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MAY 2011 issue n°112
THE DISRUPTIVE SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGIES MAGAZINE
MEMS
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Dutch company SolMateS enables next
generations MEMS products
SolMateS receives a three million dollar investment for the final
development phase of their piezoelectric deposition machine.
On the 27 th of April 2011, SolMateS received a substantial investment from
private equity funds Twente Technology Fund and Participatiemaatschappij
Oost Nederland. SolMateS will use the investment to accelerate product
development and international expansion for its unique production system.
Piezoelectric layers are to be used in
all kinds of miniature systems were
precise actuation is needed, for
instance in small motors, RF MEMS
components or micro pumps. Currently
those layers are deposited by
notoriously unreliable and costly wet
processing. Price and quality are not
meeting the high volume electronic
industry’s standards. SolMateS
technology is developed at the
University of Twente, and is the most
advanced manufacturing solution
Wafer deposited with Piezo material and
top electrodes (Courtesy of SolMateS)
currently available to deposit piezoelectric thin films. It marks a whole new era of
MEMS and will be used to create essential components for the next-generation mobile
electronics, thin film actuators and medical devices. SolMateS introduces the
PiezoFlare 1200. The PiezoFlare 1200 is an automated deposition system for PZT
thin films on 6" or 8" wafers, based on pulsed laser deposition. It offers high-yield piezo
performance and flexibility for customized PZT compositions. The technology enables
for the first time high volume reliable production capability for PZT thin film deposition.
www.solmates.nl
ULIS introduces Pico640, a new VGA
17-micron uncooled infrared imaging
sensor with enhanced factor of merit
Factor of merit, a relative measure of thermal sensor sensitivity
against response rate, will allow camera makers to see
how well Pico640E’s optimum performance compares to
other uncooled IR imaging sensors on the market.
ULIS announced that it will launch Pico640E, a new VGA 640 x 480
17-micron IR imaging sensor that offers new advantages in size,
performance and factor of merit. It responds to needs from camera
manufacturers and other imaging-system designers for large format, small-form
factor, uncooled IR sensors that optimize the trade-off between performance and
sensor response speed. Pico640E is a high-resolution (more than 300,000 pixels)
IR imaging sensor that comes in a small footprint (24.13 x 24.13 x 5.57mm). In
tests, it has demonstrated a high response speed with a thermal time constant of
8.8 ms and a thermal resolution less than 45 mK. This translates into a uniform
pixel factor of merit (400 mK.ms), meaning Pico640E compares very favorably
with other IR products in its category. The versatility of its high-quality, compact
design means that it can perform long-range detection up to approximately 2km,
depending on the target, as well as detect fast-moving objects. These performance
advantages make Pico640E well adapted for military applications, as well as
thermography, predictive maintenance and 24/7 camera surveillance.
The performance Pico640E achieves is also a plus for image-fusion applications,
which use both visible and IR images. Visible sensors have a much faster response
rate than IR sensors, so there is often a time lag between visible and IR images
when the camera is panning. Due to Pico640E’s fast response rate, it minimizes
the delay between visible and IR images when they are superimposed, thereby
improving overall image quality.
www.ulis-ir.com
Key Enabling
Technology for
Advanced
Semiconductor
Manufacturing?
Permanent
Wafer
Bonding
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