As reported by EETimes from the European MEMS Summit last month, French research institute CEA-Leti has manufactured accelerometer MEMS devices on 300mm-diameter wafers. This technology is currently being transferred to Tronics Microsystems SA (Grenoble, France), which currently only manufactures on 200mm wafers. Since CEA-Leti has long functioned as the R&D group for STMicroelectronics (ST), and previously led the way for ST to produce MEMS chips on 200mm-diameter wafers, we may expect that 300mm-wafer MEMS processing is now on ST’s internal roadmap.
Moving production to larger wafers makes sense when either the chip-size or the manufacturing volume increase in size. Much of the growth in demand for MEMS is for so-called “combo” sensors that combine multiple sensor technologies, such as CEA-Leti’s piezo-resistive silicon nanowire technology which allows the accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, and pressure sensor capability to be integrated on the same chip.
The compatibility of Leti’s 200mm-developed technologies with 300mm wafer fabrication, “shows a significant opportunity to cut MEMS production costs,” said Leti CEO Marie Semeria in a press release. “This will be especially important with the worldwide expansion of the Internet of Things and continued growing demand for MEMS in mobile devices.” Sensors of all sorts will be needed for all of the different “Things” to be able to capture new useful information, so we may expect that demand for combo MEMS devices will continue to increase.
—E.K.