming trend is edge computing, with sensors and MEMS driving a new age of technology. Sensors are digitizing the human experience, and as the real and virtual worlds move closer together, it will be sensors that bind them, enabling new experiences for users everywhere. Running AI at the edge, coupled with sensor fusion, will open new applications for MEMS in audio, motion, olfactometry, and imaging. We also expect that new MEMS devices (microspeakers, ultrasonic fingerprint, pMUT) and piezoelectric MEMS technology could rejuvenate the MEMS market. SEMI: What are your expectations for SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit and why would you invite your peers to attend? Damianos: SEMI is organizing another very successful event, gathering experts from the Imaging and MEMS industries. We are at a turning point of innovation, with many technological advancements in AI, IoT, AR/VR, biometrics, and other areas where Imaging and MEMS technologies are paramount. Yole is excited to hear the thoughts of many high-profile experts on existing activities and future prospects within their organizations. If you are too, then it is an event that you shouldn’t miss!Dimitrios Damianos, Ph.D. is a Technology and Market Analyst in the Photonics, Sensing and Display division at Yole Développement (Yole). Damianos is a member of a Yole team that produces technology and market reports on the imaging industry including photonics and sensors. Damianos holds a MSc degree in Photonics from the University of Patras (Greece). After his research on theoretical and experimental quantum optics and laser light generation, Dimitrios pursued a Ph.D. in optical and electrical characterization of dielectric materials on silicon with applications in photovoltaics and image sensors, as well as SOI for microelectronics at Grenoble’s university (France). He has also authored and co-authored several scientific papers in international peer-reviewed journals. Learn more! Join the webinar on 5th September 2019. Registration is open! Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.

According to market research and strategy consulting firm Yole Développement (Yole), the total market size of MEMS, sensors and actuators will double from $48 billion in 2018 to $93 billion in 2024.[i] The consumer market will continue to drive volume, with applications such as smartphones making up for in volume what they lack in average selling price (ASP). Stronger demand in automotive, biomedical/health, industrial, and voice-first applications (such as smart speakers) will support this upward trajectory. With so much growth ahead of us, how will the design and manufacture of MEMS keep pace with industry demand for higher levels of innovation and integration, lower cost and lower power, smaller footprints, and faster design cycles — all while meeting acceptable price points?We turned to a handful of MEMS manufacturing experts from SEMI-MSIG who will join us at SEMICON West 2019, July 9-11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, to explore the complexities of keeping pace with market demand for MEMS over the next decade.Address the Design GapMentor GM, ICDS Division Greg Lebsack and SoftMEMS President Mary Ann Maher see tremendous progress in the manufacturing supply chain for MEMS. At the same time, they acknowledge the significant gap that still exists in design capability for creating the billions of interconnected sensors required for future applications. Greg and Mary Ann will dive into the standards, ecosystem requirements and collaborative design solutions that will allow the micro-sensors industry to meet demand for next-generation wearables, Internet of Things (IoT) products and medical devices.Get Collaborative with Greg and Mary Ann: Addressing the Design Gap to Enable Next Generation Sensor-Based Products, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 10:35-11:00 a.m. Register today.Get to a Really Big NumberFrom thousands of sensors and actuators in a single airplane to hundreds in a single car or a piece of factory equipment to the twenty-plus that ship in each of the hundreds of millions of the world’s smartphones, we aren’t even close to reaching the saturation point for these intelligent devices. SPTS Technologies EVP GM David Butler isn’t living on the Spaceship Enterprise (or the Millenium Falcon, come to think of it) when he says that we are going to get to a trillion sensors. It is going to happen. The questions are: how and when?Connect with David: Enabling the Age of a Trillion Sensors, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 11:00-11:25 a.m. Register today.Shift to Automotive-GradeDemand for optical sensing technologies such as LIDAR is shifting sensor manufacturing requirements from consumer- to automotive-grade, with its enhanced lifetimes, temperature cycling and higher performance specifications. To meet demand, manufacturers are turning to wafer-level processing, since it complies with the hermetic sealing and dew-point control required for the more rigorous automotive-grade applications. EV Group Business Development Director Thomas Uhrmann, Ph.D., will provide an overview of the steps for manufacturing optical elements, including integration with CMOS circuitry, as he offers a window into the future of automotive packaging for sensors.Tune in with Thomas: Future Manufacturing Requirements for Automotive and Photonics Sensing, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 11:25-11:50 a.m. Register today. Measure Twice, Cut OnceFaster time-to-market, improved device yield, and greater productivity in high-volume manufacturing are increasingly critical requirements for MEMS manufacturers. When a single manufacturing error can cost hundreds of thousands if not a million or more dollars — as well as months of development time — designers can save both time and cost by employing an integrated approach to MEMS design. Lam Research Sr. Director of Strategic Marketing David Haynes will explain how simulation, verification and process modeling can address MEMS-specific engineering challenges such as multi-physics interactions, process variations, MEMS + IC integration, and MEMS + package interaction. Using the right tools before committing to actual fabrication can make or break a project.Get Conceptual (and Practical) with David: Enabling Better MEMS from Concept to High-Volume Production, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 11:50 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Register today.Navigate a Dynamic Foundry LandscapeWe’re still living in a one product-one process world when it comes to MEMS manufacturing. This makes bringing a new device to market both time-consuming and expensive. These challenges aside, the functional capabilities of MEMS, combined with small-footprint and low-power options, have made MEMS increasingly popular. How are market dynamics in MEMS manufacturing evolving to accommodate both demand for high-volume, lower-cost products such as MEMS microphones as well as high-value, lower-volume products such as biomedical devices, IoT products and industrial sensors? Rogue Valley Microdevices Founder CEO Jessica Gomez will explain how foundry consolidation through acquisition, collaboration with other ecosystem players, and specialization in vertical markets such as biomedical or optical are some of the approaches that are transforming the MEMS foundry landscape.Join the Evolution with Jessica: Consolidation, Collaboration, Specialization: How Will MEMS Fabs Manage Changing Dynamics, TechTALKS Stage South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 12:15-12:40 p.m. Register today.i“Status of the MEMS Industry report,” Yole Développement (Yole), 2019 Edition.Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.