- Overview
- Meeting Schedule
- Presentations
- Minutes
- News
Overview
The MEMS industry has seen tremendous advancements in recent years and is one of the fastest growing segments in the semiconductor product industry. In order to keep this pace, new applications and market segments have to be continuously identified. In addition, with the downward price pressure and shorter time-to-market needs brought on by the consumer, efficiencies in design, manufacturing, integration, software development and related processes need to be realized. The MEMS Working Group was formed to address these challenges on an industry-wide scale.
Vision
To provide a neutral forum where members can exchange ideas, stimulate thought, and collaborate on solutions to have a positive impact on the growth and profitability of the MEMS industry.
Mission
To bring together leading representatives from the MEMS industry and semiconductor design to (1) collaborate on solutions that improve the technical and economic landscape in design and manufacturing, and (2) discuss commercial requirements for new applications, market segments and growth areas to address the cost down and time-to-market demands of the end customer.
Objectives
- Continually identify and explore key application areas that are expected to drive the growth of the MEMS industry over a rolling five year period
- Identify and promote areas of collaboration for integration of MEMS into multi-disciplinary systems
- Help identify economies of reuse through homogenization of design and manufacturing resources (versus a “one product, one process, one package” mentality)
- Help identify other areas of improvement in design, manufacturing or processes that help to reduce product costs and accelerate time to market
Contact Information
Harrison Beasley
GSA Working Groups Manager
972.489.0248
hbeasley@gsaglobal.org
Working Group Chair
Jay Esfandyari, MEMS Marketing Manager, STMicro
Meeting Schedule
Q2 2013 Meeting
MEMS Working Group Meeting
Date: June 12, 2013
Time: 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Location: ASE
Q3 2013 Meeting
MEMS Working Group Meeting
Date: September 18, 2013
Time: 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Silicon Valley
Q4 2013 Meeting
MEMS Working Group Meeting
Host: TBD
Date: December 11, 2013
Time: 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Silicon Valley
MEMS Working Group Meeting
Host: TBD
Date: March, 2014
Time: 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Silicon Valley
Presentations
| Meeting: | MEMS Working Group Meeting |
| Date: | March 20, 2013 |
| Location: | Samsung, San Jose |
| Presentations: | MEMS Working Group Overview (PDF, 443 KB) Harrison Beasley, GSA MEMS in Medical Applications (PDF, 1,989 KB) Alissa Fitzgerald, AMFitzgerald MEMS EDA Update (PDF, 130 KB) Mary Ann Maher, SoftMEMS |
| Meeting: | MEMS Working Group Meeting |
| Date: | December 12, 2012 |
| Location: | Qualcomm, Santa Clara |
| Presentations: | MEMS Working Group Update (PDF, 504 KB) Harrison Beasley, GSA Sensor Spec Standardization (PDF, 669 KB) Len Sheynblat, Qualcomm Enabling a Fabless MEMS Industry by Improving the MEMS Development Process (PDF, 1251 KB) Alissa Fitzgerald, AMFitzgerald MEMS Standardization (PDF, 2072 KB) Karen Lightman, MEMS Industry Group |
| Meeting: | Technology Steering Committee – Working Group Review |
| Date: | November 7 2012 |
| Location: | Cavium, San Jose, CA |
| Presentations: | MEMS Working Group Update (PDF, 501 KB) Jay Esfandyari, STMicro |
| Meeting: | MEMS Working Group Meeting |
| Date: | September 26, 2012 |
| Location: | Cavendish-Kinetics San Jose, CA |
| Presentations: | MEMS WG Overview 26Sep12 (PDF, 498 KB) Jay Esfandari, STMicro NF-Shuttle Joseph Jiang, InvenSense |
| Meeting: | MEMS Working Group Meeting |
| Date: | June 18, 2012 |
| Location: | Santa Clara, CA |
| Presentation: | MEMS in the Next Decade (PDF, 710 KB) Jay Esfandari, STMicro |
Minutes
2013 Meeting Minutes
- MAR 20, 2013 Working Group Minutes (PDF, 754 KB)
- FEB 11, 2013 Core Team Minutes (PDF, 754 KB)
2012 Meeting Minutes
- DEC 12, 2012 Working Group Minutes (PDF, 756 KB)
- OCT 24, 2012 Core Team Minutes (PDF, 751 KB)
- SEP 26, 2012 Working Group Minutes (PDF, 764 KB)
- JUN 18, 2012 Working Group Minutes (PDF, 800 KB)
News
3D Brings Test Into Fashion
Friday, May 17, 2013
Semiconductor Manufacturing
As integral and critical as test is to the success of an SoC, it isnt always one of those topics in semiconductor design that seems fashionable.
But as Bassilios Petrakis, director of product marketing for test products at Cadence pointed out, [Test] is not in fashion, but when we hit one of those brick walls then suddenly we have to think how we are going to solve it. Youre on autopilot until you hit a disruption, and 3D represents a disruption.
MOSIS joins push for silicon photonics tech
Monday, May 6, 2013
EE Times Asia
MOSIS, a provider of low-cost prototyping and small volume production services for custom ICs, has partnered with ePIXfab, the European Silicon Photonics support centre that offers low-cost prototyping services for photonic ICs. According to the company, the venture gives MOSIS' customers access to Imec's modern fully integrated silicon photonics processes and Tyndall's advanced silicon photonics packaging technology.
Adaptive IP is the wave of the future
Thursday, May 2, 2013
EE Times
In electronics, configurable and adaptive are terms often associated with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and not blocks of intellectual property (IP). And just like configurable FPGAs were 20 years ago, adaptive IP is the wave of the future.
More and more often, system-on-chip (SoC) designs make use of third-party IP. So much so, that surveys peg the percentage of IP content in a typical SoC at 70% or more, with many of these SoCs implemented in more advanced process nodes. At 28 nanometer (nm), process variation effects and dynamic variations due to fluctuating operating conditions may obstruct system performance or cause system instability.
Car, wireless apps push pressure sensors as top MEMS segment
Thursday, April 25, 2013
EE Times Asia
According to the recent prediction from IHS, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) pressure sensors will experience tremendous growth this year to become the leading type of MEMS device. The forecast is driven and hinges on the equally healthy market for automotive and handset markets, noted the market research company.
3-D interposers stack chips
Friday, April 19, 2013
EE Times
Everybody agrees that three-dimensional (3-D) chip stacks are the future of semiconductor integration, but today the problem of removing heat from the inner layers is daunting, prompting the use of silicon interposers.
Cavendish Kinetics MEMS Gets Actual Mbps Nearer To Theoretical Mbps
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Electronics Weekly
Cavendish Kinetics has an answer to the the widening gap between actual mobile data rates and theoretically achievable data rates.
GSM in the 90s achieved actual data rates close to the theoretical maxiimum but, ever since, the gap between actual and theoretical has widened.
'4G technology supports data rates of 80Mbps,' says Cavendish Kinetics, 'but in practice delivers only 1-8Mbps for many users.'
STMicro tops MEMS market ranking
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
EE Times
The traditional gap between the big four MEMS makers and the rest of the pack narrowed this year, as strong demand for more MEMS sensors in both consumer and automotive markets drove strong growth across a range of suppliers. Knowles Electronics saw better than 20 percent growth to climb into fourth place with some $440 million in revenues from MEMS microphones, closing in on HP. Panasonic and Denso were close behind with more than $350 million in MEMS sales in their largely automotive markets.
Going 3D by Evolution Rather Than Revolution: 2.5D, 3D, 5.5D-IC and Beyond
Friday, April 12, 2013
Synopsys
Introduction
In 2004, a visionary keynote by STMicroelectronics Carlo Cognetti at the Napa KGD Packaging & Test Workshop entitled Much More than Moore proposed that more than Moore (i.e., the 3D-IC integration of complete, heterogeneous systems in the same package) is complementary to silicon-level integration, which is ruled by the well-known and established more of Moore, and suggested that the final result of combining more than Moore and more of Moore is surprisingly more advanced than what is allowed by the simple progression of the technology nodes.
At that time, the road to 3D-IC integration was unclear, R&D engineers at all levels of the supply chain were debating the different options, and 3D-IC was considered a technology of the future. We have made a great deal of progress, and today, 3D-IC integration has become the technology for the future rather than the technology of the future.
TSMC Responds to Samsung!
Friday, April 12, 2013
SemiWiki
This was the 19th annual TSMC Symposium and by far the best I have attended. Finally tired of the misinformation that plagues our industry, TSMC set the record straight with wafer and silicon correlated data. TSMC shipped more than 88 MILLION logic wafers in 2012, more than any other semiconductor company, that gives them significant bragging rights which they rarely exercise. It was standing room only (I counted 1,200+ chairs) not including the 48 ecosystem partner companies manning the booths next door.
Health consciousness fuels quadruple growth for MEMS sensors
Thursday, April 11, 2013
EE Times
Activity monitors such as the FitLinxx Pebble and Fitbug, for instance, are increasingly finding their way into consumers' hands as employers seek to augment their corporate wellness strategies, noted Shane Walker, senior manager for consumer & digital health research at IHS. "In the United States, this is due in part to the growth of consumer-directed healthcare plans and the Affordable Care Act, which is incentivizing insurers. These corporate programmes are opening yet another channel of distribution for new monitoring devices," he said.
Industry Inches Towards 3D Chips
Monday, April 8, 2013
Semiconductor Design & Manufacturing
GlobalFoundries has announced several milestones in the 2.5D/3D chip arenaa series of events that brings the technology one step closer to mass production.
On the 3D front, GlobalFoundries has produced its first functional 20nm silicon wafers with integrated through-silicon vias (TSVs). At its Fab 8 facility in Saratoga County, N.Y., the silicon foundry vendor manufactured TSV test wafers using its 20nm-LPM process technology.
3D stacking is the future of chip design, says Xilinx
Thursday, March 28, 2013
EE Times Asia
Since the beginning of semiconductor development, chip designers have stuck with Moore's Law, integrating more and more functionality onto their chips. Veteran chip architect Liam Madden, vice president of FPGA development at Xilinx, said during his keynote speech at the annual International Symposium on Physical Systems, that designers can have their 3D cake and eat it, too.
TSMC on Collaboration: JIT Ecosystem Development
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
SemiWiki
Cliff Hou of TSMC gave the keynote today at SNUG on Collaborate to Innovate: a Foundry's Perspective. Starting around 45nm the way that a foundry has to work with its ecosystem fundamentally changed. Up until then, each process generation was similar enough to the previous one, apart obviously from size, that it could be designed with the EDA tools already out there. Yes, new factors like signal integrity would grow in importance but this happened over several process generations and so was incremental. Basically, designers would wait for the first release of the Spice decks and the DRC rule decks and then get going.
MEMS pressure sensors in cellphones set to rise to 681M units in 2016
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Solid State Technology
With the introduction of the Galaxy S4, Samsung Electronics continues to lead the market in the adoption of pressure sensors in smartphones, paving the way for massive growth in the market for these devices in the coming years.
Global shipments of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) pressure sensors in cellphones are set to rise to 681 million units in 2016, up more than eightfold from 82 million in 2012, according to the IHS iSuppli MEMS & Sensors Service at information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). Shipments this year are expected to double to 162 million units, as presented in the attached figure, primarily due to Samsungs usage of pressure sensors in the Galaxy S4 and other smartphone models.
A Brief History of the Foundry Industry, part 2
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
SemiWiki
Part 1 here.
The line between fabless semiconductor companies and IDMs has blurred over the last decade. Back in the 1990s, most IDMs manufactured most of their own product, perhaps using a foundry for a small percentage of additional capacity when required. But their own manufacturing was competitive, both in terms of the capacity of fab they could afford to build, and in terms of process technology.
The Interposer workshop in Austin
Sunday, March 10, 2013
3D InCites
Did anyone miss the Sound of Music bit during the Oscars? Anyway, with the sounds of The Hills are alive.. in my head, I drove off the next day down to the Hill Country in Austin to the invitation-only, On The Road to Fine Feature IC Package Substrates and Interposers Workshop, hosted by Jan Vardaman of TechSearch International.
This is a nice, comfortable-sized venue with approximately 100 attendees that makes for some very interesting one-on-one conversations.
Flip-chip platform to lift wafer shipments
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
EE Times
The flip-chip platform will grow by threefold over the next five years to reach over 40 million 12" equivalent wafer (eq) start per year, according to research firm Yole Développement.
MEMS Microphones Enjoy Banner Year with Nearly 60 Percent Shipment Growth
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
iSupply
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphones that provide clear sound quality in mobile devices made a major splash last year with brisk shipment and revenue growth, thanks to four major applications that helped the market grow by leaps and bounds, according to an IHS iSuppli MEMS & Sensors special report from information and analytics provider IHS.
SSIA: MEMS to go mainstream this year
Thursday, February 21, 2013
EE Times Asia
EE Times Asia reached out to the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association for their take on market trends and notable technologies to watch out for in 2013. SSIA discusses how the current economic environment is affecting its member companies and the steps it is taking to ensure the continued career growth of electronic engineers in the country.
TSMC ♥ Cadence
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
SemiWiki
In a shocking move TSMC now favors Cadence over Synopsys! Okay, not so shocking, especially after the Synopsys acquisitions of Magma, Ciranova, SpringSoft, and the resulting product consolidations. Not shocking to me at all since my day job is Strategic Foundry Relationships for emerging EDA, IP, and fabless companies.
Assertion Synthesis: Atrenta, Cadence and AMD Tell All
Monday, February 11, 2013
SemiWiki
Assertion Synthesis is a new tool for verification and design engineers that can be used with simulation or emulation. At DVCon Yuan Lu of Atrenta is presenting a tutorial on Atrenta's BugScope along with John Henri Jr of Cadence explaining how it helps emulation and Baosheng Wang of AMD discussing their experiences of the product.
Could Less than Moore be better to support Mobile segment explosion?
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
SemiWiki
If you take a look at the explosion of the Mobile segment, linked with the fantastic world-wide adoption of smartphone and media tablet, you clearly see that the SC industry evolution during at least- the next five years will be intimately correlated with the mobile segments. Not really a surprise, but the question I would like to raise is: will this explosion of SC revenue in mobile segment will only be supported be applying Moore law (race for integration, more and more functionalities in a single chip targeting the most advanced technology nodes), or could we imagine that some subsequent mobile sub-segment could be served by less integrated solution, offering much faster TTM and finally better business model and more profit?
European 3D TSV Summit: But Wait, Theres More!
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
3D InCites
Day Two of the European 3D TSV Summit dawned bright and clear, with such a spectacular view of the nearby French Alps that it took real commitment to stay indoors and focus on the task at hand. But I have to admit that for the most part, it was worth the sacrifice to hear what this collection of speakers had to say.
STMicroelectronics Ships Three Billionth MEMS Chip and Reinforces Its Lead in Motion Sensors for Phones, Tablets and Other Consumer Devices
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Market Wire
STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, today announced it has shipped three billion MEMS sensors to date -- laid side by side, these chips would exceed the height of Mt Everest[1]. The achievement reconfirms ST's position as the clear leader in MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) devices for consumer and portable applications[2].
According to information and analytics firm IHS, ST's total MEMS and sensor sales grew more than 19% in 2012, reaching a total of approximately $800 million. In the largest of these markets, motion sensors in mobile handsets and tablets, ST's MEMS sales accounted for 48% of the market, well more than twice as large as that of its closest competitor, according to IHS.
Cisco packs silicon photonics on 3-D ICs
Monday, January 28, 2013
EE Times
Cisco Systems is prototyping silicon photonics using 2.5-D silicon interposers, according to a senior engineering executive in a keynote at DesignCon here. The communications giant is one of a handful of companies trying to harness the technology to drive down the costs of next-generation networks.
