MEMS 2002 IEEE/RAS
International Conference, Las Vegas
http://touch.caltech.edu/home/mems2002/mems2002.html
Attended by Daryl Oshatz and Mark Scheeff Jan. 21-23
Conference Overview
This was a four-day conference with 500 to 600 attendees sponsored annually by IEEE. Most participants were from the U.S. but there was a strong turnout from Pacific Rim countries and Europe. The subject matter presented, with a few notable exceptions, was generally academic in nature with an emphasis on MEMS research demonstrating feasibility of new systems, rather than prototypes of fully functional systems. Most of the work presented appeared to be sponsored research at universities and public institutes. There were ten industrial supporters of the conference and 44 exhibitors.
Topics
· biomedical mems
· fluidic components and microsystems,
· biomedical/fluidic BioMEMS
· power mems
· acoustics and sensors
· technology/material/packaging (process emphasis)
· optical mems
· actuators
· RF/wireless
· micro chemical analysis systems
Comments and Conclusions
Diverse Research
Over the past three to five to years the MEMS field appears to have matured significantly. The work presented at this conference was extremely diverse. For example, two to three years ago a significant amount of effort seems to have been devoted to the problem of creating actuators for all-optical switching boxes. I didn't see a single paper at the conference about a novel new actuator for something straight forward like articulating a mirror. The research topics have diversified significantly in broad areas like chemical analysis systems, electrical power generation, and fluidic handling and mixing systems.
DARPA Funding
I asked around a fair amount to get a handle on typical funding levels and sources. DARPA (http://www.darpa.mil/MTO/MEMS) appeared to be the largest funding agency for research at U.S. institutions, by far. Large, healthy programs are typically funded at a level of $2-4M over 3-4 years. MIT's microturbine effort is a real powerhouse with funding in the neighborhood of $30-40M over ten years.
RF MEMS
Wireless communication is driving the RF MEMS field. Maximum frequencies of interest in industry are 20-30 GHz, and typically in the MHz range. Christopher W. Dyck of SANDIA National Lab's RF MEMS program is very interested in LBNL RF expertise at the system level (see contacts section below) and would be open to proposals for collaboration. RF MEMS was a minor topic at this conference.
In order to get a foot in the door in rewarding areas of the MEMS field, it may be useful to partner with universities. BSAC (UCB) is accomplished and highly
regarded within the MEMS community and couldn’t be more conveniently located for collaboration purposes - right down the hill from LBNL. I spoke with Prof.
Liwei Lin, Co-Director of BSAC. I had met with him at Berkeley in mid-October of last year and had a couple of e-mail exchanges since. He was very interested
in the progress of our initiatives process. He emphasized that he was still interested in collaboration with LBNL on a MEMS project. I described one potential
project, the linear array of pneumatic valves for accelerator and fusion energy gas targets. His response was, essentially, enough talk - lets get on with it.
Collaboration
Because the participants at the conference were mostly from the academic community, many of the papers presented were rather scientific and sometimes narrow in focus. There were notable examples of highly sophisticated and useful systems (see Cool Papers, below). The people we spoke with in the poster sessions and over lunch were highly enthusiastic about collaborating with LBNL. The ideal scenario would be to interest a group that has developed a novel MEMS device, such as a chemical analysis system, and collaborate with that group to get funding to engineer a real world version of that system that would be of use to scientists and fully functional outside of the campus laboratory.
MEMS Industry
My first take after discussions with exhibitors at the conference (could be wrong) left me with the impression that large companies have either purchased the smaller foundry companies or have commercialized their in-house capabilities to decouple investment in process from investment in device R&D. In other words, big companies like Sony, and Hitachi, and Corning are not only fabricating their own MEMS designs, but are offering foundry services for hire. The successful MEMS foundry companies (i.e. Applied MEMS) are willing do more design and prototype work for hire. The implication for LBNL is that, it appears we could hire or partner with a company like Applied MEMS through a funding mechanism like an SBIR and rely on their process expertise and our system level expertise.
Cool Papers
· The Art and Science of Engineering Hybrid Living/Non-Living Mechanical Devices, Carlo D. Motemagno (UCLA)
The first invited speaker gave an inspiring talk describing progress towards building micro- and nano systems incorporating biological elements. The ultimate goal of this work is to create autonomous machines for in vivo applications. These machines would utilize biological motors powered by chemical energy readily available in living organisms, such as ATP and glucose. Motemagno has built a nanoscale stepper motor powered by and ATP synthase molecule. He has also created a "muscle-MEMS" cantilever; a micro-scale machine actuated by a muscle tissue. A muscle-MEMS machine implanted in the human body could be powered by naturally occurring glucose and controlled by the electrical impulses of the nervous system. This was, by far, the most visionary and far-out talk of the conference.
· Electronic Fountain Pen - A Highly Integrated Stand-Alone Microdosage System, Gunther Waibel, HSG-IMIT - Germany
The only fully functional and self-contained MEMS machine presented at the conference - and he walked around with one of these prototype pens in his pocket throughout the week. This is a fully functional, standard sized fountain pen that never leaks ink or dries out. Gunthers group designed the entire system consisting of numerous MEMS sub-systems; a valve, a series of capillaries, a level sensor and a venting system for the ink cartridge. I talked to Gunther about his project. They've made 100 prototypes for $50 each and a German company (which has hired him out of his academic position) hopes to begin selling the pens later this year. The system also has possible applications as a microdosage system in the medical industry.
· A Microfabricated Suspended-Tube Chemical Reactor for Fuel Processing, Leonel R. Arana (MIT)
A microsystem that could be used to generate on-chip electricity from hydrocarbon fuels. The system thermally isolates a reactor volume creating a combustor for chemical fuels that can directly drive thermoelectric or thermophotovoltaic generators or produce hydrogen for portable fuel cell systems. They're not screwing around at MIT.
· CMOS Single-chip Multisensor Gas Detection System, C Hagleitner (Physical Electronics Laboratory, ETH Zurich)
The MEMS structure is post-machined on top of industrial CMOS technology and uses three different types of transducers to detect volatile organic compounds in the 3-5 ppm range. They've actually got a working prototype system small enough to integrate into a cheap handheld device (which they have an plastic mockup of) that sniffs solvents in barrels.
· Led-SpEC: Spectroscopic Detection of Water Contaminants Using Glow Discharges from Liquid Microelectrodes, Chester G. Wilson, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
This system detects detection of trace contaminants in water (5-10 ppm sensitivity) by spectroscopy of micro glow discharges. The system uses the water sample as the electrode material for generating a discharge that is observed through an optical fiber by a pager-sized, commercial spectrometer.
Notable Contacts
(See scanned business
cards for specifics: Government & University,
Industry)
Christopher W. Dyck, Sandia National Laboratories, Senior Member Technical Staff RF Microsystems
Chris extended an offer to have folks from LBNL visit the Sandia facilities in Albuquerque. He was very interested in collaboration in the area of RF MEMS. He described his group as having extensive fabrication capabilities but was interested in LBNL's RF expertise at the system level.
Aaron Fleischman, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Project Staff - Dept. of Biomedical Engineering
Aaron was very interested in the carbon nanotube work going on at LBNL - interested in producing planes of nanotubes for biomedical research purposes?
Shay Kaplan, Mizur Technology, Managing Director
Mizur is a MEMS foundry in Israel that does some design work and process optimization for customers. Shay's interested in alternative technologies for MEMS fabrication. We discussed the LBNL precision machining capabilities as a method of avoiding the high costs and long turnaround times for prototype devices and small batches.
Dr. Cha-Mei Tang, Creatv Micro Tech, Inc., President
This is a small company doing LIGA work through ANL. Interested in LIGA production facilities. We discussed the ALS LIGA capabilities and I gave her Keith Jackson’s name.
Howard D. Goldberg, Applied MEMS, Business and Product Development Manager
This is a large company doing mass-production of MEMS devices. They are interested in design and development projects (SBIR's*). They will run prototype quantities and seem willing to do speculative business. Gene Burk (currently with Standard MEMS) was interested in doing consulting work to develop designs and have Applied MEMS do process design and fabrication.
Gunther Waibel, HSG-IMIT (Institute fur Mikro- und Informationstechnik)
Institute leading the development of MEMS electronic fountain pen that is at the actual-scale-prototype phase. Pen R&D project will be completed by end of March, then passing off design to a private pen company. Gunther will leave the institute to head up the pen project at that company.
Jean-Michel Stauffer, Colibrys, EPF Eng. Microtechnology Business Team Leader: Mechanical Microsystems
This is a large company doing mass-production of MEMS devices. They do not do any design but partner with Coventor when costumers require design and development work.
Sara J. Veth, Geo-Centers - AFRL, Cellular Dynamics and Engineering Program Manager
AFRL is new to the BioMEMS field and is trying to collaborate on any MEMS projects it can get involved with to get a foothold.
