Mobile Phones Driving MEMS Sensors to $6B

Free subscription on www.i-micronews.com
ISSUE N°15 • JULY 2013
M a g a z i n e o n M E M S T e c h n o l o g i e s & M a r k e t s
Printedonrecycledpaper
MEMS’
Trends
POWERED BY YOLE DÉVELOPPEMENT
COMPANY INSIGHT
Sensirion brings
temperature and
humidity sensors
to the mobile phones
INDUSTRY REVIEW
Sensor devices connected
to the mobile phones
ANALYST CORNER
Smart phones and tablets
on track to become
$6 billion opportunity
for MEMS sensors

SAVE THE DATE
NOVEMBER 4-6, 2013
Sonoma, CA, USA
PLATINUM SPONSORS
enjoy exclusive plenary sessions; hours of one-on-one meeting opportunities, plus a variety of social activities.
Mark your calendar, and help shape the future of inertial devices.
For more information, please contact S.Leroy (leroy@yole.fr) or visit www.memsinmotion.com
“I am extremely pleased with MEMS in Motion. It was great and I am looking
forward to next year’s summit!”
Vincent Fortin, Teledyne DALSA
MEMS in Motion 2012 Participant
“Some conferences you have just speakers and listeners, presentation after
presentation. Forums like MEMS in Motion force interaction between people
which tend to be more productive meetings. I would recommend this event to
other industry people—100 percent.”
Tom Flynn, Coventor
MEMS in Motion 2012 Participant
The sensor application
is now driving the MEMS
market !
Status
of the MEMS Industry
Discover the NEW report on
www.i-Micronews.com/reports

E D I T O R I A L
M E M S ’ T r e n d s 3
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
PLATINUM PARTNERS:
Smartphones & tablets applications driving MEMS
sensors integration
For many of you, the coming weeks will be a well-deserved period of rest. Lying
on the beach, this edition of MEMS trends will provide you just what you need to
relax and dream about future applications of MEMS devices and new technology
trends. For instance, you will read how mobile phones are becoming a hub for
wearable sensors for leisure, activity monitoring or even health monitoring.
Mobile phones and tablets are not only driving the current demand of MEMS
sensors, but are also a source development for both new generation and new
types of sensors, mainly towards smaller, highly integrated and low power
consumption. The value of MEMs used in cell phones and tablets increased by
$500M in 2012 and is expected to grow to $6.4B by 2018. New applications such
as indoor navigation, weather stations or voice recognition, and many others
are paving the way for other types of devices lead by RF MEMS, optical MEMS,
pressure and humidity sensors.
For instance, Sensirion has released a humidity sensor to the market, which
is now included in a number of mobile phones in Japan and recently into the
Samsung Galaxy S4. Moving forward, you will read how sensors are playing a
supporting role for the development of complex applications such as location based
services and indoor navigation. To make it happen, it requires the combination of
different types and sensors (pressure sensors, accelerometers, RFMEMS…) and
development of appropriate software, which is new for MEMS players.
We wish you a pleasant reading.
Frédéric Breussin,
Business Unit Manager, MEMS & Sensors,
Yole Développement
For more information, please contact S. Leroy (leroy@yole.fr)
...You will read how
sensors are playing
a supporting role
for the development
of complex
applications...
• SEMICON Taiwan
Sept. 4 to 6 - Taipei, Taiwan
• MEPTEC/Medical Electronics Symposium
Sept. 17 to 18 - Tempe, AZ, USA
• MEPTEC / Semiconductor Roadmaps
Symposium
Sept. 24 - Santa Clara, CA, USA
• Chinano
Sept. 24 to 27 - Suzhou, China
• SEMICON Europa
Oct. 8 to 10 - Dresden, Germany
E V E N T S

J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
GOLD PARTNERS:
FINANCIAL BUZZ
• Memsic is finally acquired 6
INDUSTRY REVIEW
• Innovations all along the value chain will create new markets for sensor
devices connected to the mobile phone 8
COMPANY INSIGHT
• Sensirion brings temperature and humidity sensors to the mobile phones 12
• Qualcomm works on building the ecosystem for indoor navigation
and location based services 14
• Freescale sees sensor hub as near term solution for integration of more sensors 16
• Cavendish Kinetics’ expects its RF MEMS to be in consumer product by end of year 18
• Tactus Technology uses microfluidics for pop-up keyboard on the touchscreen 20
ANALYST CORNER
• Smart phones and tablets on track to become $6 billion opportunity
for MEMS sensors 22
EVENT REVIEW
• MEMS in Motion collaboration event moves to Sonoma this November 25
• Innovation opportunities in Europe for Swiss SMEs 26
REVERSE ENGINEERING
• Adding value to MEMS with bigger die 27
C O N T E N T S
FROM I-MICRONEWS.COM
Stay connected with your peers
on i-Micronews.com
W i t h 2 2 , 0 0 0 m o n t h l y v i s i t o r s ,
i-Micronews.com provides for MEMS
area: current news, market &
technological analysis, key leader
interviews, webcasts section, reverse
engineering / costing, events calendar,
latest reports…
Please visit our website to discover the
last top stories in MedTech - Microfluidics
and BioMEMS:
• Latest report: Status of the MEMS
Industry
• Next webcast: Manufacturing trends
for consumer inertial MEMS, on Nov.13
at 8.00 AM PDT (Sponsored by MIG)
• News: MEMSCAP ships 50 million MEMS
devices for the consumer market
• News: Meet with key partners to turn
your innovation into success …
4 M E M S ’ T r e n d s
Environmental sensing.
(Courtesy of Sensirion)

Sponsored by Hosted by
Teledyne DALSA announces MIDIS™, the MEMS Integrated Design
for Inertial Sensors platform. MIDIS™ is the new MEMS technology ideal
for high volume / low cost inertial sensing applications.
MIDIS™ PLATFORM BREAKS THE
ONE-PROCESS-PER-PRODUCT
MEMS PARADIGM
WEBCAST AVAILABLE TODAY
To view or review the webcast, please go to I-Micronews.com
and access the Archived Webcast section.
SEMI MEMSTech Seminar
Bringing MEMS science to the heart of MEMS industrial success
Sponsored by:
Hosted by:
26 September 2013, Castelletto (Italy) - www.semi.org/eu
Hosted by STMicroelectronics
Organized by:
Contact: adutron@semi.org
This Tech Seminar is a SEMI Europe initiative to support European companies, start ups and laboratories involved
in the growing MEMS market.
Fraunhofer-IZM
Lab4MEMS (KET pilot line)
Microcontrol Electronic
Keynotes
Invited talks from executives & technical experts
Speed Networking sessions
Networking Dinner on Sept 25th
The Tech Seminar will feature:
STMicroelectronics
Süss MicroTec
Yole Developpement
NetworkingDayking

Memsic is finally acquired
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
F I N A N C I A L B U Z Z
Laurent Robin,
Activity Leader,
Inertial MEMS Devices
& Technologies,
Yole Développement
Memsic has finally agreed to be acquired by IDG, which announced its intentions
back in November ‘12. The acquisition price of $4.225 per share seems rather
high, considering that the stock was trading at around $1.74 before the November
announcement.
Company Product type
Transaction
type
Transaction
value
(USD)
Acquirer Yole Développement comment
April 2013
Memsic
(USA/CN)
MEMS
accelerometers,
magnetometers,
flow sensors,
inertial systems
Acquisition $102M
IDG-Accel China
Capital II, L.P. and
Affiliates
See above article
BodyMedia
(USA)
Wearable
electronics: arm
bands, disposable
fitness patches,
etc.
Acquisition $100M+
Jawbone (an Aliph
Inc. company)
Wearable electronics is heating up and represents a large
market opportunity for MEMS sensor manufacturers.
BodyMedia integrates MEMS accelerometers (from Kionix
and ST) into its fitness application systems. We note that
no gyroscopes are presently used; this would enable more
precise monitoring and new Sports applications, but power
consumption would be too high. However, gyroscopes could
be part of larger, future systems.
On the heels of its current product -- a wrist device that
must be worn for six months -- BodyMedia is targeting
a much larger market with its new product: a disposable
patch worn for one week, with a $30 sales price.
Owl biomedical
(USA)
MEMS-based cell
sorting platform
Acquisition NA Miltenyi Biotec
Incorporated in 2010, OWL biomedical (previously "J2D
BioMedical, Inc."), a spin-off of IMT, a MEMS foundry, was
an early-stage company that developed a disruptive cell
sorting technology based on a silicon chip. This technology
will compliment Miltenyi Biotec's sample preparation and
cell isolation portfolios.
M&A
M
emsic is well-known for being the first
large MEMS company to be publicly traded.
The introductory share price was $10 in
December 2007, but it never went higher. Thus,
and to state the obvious, Memsic was not a big
success as a listed company. The reason for this
is linked to the company’s market and technology
position over the years: although Memsic focused
on the fastest-growing sensor segments (consumer
accelerometers, followed by magnetometers), it
was rarely able to become a major player. Specific
to accelerometers, Memsic’s thermal technology
had some benefits, but too many drawbacks for
the mobile market (power consumption, difficulty
in obtaining multi-axis integration, etc.). Regarding
magnetometers, Memsic was at one time shipping
very high volumes to Samsung, but this suddenly
stopped for reasons unknown (probably because
margins were way too low; also, there were rumors
of reliability issues).
Although Memsic was rarely able to turn a profit
in the past, that doesn’t mean the company can’t
have a bright future. There are good reasons for
positive expectations; reasons which explain IDG’s
unusually high valuation:
• Memsic developed a diversified portfolio in terms of
product types and end-applications (in automotive,
mobile phones and other consumer devices).
• Memsic controls many sensor types (and should
add more in the near future, with gyroscopes
being key) and has sensor fusion knowledge
thanks to their 2010 acquisition of Crossbow. This
will be important for future success, since the
market will require modules that combine sensors
for more integration, lower cost and sensor fusion.
• New technology platforms are being developed with
partners such as TSMC. We expect this will involve
technologies more suitable for integration, and thus
suitable for Mobile markets (Capacitive Detection,
likely).
• Lastly, Memsic is currently very focused on and
well-connected to the local Chinese market. In fact,
Memsic is currently the only Chinese player able to
provide inertial sensors in high volumes. This area
will experience considerable growth in the coming
years, and Memsic’s cost structure seems focused on
providing sensors at the market-required low cost.
However, significant challenges do remain, as large
players (STMicroelectronics, Bosch, InvenSense)
have already developed a strong foothold in sensors
and combos for mobile applications. Thus, it will be
interesting to see if Memsic can increase its market
presence, or whether it will remain a niche-area
player (which is not always bad, as this approach
could be profitable).
Stay tuned!

Investment
type
New
investment
level (USD)
Investors Yole Développement comment
April 13
Hurel
(USA)
Artificial tissue
constructs and
microfluidic
cell-based assay
platforms
Serie A $9.2M
Spring Mountain
Capital (+ several
other private investor
entities)
Hurel is developing a patented lab-on-chip technology that
uses microfluidic pump.
RainDance
Technologies
(USA)
Lab-on-chip Serie E $20M
Myriad Genetics
+ existing investors
(Mohr Davidow
Ventures, Quaker
BioVentures, Alloy
Ventures, Acadia
Woods Partners,
and Sectoral Asset
Management)
RainDance Technologies is a leader in microfluidic technology
for Single-Cell Analysis, and has many customers worldwide.
The company has developed a unique technology, based on
polymer chips, that allows for tiny, uniform droplets. This
technology can be used for DNA sequencing with high
throughput, proteomics, and any other Single-Cell Analysis
application. Currently, the chips are produced at Sony DADC.
This funding will be used by RainDance to develop its next
generation of solutions and relocate to a new headquarters.
May 2013
Proteus Digital
Health
(USA)
Bio-MEMS:
ingestible sensors
Serie F $62.5M
Oracle + existing
investors (Otsuka,
Novartis, Sino Portfolio
and others)
Proteus is a well-funded company, with a-list investors including
Medtronic, Novartis, St Jude Medical, On Semiconductor, and
now Oracle.
Proteus has developed 1mm² ingestible sensors that monitor
a patient's pill ingestion identity and timing via a small amount
of voltage that's generated when the sensor contacts stomach
fluid. This information, along with information on activity, heart
rate and body position, can be shared with the patient's doctor.
FDA approval was obtained in 2012; commercialization and
technology integration is ongoing.
Plures
Technologies
(USA)
MEMS and
thin-film magnetic
devices
Capital raise
(secured
term loan
+ convertible
notes)
$5M
An unnamed
"sophisticated
specialty finance
lender that focuses on
growing technology-
based companies" +
existing shareholders,
including RENN
Capital and Cedarview
Capital, along with
Plures' management
team
Plures' is the parent company of Avanced Microsensors (AMS)
foundry. AMS is known for being Memsic's magnetometer
foundry. We note that in 2012, AMS' revenue increased slightly
to $5.5M, with a net loss of $4.3M. This is in line with Memsic's
flat magnetometer year, since its main customer, Samsung,
departed in '12.
AMS is involved in various promising magnetometer technologies
and in other types of MEMS devices, including switches.
Qualtre
(USA)
MEMS gyroscope 5th round $3M Alps Electric
Alps Electric is willing to become a key MEMS player. Alps
already enjoys large magnetometer and MEMS pressure
sensor production, and has developed many other sensor
types, such as humidity and UV sensors.
Under the agreement, Alps provides Qualtre with
manufacturing services (in particular for the packaging
part), and we expect that Alps will commercialize Qualtre's
gyroscope sensors in high-volume markets -- namely
Consumer and Automotive, where Alps has a large component
business. Commercialization of the first products generation
should occur by early/mid-2014.
Qualtre's BAW technology has a unique IP position, which
is a key advantage in today's gyro landscape. Other value
propositions include high performance (vibration sensitivity,
noise, drift) and the possibility of integrating an accelerometer
on the same die.
New investments (VC rounds, IPOs)
www.yole.fr
I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
7M E M S ’ T r e n d s
M&A
Transaction
type
Transaction
value
(USD)
Acquirer Yole Développement comment
May 2013
Axiom IC
(NL)
Circuits related to
data converters
and audio (low-
power, high-
resolution, etc.)
Acquisition NA Teledyne Dalsa
Axiom was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of the University
of Twente. Dalsa's motivation for this acquisition is to add
a team of mixed signal circuit design specialists. This will
not specifically be synergic with Dalsa's MEMS foundry
business, but rather with the company's Digital Imaging
and HV ASIC activities.
June 2013
Xactix
(USA)
Xenon difluoride
(XeF2) etch tools
Acquisition NA SPTS
Xactix was the leader in XeF2 etching technology. This
specific etching method is of high interest for RF MEMS and
MEMS displays in particular, where metallic materials can be
etched with an exceptional aspect ratio.
This acquisition follows several years of development,
marketing and sales between SPTS and Xactix.

I N D U S T R Y R E V I E W
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
Innovations all along the value
chain will create new markets for
sensor devices connected to the
mobile phone
M E M S ’ T r e n d s8
N
ow that the smartphone provides a handy
processing platform, others are developing
innovative types of sensors as well that
will enable a wide variety of new kinds of wearable
devices and other connected products. These include
integrated combo sensors for smarter activity
tracking, ﬂexible sensor packaging that conforms
to the body, and low power gas sensors for new
applications. Wearable device makers are also
starting to ﬁgure out what consumers actually want
in these new markets.
Compact, low power combo sensors
enable next generation wearable
devices
The current generation of wearable devices has
made big strides with sophisticated algorithms that
derive an impressive range of information from
an accelerometer. But the coming generation of
connected devices will add more sensors to deliver
smaller size, lower power and better recognition
of different activities, often from combo sensor
devices that include gyroscopes, accelerometers,
pressure sensors, and magnetometers.
“We have multiple customers already in production
with 6- and 9-axis integrated combo sensors, and
new products coming to consumers early next
year,” says Ali Foughi, InvenSense VP of Marketing
and Business Development. “To improve activity
detection and overall calorie- count accuracy, most
wearable sensor designs are using a combination of
accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, and pressure
sensors.” Foughi suggests that classifying users’
activities, seeing how much time they spend doing
different activities and how many calories they burn,
is a major driver of demand for wearable devices.
Plenty of health conscience consumers want to
know and track more details about how hard, far
Mobile phones are not only driving the current demand for MEMS sensors, but
also provide a platform that is driving development of a new generation of sensor
technology for wearable devices that connect to these ever-present computers.
“We have multiple
customers already in
production with
6- and 9-axis
integrated combo
sensors, and new
products coming to
consumers early next
year,” says Ali Foughi,
InvenSense.
MC10's sensor system can stretch
and bend. (Coutesy of MC10)
I N D U S T R Y R E V I E W

and fast they run, bike, golf, kick, or swim.
Adding the pressure sensor and a gyroscope
for example, will help accurately detect and
measure different activities, resulting in a
more precise calculation of calories burned or
energy expended.
These higher levels of sensor integration
are enabling whole new accessory markets.
“There will be more opportunities for mobile
accessories which collect data from multiple
on-board sensors, process and transfer it via
Bluetooth LE to the smart phone which moves
it directly to the cloud via the cellular network,”
says Foughi. “Applications in this area include
fitness watches and activity trackers, extreme
sports cameras, and sports equipment from
soccer shoes to basketballs to tennis rackets
to golf clubs.”
“The market leaders in wearables will move
to the lowest power and smallest sensors
available,” says Foughi. Power is particularly
a challenge for wearable devices. Users may
recharge their phones every night, but they
expect their wearable devices to operate a
week or two between charges. Foughi reports
that InvenSense made its own reference
design which includes its 9-axis SoC and
several other sensors and found it needed
charging only once a week. The company says
the inertial sensors, calibration and fusion
algorithms in the 9-axis device have power
dissipation of 6.7mW, all in a 3 x 3 x 1mm
QFN package.
Flexible sensor systems enable
better monitoring of the body
More can be done with wearable sensors if
they can be attached directly to the body,
in more flexible, conformable systems. One
potential solution is MC10’s flexible packaging,
squiggly, stretchy metal interconnects for
connecting thinned sensors, all embedded in
flexible polymer. First commercial application
is in the recently released Reebok Checklight
soft sensing skull cap, which measures
impacts to the head to warn sports players
and coaches of possible injuries.
The first generation product puts the
smallest commercially available BGA 3-axis
accelerometer and 3-axis gyro on flex circuit
substrate, and then encapsulates the system
in flexible protective layers to robustly
withstand flexing in use. The cap analyzes
the seriousness of the impact and signals with
a warning light when it reaches dangerous
levels. “The system needs a gyroscope as
well as an accelerometer because the rotation
is also a significant factor in head injuries,”
notes Kevin Dowling, MC10 VP of R&D.
The second generation of this head-impact
monitor, now being built, and many of MC10’s
other wearable sensor products also in
development, will used thinned bare die instead
of packaged MEMS and ICs for more flexible
systems. The company thins the die or wafers
down from millimeters to only microns thick,
connects them with the springy interconnects
and encapsulates them in layers of silicone.
Clever design creates a neutral mechanical
plane between tensed and compressed layers
to protect these thinned die.
These stretchy sensor systems with thinned
die can then be adhered directly to the
skin like a bandaid and send out their data
wirelessly. This close contact with the skin also
allows direct measurement of more biological
data--such as hydration, body temperature
and electrical signals from the heart-- using
other unique flexible sensors that MC10 has
developed in house. “The proximity to the
skin results in high fidelity data requiring less
processing,” says Dowling.
The flexible packaging also enables data to
be gathered from inside the body as well, by
putting the sensors on the tip of a catheter.
One application in development puts the
flexible, stretchy sensors on a kind of balloon,
then inserts the system through a blood
vessel and inflates it once it reaches a target
organ. The conformal contact inside the blood
vessels there allows collection of a dense set
of electrical measurements over an area of
the heart, for example, for a clearer picture
of heart function to plan and evaluate ablation
treatment for atrial fibulation.
More form factors help drive
commercialization of new kinds
of sensors
The growing acceptance of the range of
devices connected to smart phones to convert
sensor data into useful information could also
ease the adoption of new kinds of sensors.
One interesting possibility could be chemical
sensors, now that the makers of such sensors
are seeing interest from potential users,
and have turned their attention to reducing
the size and power usage of the devices to
make them better suited for mobile platforms.
I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
Smartphones and tablets: at the core
of wearable electronics / Connected devices
Example of new devices
(Source: MEMS for Cell Phones and Tablets, Yole Développement, June 2013)
MPU 9150-cutaway. (Courtesy of InvenSense)

J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
M E M S ’ T r e n d s10
One example is Synkera’s gas sensor technology
for detecting carbon monoxide, volatile organic
compounds or breath alcohol. The company is
now sampling a low power micromachined sensor
in a 3x3mm surface mount package, suitable for
integration in a mobile device or wearable tag, to a
range of potential integrators.
While Synkera is well established in its industrial
markets for gas sensors for worker health and
safety, it hadn’t seen much reason before to try to
make them ultra small or ultra low power. But with
the rising sophistication of mobile phones, the US
Department of Homeland Security started looking
for proposals for miniature gas sensors for mobile
devices, and Synkera partnered with Qualcomm
to develop a carbon monoxide sensor that worked
with motion sensors and a phone app to identify
a person down from CO poisoning and alert help,
which it demonstrated with emergency responders’
communication systems.
“Hundreds of people die from the CO poisoning
every year, even though sensors are available for
buildings,” says Debra Deininger, VP of strategic
business, noting that connecting the gas sensors to
smarter devices that can detect if a person is in the
area and not moving and alert help could be much
more useful than just mounting them on a wall.
Synkera’s technology relies on a nanoporous
ceramic to create a large surface area for the
chemical reactant, then senses the big change
in resistance when the reactant reacts with the
target gas. The large surface area is composed
of regularly arrayed columnar holes, made simply
by anodizing aluminum to create aluminum oxide.
“It’s a simple process you could do in your garage
with aluminum foil and acid, but the trick is doing it
controllably, to make the holes of the desired size,
as small as 10nm or up to 150-200nm,” Deininger
explains. The company then isolates the small
sensor area by micromachining, and adds thin film
platinum heaters and bond pads. The heater is used
to activate some sensing reactions and then clear
out the detected chemicals afterwards. It reduces
power usage by cycling on and off, currently
reportedly averaging <1mW for most applications.
Since the area needed to sense the CO is only a few
microns, the company is now working on putting
more sensors into the same packaging, or making
the package smaller.
The same basic platform with different reactants or
temperatures can detect CO, VOCs for indoor air
quality, alcohol in the breath, and NOx and ozone
for environmental air quality, while the anodized
aluminum oxide alone can also serve to measure
humidity. Air quality measures would be particularly
useful for alerting people with compromised lung
function to modify their activities depending on
local conditions, for which the company reports
considerable interest particularly from Asia. Further
out, the sensors could potentially detect changes in
physiological markers in the breath for health and
fitness monitoring.
“About 30% of the interest now is for carbon
monoxide sensing,” says Deininger. “But we expect
to see most of these applications in the market
within the next two years.”
But mass market needs no-fuss devices
While there will clearly be a wide range of wearable
sensor sensor devices with different functions to
come, it remains unclear which applications will see
major demand. The successful devices so far are
targeted primarily at helping a general user increase
their daily level of activity and potentially improve
fitness and lose weight. That means the first key
issues have been to design a device comfortable
and attractive enough so people will wear it all the
time, and to make it easy and appealing enough to
use that they will be motivated to keep using it, and
to change what they do.
“What is important is to link the sensor and hardware
to intelligent software, and to give users the tools to
analyze the data and share their experience,” says
Benoit Raimbault, marketing, EMEA, for Fitbit, one
of the leading makers of fitness trackers so far. “And
it has to be so comfortable to wear that you can
forget about it.”
Fitbit targets the mass market where it figures
people simply want to track their everyday activities,
not details of specific sports performance or health
indicators. Its newest generation of products added
Bluetooth for simple wireless syncing with the phone
as key to ease of use. But it offers a choice of some
trade offs between accuracy and convenience with
its different models. The company’s clip-on product
“Reebok Checklight
soft sensing skull cap
measures impacts
to the head to warn
sports players and
coaches of possible
injuries,” notes
Kevin Dowling, MC10.
UltraKera SMT. (Courtesy of Synkera)

I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
includes a pressure sensor to give data on flights of
stairs as well as steps, for more accurate calculation
of calories burned, and a display that shows the
number of steps taken. Its flexible wrist band
model, on the other hand, uses a more compact
sensor unit with only an accelerometer for coarser
data, but with a smaller device in a narrow band
more suitable for wearing all the time. This can add
sleep monitoring, while eliminating the hassle of
having to remember to clip on the device daily or to
take it out of the pocket before laundering, and can
be accurate enough for many people to track their
activity levels.
“The main barriers for wearables are size and
autonomy,” Raimbault suggests. “Most people
want wearables to be things they don’t need to
think about. Even charging the battery every
week is painful, compared with, say, a watch….
More sensors can add more capabilities, but we
have to make sure there is real user benefit.”
Making wearable data motivating also means lots
of software for everything from setting goals and
tracking improvements, to online sharing and
competing with friends, to awarding online badges
for levels of achievement. Fitbit also sees a definite
segment of users who, once they use the devices
for a while, start to want more data, and to add
input from more devices.
Wearables remain mostly a US market so far, with
Europe and Asia probably a year or so behind in
the adoption rate. While sports equipment makers
and health care providers will likely play a role
in specific applications, so may smart phone and
telecommunication service players, especially in
Asia. Japan’s Softbank is already offering the Fitbit
wristband as an add-on to its phone service contracts
for $5 a month. “We are just at the beginning of this
market,” Raimbault notes. “We all still have a lot to
invent.”
Paula Doe for Yole Développement
“The same basic platform
with different reactants or
temperatures can detect CO,
VOCs for indoor air quality,
alcohol in the breath, and NOx
and ozone for environmental
air quality,” says Debra Deininger,
Synkera.
Debra J. Deininger, VP of Strategic Business, Synkera
Debra Deininger manages Synkera’s research, manufacturing
and commercialization efforts on sensors and related products.
She has designed, developed and commercialized a wide range
of innovative gas and liquid sensors based upon chemiresistive,
catalytic, amperometric, potentiometric and acoustic designs in
her 16 years of experience in the gas detection industry. Before
Synkera, she worked for Mine Safety Appliances (MSA), a leading manufacturer of
gas detection products, and Nanomaterials Research. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry
from the Pennsylvania State University and an M.S. degree in Analytical Chemistry
from Colorado State University.
Kevin Dowling, Vice President of R&D, MC10
Prior to MC10, Kevin was VP of Innovation at Philips Color Kinetics
where he built and led the engineering team at Color Kinetics and
was active in a variety of strategic roles in Color Kinetics’ IPO
in 2004 and acquisition by Philips in 2007 for $800M. He helped
develop the winning entrant by Philips for the DoE $10M L-Prize.
Prior to Color Kinetics, Kevin was Chief Robotics Engineer for PRI
Automation where he advanced factory automation systems for the semiconductor
industry. He also has over 15 years of experience in advanced robotics engineering
at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he led many projects
including robotic systems for a Lunar Rover demo, Space Shuttle inspection at
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and the Mars Rover Project. Kevin received his BS in
Mathematics and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Ali Foughi, Vice President, Marketing and Business
Development, InvenSense
Foughi currently serves as Vice President of Marketing and
Business Development at InvenSense. He is an accomplished
business executive with a strong background in engineering. Prior
to joining InvenSense, Foughi spent 18 years at Maxim Integrated
Products, where he took on a wide range of engineering and
business responsibilities. As Vice President and General Manager, he had P&L
responsibility with annual revenues of $250 to $300 million, led approximately
300 professionals in several worldwide design and application centers, and was
instrumental in recruiting top-notch talent to Maxim. Before joining Maxim, Foughi
spent 10 years as Senior System Designer at LTX Corporation, where his innovative
filter designs dramatically enhanced the performance of Automatic Test Equipment.
Benoit Raimbault, Marketing Director EMEA, Fitbit
Benoît Raimbault is the Marketing Director EMEA (Europe, Middle
East, Africa) for Fitbit, the leading innovator and market leader in
the growing Connected Health & Fitness category. Prior to Fitbit,
Benoît held several different business & marketing positions
within Eastman Kodak Company. Before joining Kodak, Benoît
Raimbault spent several years working in the consumer electronic
industry with Alcatel-Lucent and Apple.
“We are just at the
beginning of this
market. We all still
have a lot to invent,”
says Benoit Raimbault,
Fitbit.
Fitbit Flex. (Courtesy of Fitbit)

C O M P A N Y I N S I G H T
Sensirion brings temperature and
humidity sensors to the mobile phone
Sensirion’s efforts to get its temperature and humidity sensor into smart phones
had as much to do with its software as with its silicon, as it developed both the
engine for compensating for the changing heat inside the phone, and the API
for Android developers. First application is the personal weather station, but long
term potential might be to take advantage of the very low power environmental
information for context awareness.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
M
aking micromachined temperature and
humidity sensors for the smart phone
meant shrinking the size of the silicon, but
equally important was the software development.
Sensirion’s temperature compensation software
to adjust for the changing heat inside the phone is
key to the accuracy of its sensor now included in the
Samsung Galaxy S4. The sensor maker also wrote
the API for the sensor for Android for app developers.
The first application is a personal weather station
that reports heat and humidity at the user’s location.
Suggestions for other potential applications range
from logging athletic performance in different
weather conditions and adjusting training and
hydration appropriately, to controlling the phone
by blowing on the screen—perhaps for taking
photos while holding the phone still, or for the
disabled. Others have suggested the possibility
of dressing avatars for the current local weather
for more immersive gaming, or of adjusting skin
care for particularly dry or humid conditions. While
these may not seem like particularly major drivers,
as co-CEO and co-founder Moritz Lechner notes:
“If you have the sensor, why not?”
More potentially useful, he suggests, may be using
the very low power device (2μW at 1 reading per
second) for baseline location information, to detect
changes before waking up other sensors for more
detail. “It’s very low power, so it can monitor all the
time, and can be combined with other sensors that
use more power,” he says.
The sensors reached the mainstream with
Samsung’s inclusion in its flagship Galaxy S4.
But a few phones in Japan have also used the
device over the last several years, initially driven
largely by network carrier interest in gathering
multi point temperature and humidity data across
a region. Until the sensor was widely availabile,
however, there was no reason for Google to add
the APIs for developers write apps for the sensor.
So Sensirion wrote the needed code itself, and
then got Google to merge the API into its Android
operating system.
The humidity sensor is essentially a capacitor, made
with a polymer dielectric that changes capacitance
as it absorbs moisture. It’s integrated monolithically
in CMOS with the temperature sensor, the analog/
digital converter, the signal processer and some
memory to hold the calibration data, on the same
die. Micromachined interdigitated fingers of electrode
and polymer speed up response time. The die is
overmolded in a 2 x 2mm package, leaving an
opening in the molding for the sensor’s access to the
environment.
Sensirion says close integration of the humidity
and temperature sensor enables more accurate
measurements, and processing these weak signals
close to the sensors allows amplification and
digitization with the least noise. “Putting the signal
amplification near the sensor allows the polymer
layers to be optimized for long term stability, not
signal strength,” says Lechner, noting that the
real challenge for making an accurate humidity
sensor is stabilizing the polymer and calibrating
the sensor. The company reports accuracy for the
sensor itself is +/- 3% for relative humidity and
+/-0.3°C for temperature.
The temperature sensor of course has to calculate
the ambient temperature outside the phone from
what it actually measures inside the phone, and
that internal temperature varies widely, as, say,
the phone heats up in very heavy use, and then
cools down slowly. The compensation software
compares the data from the temperature sensor
with information from other areas of the phone to
Felix Mayer
& Moritz Lechner,
Co-Founders & Co-CEOs,
Sensirion
Humidity and temperature sensor.
(Courtesy of Sensirion)

Felix Mayer, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Sensirion
He researched at ETH Zurich in micro technology. He spent five years
with Siemens, and is co-founder of Sensirion AG and co-CEO since 1998.
He won many entrepreneurial awards. He studied physics at ETH Zurich,
Ph.D. in micro technology.
Moritz Lechner, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Sensirion
He researched at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute in the fields
of microelectronics and detector technology. He is the co-founder of
Sensirion AG and co-CEO since 1998. He won numerous entrepreneurial
awards during his career. He studied physics at ETH, Ph.D. at ETH Zurich.
quickly adjust its ambient temperature reading based on a smart
analysis of what’s going on inside the phone, preferably optimized
for the specific phone model.
Lechner and Felix Mayer founded the spinoff from the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (ETH) 15 years ago, and now run it as co-
CEOs. The company makes temperature and humidity sensors
integrated in CMOS for wide range of applications, from controls for
air conditioning systems and refrigerators, to automotive climate
control, anti fogging, and engine optimization. It also makes MEMS
flow sensors for gases and liquids.
www.sensirion.com
“More potentially useful, may be using the
very low power device for baseline location
information, to detect changes before
waking up other sensors for more detail,”
says Moritz Lechner.
M E M S ’ T r e n d s
A humidity and
temperature sensor
made from a tiny
die using Sensirion’s
CMOSens®
process...
Discover
the new reverse costing
analysis on
www.i-micronews.com
Sensirion
Humidity &
Temperature
Sensor

Qualcomm works on building the
ecosystem for indoor navigation and
location based services
Big players are getting together to create the complex ecosystem to make
seamless indoor location information on mobile devices a reality, with sensors
playing a supporting role.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
I
ndoor location and context awareness will
provide a huge potential opportunity for new
kinds of mobile applications, but building
the ecosystem to provide seamless and accurate
information, and a consistent user experience,
across multiple different systems is also a huge
job. Big players are getting together to figure
out how to make the chip sets, servers, maps and
software from different providers work together to
make it happen.
The wide deployment of WiFi networks in venues
means WiFi will be the backbone of many indoor
location systems. But inertial sensors will also be
used to help deliver a seamless location experience,
and particularly where better than one meter
accuracy is needed.
“The goal for a truly seamless location experience
is to leverage all the signal inputs on the
smartphone, so consumers can find what they
need in any environment, with the least use
of power, says Leslie Presutti, Senior Director,
Product Management, Qualcomm-Atheros, noting
the use of global navigation satellite systems
(GNSS), terrestrial data, WiFi, and sensors.
The main role for sensors may be outdoors in
urban canyons where satellite signals are blocked
by buildings, or in the transition from outdoor to
indoors. “Our belief is that sensors can help when
other signals are not available. However, sensors
tend to drift and can be power intensive, so may
not be the best long-term solution indoors,” she
notes. In internal studies, though, Qualcomm
finds that sensor data improves the auto
navigation experience by a 2X in challenging urban
environments. It also sees power savings from
turning off the GNSS when the sensors indicate the
user does not need navigation.
Qualcomm’s solution integrates the modem with
the GNSS, so that the chipset can use the modem
to keep a constant fix on location with GNSS when
it’s on, and then hold that fix in a warm state so
it can be called up immediately when needed, to
improve accuracy and save power in many cases.
Its IZAT solution uses the WiFi infrastructure and
WiFi chipsets for indoor location with accuracy within
5 meters or better. But for consumers to use these
systems, there needs to be an entire ecosystem of
seamless technology and useful applications, with
all the parts working together. So Presutti notes that
Leslie Presutti, Senior
Director of Product
Management Mobile,
Location and Computing
Business Unit,
Qualcomm Atheros
“The goal for a truly
seamless location
experience is to
leverage all the
signal inputs on
the smartphone, so
consumers can find
what they need in
any environment,”
says Leslie Presutti.
The IZat location platform. (Courtesy of Qualcomm Atheros)

23
I S S U E N ° 1 4 A P R I L 2 0 1 3
Qualcomm is working with companies across the whole value chain,
from venues that need to add the infrastructure for value-added
services, to map providers, to wireless access point infrastructure
vendors, to system integrators to host both coupons and promotions
aimed at consumers and analytics on customers for venue owners.
The company recently announced its partnership with Cisco Systems,
which has a big percentage of the growing market for enterprise
wireless access points and management systems, to interface
Qualcomm location chip sets with Cisco’s wireless systems indoors,
to address the scale challenges. Cisco’s mobility service engine aims
to expand beyond monitoring the performance of the enterprise WiFi
system to also using that system for everything from tracking assets
and monitoring traffic patterns to offering maps and personalized
location-based information. Qualcomm is also working with many app
developers to deliver applications and software platforms for indoor
location services for both consumers and venues.
Other big players are similarly working on moving indoor location
services forward. Google is aggressively mapping many indoor
locations. Apple recently acquired the indoor mapping startup
WiFiSLAM, which apparently has technology to ease indoor mapping
by locating wireless points, and by collecting path data from the
sensors in many mobile phones passing through the area. Aruba, a
provider of WiFi access point hardware, recently acquired Meridian,
a provider of indoor mapping platforms and applications. “We’ll see
more consolidation as people come to understand that this is such a
huge endeavor,” says Presutti.
Also helping to foster development of the ecosystem is the In-
Location Alliance, an industry organization with more than 60
members from across the sector trying to come up with common
interfaces for WiFi and low power Bluetooth indoor location systems,
and sharing information on pilot programs and the like to help
move the business forward. “I’ve heard there are more than 100
companies trying to pitch indoor location systems,” says Presutti.
“You can’t have that without some sort of agreement on how it will
all work, for some consistent experience for the user.” Issues to
be worked out include such things as a consistent formats for the
digital indoor maps from different providers, and for delivering the
analytics across different systems. Consistent interfaces will also
be vital for servers from the different systems integrators and
for communication with the enterprises’ own backend servers for
enable efficient use with other corporate data.
“When you think of it all at once it is overwhelming, but when you
take it step by step it’s doable,” says Presutti. “There’s a willingness
from many players to define the interfaces. The industry at its recent
meeting was already starting to coalesce around some things. But it
will definitely take some time. It won’t happen in a year.”
www.qualcomm.com
Need to know
more about the
hottest sensor
market?
Discover the NEW
report on
i-Micronews.com/reports
MEMS for
Cell Phones
& Tablets
Leslie Presutti, Senior Director of Product Management Mobile,
Location and Computing Business Unit, Qualcomm Atheros
Leslie currently serves as senior director of product management for
Qualcomm Atheros’ location and GNSS business. She also manages
business development for the group. Leslie has been with Qualcomm for
15 years, managing initiatives within Qualcomm’s GPS, audio and sensor-
based technologies. Leslie holds a Master’s in Business Administration
from Penn State University.

Freescale sees sensor hub as near
term solution for integration of
more sensors
Open platform MCU with physical and software hooks for attaching any kind of
sensor could help speed development time, ease integration of diverse sensors.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
F
reescale Semiconductor aims to speed
development of products using more new
sensors with its open- platform sensor
hub. The hub consists of an MCU plus a 3-axis
accelerometer, with physical and software
connections to interface with other sensors, and
a platform for users to create their own custom
algorithms for other sensors as well. “It’s a sandbox
for engineers to explore new devices and new
applications,” says Babak Taheri, Freescale’s new
VP &GM of the sensor and actuator business. He
suggests the platform could ease the integration of
a pressure sensor to feed into the indoor navigation
system, or the addition of a temperature and
humidity sensor, or chemical sensing, for example.
“It’s the interim solution—the Swiss army knife of
MEMS,” he notes. “It will take years for all these
other sensors, including pressure and humidity, to
be fully integrated otherwise.”
Freescale offers its own magnetometer and
software for adding to the hub to create an
e-compass, so is apparently primarily targeting
many diverse applications including mainstream
motion processing. It plans to offer an open source
library of sensor integration solutions, probably
starting with pressure sensors and gyros, as well
as working with customers on integration of other
sensors and custom applications.
The volume and number of features and functions
of sensors in mobile devices are rapidly increasing,
beyond motion and pressure to things like eye-
tracking to determine what the user is doing,
image stability, ambient light, bio-monitoring
and probably some 20 or 30 other functions all
coming, notes Taheri. These sensors will all
need integration, and not just sensor fusion, but
increasingly also intelligent interaction with other
context data for more sophisticated functions.
These sorts of context awareness applications
will require heavy data processing that will put a
heavy load on the processor, creating the need
for one or even two more processors to do the
sensor data processing, probably with some
processing at the sensor level and some at the
hub. Meanwhile, the only integrated sensors
with higher level functionality currently available
off the shelf are accelerator/magnetometer and
accelerator/gyroscope combos. Everything else
remains a separate package, and the intermediate
solution is to use a sensor hub. Freescale’s 32-
bit MCU hub includes memory and management
systems to reduce power usage, in addition to
a high performance 3- axis accelerometer. The
development kits have interfaces for both Android
and Windows.
“While phones remain the big market, as those ﬁll
with sensors many systems developers are looking
at applications in other markets, spurred by the
Internet of things, where sensor hubs open the
door to markets that will need other sensors and
other functions,” suggests Taheri.
This open platform on the sensor hub will provide
a shortcut for initial development of new systems
with many sensors, but ultimately Freescale aims
to provide exclusive solutions for its customers,
Babak Taheri, Vice
President and General
Manager, Freescale
Semiconductor
“It’s a sandbox for engineers to
explore new devices and new
applications—a Swiss army knife
of MEMS,” says Babak Taheri.
(Courtesy of Freescale Semiconductor)

I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
Taheri says, which will mean adding a mass producible gyro of its
own to its lineup of consumer accelerometers, magnetometers and
pressure sensors.
After some six weeks on the job, MEMS veteran Taheri says he sees
Freescale’s high volume manufacturing capability will be key to its
success in MEMS, supported by its capability on the IC side, and its
experience meeting the high quality requirements of the automotive
market. Part of the company’s semiconductor legacy to be usefully
applied to the MEMS industry, he suggests, is the IC-industry’s
practice of customer support at all levels. “In the old days of MEMS
with analog output, you just had to make sure the die wiggled,” says
Taheri. “But in the current world of digital output, sensor hubs, data
fusion, and context awareness, the customer needs more support.
We have a systems group that can guide developers on how to use
sensor data, and an army of software and system guys to support
the hardware.”
www.freescale.com
Babak Taheri, Vice President and General Manager, Freescale
Semiconductor
In May 2013, Babak Taheri joined freescale as the vice president and
general manager of the sensors and actuators solutions division (SASD).
Prior to Freescale, Dr. Taheri was the vice president of non-volatile
products (NVP) at Cypress Semiconductor where he acquired Ramtorn,
and ranked No.1 at Cypress BU for gross margin. Dr. Taheri has held other
positions at Cypress including VP of corporate IP, whose team headed
up development of Cypress’s ﬁrst multi-touch sensing technology. He
also established over 12 centers of excellence worldwide managing
design IP for the corporation. Prior to re-joining Cypress, Dr. Taheri
was vice president of engineering at InvenSense Inc., a fabless MEMS
semiconductor company focusing on high-volume product delivery to
consumer markets. Dr. Taheri has more than 28 years of semiconductor
industry experience including founding Integrated Biosensing
Technologies, a sensor biomedical corporation. He also has held
key positions at Intel, SRI International, Redwood Microsystems, and
Apple. Dr. Taheri holds a doctorate degree in electrical engineering &
Neurosciences from the University of California at Davis, and more than
21 issued U.S. patents.
Freescale freedom platform with sensors.
(Courtesy of Freescale Semiconductor)
Which of today’s
IP portfolios will
enable tomorrow’s
successful
gyro growth?
Discover the
NEW report on
www.i-Micronews.com/
reports
MEMS
Gyroscope
Patent
Investigation

Cavendish Kinetics expects its RF
MEMS to be in consumer product
by end of year
As demand for bandwidth challenges mobile phone reception, another potential
RF MEMS antenna tuning device moves into qualified production.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
C
avendish Kinetics says the first production
lots of its RFMEMS antenna tuning device at
foundry TowerJazz have passed qualification
and are sampling to strategic customers. The
company expects to have fully qualified devices
available later this summer, and a device out in a
consumer product by the end of the year.
The increasing challenges of big displays that
block signals, of multiple frequency bands, and of
ever more consumer demand for bandwidth for
video and other downloads means actual mobile
antenna performance may be only 10%-50% of its
theoretical efficiency in communicating with the cell
tower. “Tuning the cell phone antenna to change its
fundamental resonant frequency to precisely cover
the LTE band of 700MHz optimizes its efficiency—
without introducing losses-- and significantly
improves system performance,” says Larry Morrell,
EVP Marketing & Business Development.
The same tuner attached to the antenna can
also match the changing impedance as it shifts
under changing conditions, to let more power
pass through to the antenna to further improve
performance as conditions differ from the most
common ones for which the system design was
optimized. Tuning by the variable capacitors in the
optimized chip itself reportedly does not add losses
as a switch would.
The company reports performance improved by
as much ~2X (2-3dB) in LTE/4G bands, for twice
the signal at the receiver, for higher data rates and
longer battery life for users, and more efficient
network usage for wireless operators.
Cavendish Kinetics suggests its variable capacitor
technology addresses some past RF MEMS issues
with manufacturability and yield by using an
array of hundreds of movable capacitor plates,
moving them in groups for each bit, and then
using the sum of the group for the reading, so
the manufacturing variability or even the failure
of individual capacitors doesn’t much matter.
Using its proprietary CMOS-integrated process,
Cavendish enhances reliability by building the
MEMS structure directly within a cavity in the
metal interconnect layers in the CMOS process
flow, entirely in vacuum with no post processing.
Morrell says this means a pristine environment
with no contaminants to cause stiction and failure.
Activating the membrane movement from both
the top and the bottom of the cavity, means no
free state, and stability at both the top and bottom
positions improves RF linearity, and means the
whole cavity can be used for a large difference in
capacity between the two states. Making the plates
of multiple stacked materials, and alternating
successive deposition methods, allows biases to
cancel out to manage flatness.
“So far we’ve gone through 2.5 billion cycles with
zero failures and zero performance shift,” he says.
The company built up this knowledge of process
and design from some twenty years of work on
the MEMS-in-CMOS-cavities structures, originally
Larry Morrell, Executive
Vice President,
Marketing and Business
Development,
Cavendish Kinetics
“Tuning the cell phone antenna
to change its fundamental
resonant frequency significantly
improves system performance,”
says Larry Morrell.
MEMS tuning mobile device antenna. (Courtesy of Cavendish Kinetics)
Antenna frequency tuning
Tuning the antenna resonant frequency to the band in use

I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
aimed at permanent memory applications.
When the memory devices proved too expensive
to be practical, the company brought in new
management, veterans of Novellus, Applied
Materials and Texas Instruments’ DLP business,
to find a new focus. Converting the moveable
capacitor arrays from memory switches to RF
tuning meant making the plates some 10X larger.
The company has been working for the last year
with strategic partners across the mobile handset
supply chain, from antenna makers to module
makers to OEMs.
The same technology can also be used to tune
power amplifiers, and eventually to tune filters, to
address more bands over a wide range instead of
needing a different RF component chain for each
band, to reduce the necessary bill of materials.
“We’re working on that too, but it’s a very difficult
problem to solve and still 3-4 years out,” says
Morrell.
www.cavendish-kinetics.com
Larry Morrell, Executive Vice President, Marketing
and Business Development, Cavendish Kinetics
Larry Morrell joined Cavendish Kinetics in 2009 from
Impinj, where he was Vice President and General
Manager of the IP Products Division. The division
created and licensed AEON nonvolatile memory (NVM)
IP for semiconductor companies; Impinj’s NVM IP
business was later purchased by Virage Logic. Earlier,
Mr. Morrell directed marketing for Cypress’ Computer
Products Division, which launched the USB and
programmable clock product lines. Prior to Cypress,
he was Vice President of Marketing and Business
Development for Data I/O Corporation, and he also held
various engineering and marketing positions at Seattle
Silicon and The Boeing Company. Mr. Morrell has a BS
degree in electrical engineering and a BA in languages
from New Mexico State University.
MEMS operation as a variable capacitor.
(Courtesy of Cavendish Kinetics)
www.plastic-electronics.org
Co-located with:
The Power of [x]
Emerging use-cases which are driving new MEMS technologies
Viable production concepts for MEMS products
The Power of [MEMS]
International MEMS/MST Industry Forum
www.semiconeuropa.org
8–10 October
Messe Dresden, Germany
New materials and processes for MEMS, front-end, back-end and testing
Entering a New Growth Cycle!
EUV
LED/SSL
450mm
More than Moore
3D IC
MEMS
Fab Automation
Equipment
Conference Sessions:

Tactus Technology uses
microfluidics for pop-up keyboard
on the touchscreen
Liquid-filled bumps could add tactile sensing to the touch screen for easier typing.
Combining them with pressure sensors could add new dimensions of control as
well.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
Tactus Technology co-founder Craig Ciesla missed
the button keyboard of his Blackberry five years
ago when he struggled to get used to typing on his
iPhone touch screen, and wondered if transparent
microfluidics could be used to make keyboard
buttons on the display. Now his company says first
mobile device products with keys that pop up from
the display on demand will be on the market next
year.
This tactile panel works by moving liquid through
microfluidics channels to fill defined areas and
raise dome-shaped, liquid-filled bumps in a flexible
polymer layer on top of a conventional touch
screen display. When not needed, the liquid is
pushed back to the reservoir in the device housing,
and the display returns to its normal flat state.
This microfluidics layer replaces the cover glass
or plastic that typically tops the touch sensor and
display, while maintaining the same thickness and
reputedly similar robustness.
“One key to the technology was making the
microchannels invisible,” explains co-founder and
CTO Micah Yairi. The solution was to match the
refractive index of the liquid and the substrate,
so that instead of bending and scattering at the
channel interfaces with the liquid, the light tends
to pass straight out of the device. The relatively
large channels for microfluidics allow an increased
number of options for fabricating the fluidic panels,
but making the network of fluid delivery holes
and channels without creating distortions that
impacted the invisibility was another challenge.
Also key was miniaturizing the actuator to fit inside
the extremely thin mobile devices and be able to
fill and empty the raised key system very quickly
without using a lot of power. Robust elastic polymer
materials are clearly also needed.
If the microfluidics materials and actuation system
was challenging, the actual integration into touch
screen devices is relatively simple. Control is a
straightforward “buttons up” or “buttons down”
signal in the applications software, such as when
an Android application calls for a keyboard, or by a
user-activated control of some kind, to activate the
liquid pump. The actuating system is bistable, so it
only uses power when it changes state. Pushing on
the liquid-filled bumps pushes directly on the touch
sensor below, without need for further controls.
“We’re focusing first on the mobile space because
we see critical problems to solve there for basic
text entry,” says Yairi. “But combinations with
pressure sensors would make it easy to detect how
fast and how far down a button is pushed, adding
the z direction to controls.” He suggests this better
haptic feedback would be highly useful for gaming,
industrial design, and automotive controls. In the
automotive market, pop up buttons on the display
could allow controls that can be adjusted more
easily by feel, requiring only a quick glance away
from the road, while not taking space away from
the display. Flat surfaces would allow keyboards or
controls used on portable medical equipment to be
more easily cleaned to keep sanitary. Equipment
could be designed with a smooth surface for looks
or function until a proximity sensor or motion
sensors told control buttons to pop up, Yairi also
suggests. The tactile bumps can be in any shape
or arrangement, determined by the pattern made
in the microfluidic layer. Currently the pattern
is preconfigured for the device, but the goal is
to eventually make the entire display surface
configurable by software.
“One key to
the technology
was making the
microchannels
invisible,” explains
Micah Yairi.
Tablet ButtonsUp wide view. (Courtesy of Tactus Technology)

23
I S S U E N ° 1 4 A P R I L 2 0 1 3
The Fremont, California, based company plans to manufacture the
tactile layer and controls, and sell it to OEMS or ODMs to incorporate
and test in the display stack. It has worked with touch sensor
suppliers TPK and Synaptics on initial prototypes, as it aims to
make sure its layer is compatible with all parts of the ecosystem for
integration. The company raised a $6M series A funding in late 2011.
www.tactustechnology.com
After years
of limited growth,
the MEMS
pressure sensor
market is
expected to show
a 22% CAGR …
Discover the
NEW report on
www.i-Micronews.com/
reports
MEMS
Pressure
SensorDr. Micah Yairi, Co-Founder and CTO, Tactus Technology
Prior to founding Tactus, Yairi led development efforts for microﬂuidic-
based programmable transdermal drug delivery systems as well as
advanced optical sensors for Los Gatos Research. Dr. Yairi also founded
Fortnight Solutions, a business-to-business “match-making” service that
helped engineering companies locate solutions to technical problems
without needing to “reinvent the wheel.” He managed Fortnight’s growth
of its expert-base to several hundred scientists and engineers, with
its experts successfully ﬁnding solutions for companies ranging from
start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Micah received bachelor degrees
in engineering physics and economics from the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of
Cambridge, England where he earned a master’s degree in economics,
and earned his PhD. at Stanford University in Applied Physics.
Tactus DialPad Up8. (Courtesy of Tactus Technology)

A N A L Y S T C O R N E R
Smart phones and tablets on track
to become $6 billion opportunity for
MEMS sensors
Driver is demand for more gyros and microphones now, pressure sensors and
IMUs next, and a host of emerging sensors to follow.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
T
he value of MEMS used in cell phones and
tablets exploded by $500M last year, to a
$2.2B business. We expect to see continuing
healthy 18.5% CAGR in this sector, to become a
$6.4B market for MEMS by 2018. That means
almost a 4X increase in number of MEMS die—and
a sobering continued decline in prices.
This growth will be driven in part by the migration
of more sensors into more lower- priced, value
smart phones that will account for an increasing
share of the mobile market as demand at the
high end saturates. The other major driver will
be the addition of new kinds of sensors, and
new, more sophisticated applications that put
sensor data together in more useful ways. That
means more MEMS gyros and microphones now,
growing adoption of pressure sensors and IMUs
next, and then a host of emerging sensors and
integrated systems, including for indoor navigation
and context awareness, soon to follow. Smart
phones are also becoming the hubs and brains for
managing the data from all sorts of wearable or
other separate sensor devices, spurring another
signiﬁcant growth opportunity, which is not
included in these totals, but which will impact the
value chain.
The market for MEMS in phones and tablets is
currently dominated by inertial sensors (~60%)
and microphones (~20%), but by 2018 we expect
60% of the market to be other types of devices,
lead by RF MEMS, optical MEMS, and pressure and
humidity sensors.
Inertial sensors and microphones see
more integration, more competition
Combination inertial sensors are seeing growing
adoption, with 6-axis IMUs rapidly taking over
from separate accelerometers and gyroscopes.
We expect 9-axis devices to follow shortly, as
sizes come down. Chip sets now available from
makers like Qualcomm, Broadcom and CSR are
integrating information from inertial and pressure
sensors for indoor location solutions and context
awareness, helping push that potentially hugely
signiﬁcant application into wider adoption, though
the high power consumption of the gyro still limits
continuous running.
As more mobile devices add gyros or combination
devices, it becomes ever more important for suppliers
to offer a full range of inertial sensors and solutions.
Accelerometer makers will need to have access to a
Laurent Robin,
Activity Leader
Inertial MEMS Devices
& Technologies,
Yole Développement
Global MEMS market for cell phones and tablets
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
in$M
Cell Phone Tablet

gyro, and it’s not an easy task to make a low power,
3mm x 3mm 3-axis device that does not conflict with
anyone else’s IP. Major suppliers STMicroelectronics,
Bosch Sensortec and InvenSense together currently
control more than 40% of the total market for MEMS
for mobile devices, in part because they can offer a
wide product line.
However, we expect to see more competition in
this market coming soon, however, as big IDMs
Maxim Integrated Systems and Fairchild enter the
IMU market from the IC side. Also challenging the
established players may be Qualtre’s very different
gyro technology, now reportedly coming to market
next year with the recent investment by Alps. The
startup also makes an accelerometer with the same
process to they can offer combos and sensor fusion
as well. But it will take some time for any of these
new players to have much impact on the established
value chain. Even Bosch, a well established supplier of
other MEMS sensors who has gotten good response
to its recently introduced gyro and combinations,
has still taken only a few percent market share away
from the two already established suppliers.
As the software for sensor fusion and functions
becomes more important, leading phones are
beginning to include sensor hubs, and successful
MEMS products will increasingly need to include
the right level of software and be qualified with the
common sensor hubs.
Gyros are also finding a new application in mobile
phones for camera stabilization, which can
differentiate a phone by noticeably improving the
photo quality, bringing the feature that’s the been
very successful in digital cameras to the mobile
phone market. One approach is to add a second
gyro dedicated to image stabilization to the camera
module, making the feature easy for phone makers
to integrate without having to change the software
for the existing gyro applications. The alternative
approach is to use the main gyro for the image
stabilization as well, which could save on system
costs in the long run.
Microphones will continue to see strong growth, as
more phones and tablets add two mics for noise
cancelation, and now sometimes even a third for
high fidelity voice recording. Long time market
leader Knowles still dominates, but lost 19%
market share last year, as competition from newer
players increased. Chinese microphone company
AAC saw particularly strong growth selling MEMS
mics using Infineon MEMS die to its established
electret customers in Asia. Bosch Akustica,
Wolfson, Analog Devices and ST/Omron are all
now also chasing this business. We wouldn’t be
surprised to see InvenSense enter this business as
well to expand its offering to mobile makers.
Strong adoption coming next for
pressure sensors and RF MEMS
Pressure sensors are now starting to see fast
adoption in mobile phones and tablets, initially for
faster and more accurate location information, as
the altitude adds another point for triangulation
when satellite access is limited, as well as for
altitude measurements for outdoor sports and
barometer applications for weather stations.
But the coming market for indoor navigation
I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
Simplified view of a smart-phone board TOMORROW (in 2018)
“More MEMS gyros
and microphones
now, growing
adoption of pressure
sensors and IMUs
next, and then a host
of emerging sensors
and integrated
systems, including
for indoor navigation
and context
awareness, soon to
follow,” comments
Laurent Robin.
MEMS in red

J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
applications will make pressure sensors a must-
have for more phones. And the volume consumer
mobile business will bring strong pressure to
reduce power consumption and prices. Suppliers
who can offer or integrate other inertial sensors as
well may have the advantage.
On the RF side, BAW duplexers will continue to see
fast growth for LTE RF modules, and RF MEMS from
several suppliers will at last start to show up in
more mobile models for antenna tuning to improve
reception and flexibility. These devices are just
beginning to see some adoption, but as demand
for bandwidth continues to grow, and as the new
RF solutions prove their reliability, we think it will
see wide adoption. WiSpry’s impedence matching
capacitor array is reportedly coming out in a few
more products this year, DelfMEMS’ ohmic switch
for switching between bands is now in advanced
sampling, and Cavendish Kinetics’ frequency tuning
array is now in qualification, targeting commercial
applications by the end of the year.
MEMS timing devices are finding applications
in cell phones, with SiTimes’ entry in the 32KHz
market, but they face new competition for the
main TCXO timing slot from the big baseband chip
makers, who are moving to take over more of
the value by doing the compensation themselves
in the baseband IC, with just a quartz resonator.
However, as the market moves towards more
demanding specifications, this approach may no
longer be good enough, and it will have to turn
back to TCXO instead, and MEMS performance is
getting close to the required levels. MEMS stability
is improving from 10-20 ppm to as low as 2.5ppm
from Sand9’s devices long in development, but
that’s still not good enough for the 0.5ppm needed
for mobile GPS devices. Both Sand9 and Discera
appear to be now targeting other industrial and
networking applications in addition to mobile.
Plenty of new types of sensors
in the pipeline
The latest new type of sensor to be added to a
major smart phone is the temperature and
humidity sensor from Sensirion included in the
flagship Samsung Galaxy S4. Main initial use is for
a personal weather station, but other applications
for this sensor we’ve seen include warnings to avoid
exertion in extreme heat or humidity, or advice for
skin care, attracting more interest in Asia than in
the West. But bit by bit developers will surely find
compelling applications for these sensors.
A number of other promising emerging devices are
seeing serious interest from mobile phone makers,
but the MEMS technology has taken a while to
mature enough for volume commercial production.
There’s real demand for the performance of MEMS
autofocus systems, for instance, but manufacturing
has proved challenging. First samples are now
slated to ship this year.
The very challenging MEMS speakers remain in
development with foundries, but solving issue after
issue takes time. We think it is possible that other
players besides AudioPixel may be looking at this
market. STMicroelectronics may be looking at it
itself or only serving as a foundry for AudioPixel,
and Knowles could potentially be a player, since it
already sells small conventional speakers. But any
product is at least two years out.
As prices come down, we see some interest in
adding IR-sensing uncooled microbolometers to
mobile phones, as a lower cost alternative for
temperature sensing, to find air or water leaks for
energy efficiency and building repairs.
Other environmental sensors in development
include UV sensors for health and skincare, at Alps
and Rohm, and gas sensors for information on air
quality or safety and security, such as those from
Synkera. Power requirements for gas sensors may
be a key challenge, since most need heat to clean
out the gas absorbed into the sensor to be able to
detect again.
Qualcomm continues to develop its MEMS displays,
which now presumably will use some technology
from its acquisition Pixtronics and its partner
Sharp, but these low power solutions are still in the
development stage.
www.yole.fr
Laurent Robin is in charge of the
MEMS & Sensors market research.
He previously worked at image sensor
company e2v Technologies (Grenoble,
France).HeholdsaPhysicsEngineering
degree from the National Institute
of Applied Sciences in Toulouse, plus
a Master Degree in Technology &
Innovation Management from EM Lyon
Business School, France.
ST
Microelectronics
30.3%
Knowles Acoustics
12.7%
Avago
11.5%
AKM
11.4%
Bosch Sensortec
7.1%
InvenSense
5.9%
TriQuint
5.4%
AAC Acoustics
3.1%
Kionix
2.0%
Yamaha
1.9%
ADI
1.6%
Goertek
1.4%
Memsic
1.3%
Alps Electric
1.2%
Freescale
1.1% Others
2.0%
MEMS in cell phones and tablets - 2012 market shares
Total = $2.2B

Y
ole Développement’s third annual inertial
sensor networking event returns November
4-6, in Sonoma this time.
Since the most useful part of any conference
is typically the people one connects with, Yole
Développement created its MEMS in Motion event
specifically to bring inertial sensor makers and
users together directly in an informal setting to
build relationships and foster collaboration across
this fast changing sector.
Though the event features some talks from
industry thought leaders and Yole Développement
analysts to stimulate discussion, the real purpose
is to build relationships. “We aim to set this up
to foster connections,” notes Mike McLaughlin,
Business Development Manager at Yole Inc. “The
idea is time in a relaxed atmosphere to build new
relationships and foster old ones, to talk with
people you know and people you don’t, about the
issues of the fast changing inertial sensor sector.”
Attendance is limited to ~60-80 participants, all in
the business of inertial sensors, aiming at a balance
across the value chain, to facilitate actually getting
to know the other key people in this specific field.
Attendees are typically executives involved in the
strategy and direction of their companies’ MEMS
business. The attendee list and online scheduling
system are distributed beforehand, so everyone
arrange meetings with the people they most want
to see. All participants introduce themselves to
the group at the beginning, and have a series of
speed dating meetings arranged ahead of time
with others of shared interests the first day to
get things started, then have more time later for
other personally scheduled meetings. Meals and
informal events encourage relaxed interaction, like
playing with the new inertial sensor products that
participants brought that was a hit last year.
“People liked that they could plan meetings in
advance, that there were some forced meetings,
and that there was plenty of time to network and
talk with everybody in a relaxed setting in a nice
place,” notes Yole Développement’s inertial sensor
analyst Laurent Robin.
“We started this event because we saw the
MEMS industry needed a less structured, more
collaborative opportunity for people to talk to
others in the industry that they don’t usually
just happen to meet, to talk about what’s driving
development, what’s needed next, what works and
what doesn’t to drive the sector forward,” says
McLaughlin.
For more details and to register,
see www.memsinmotion.com
I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
M E M S ’ T r e n d s 25M E M S ’ T r e n d s
E V E N T R E V I E W
MEMS in Motion collaboration event
moves to Sonoma, California this
November
Yole Développement's program aims to bring inertial sensor maker makers and
users together to drive the industry forward.
“It’s not who you
know today,
it’s who you’ll
need to know
tomorrow,” says
Mike McLaughlin,
Yole Inc.

E V E N T R E V I E W
Innovation opportunities in Europe
for Swiss SMEs
The next European R&D framework program Horizon 2020 (H2020) will begin in
2014 and will offer many new business opportunities for innovative Swiss SMEs.
While public funds are available to help promote key technologies and future
applications, a few rules need to be observed in order to become a part of the
huge investment program. At the end of June, CSEM, Cowin, Cluster Precision,
and Creapole organized a joint information workshop in Biel, targeting SMEs
located in the geographical area between Lausanne, Basel, and Bern.
J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
S
mall to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
constitute the largest part of Switzerland’s
economic fabric. Innovation plays a key role
in long-term success. The Swiss government’s
innovation agency—the Commission for Technology
and Innovation (CTI)—supports SMEs by providing
funds for the innovation projects that they undertake
with selected academic institutions and seasoned
experts in technology transfer.
But what about outside Switzerland, and more
specifically Europe? At the June-end event, four
key players in the innovation business invited SMEs
to get acquainted with the tools and programs in
place to help them initiate innovative projects and
developments in Europe. Experts discussed examples
and procedures and discussed the opportunities and
threats to be aware of.
The workshop session, with over 30 participants
from various fields of industry, started with a
presentation by Fabian Käser from Creapole and
Patrick Roth from Cluster Precision. Both explained
how their institutions provide counseling, expertise,
know-how, and fundraising and networking services
to interested SMEs.
Régis Hamelin, from COWIN, explained how to
develop a product in the framework of a European
project. The value of the collaborative approach is in
risk reduction, the leverage effect on knowledge, the
avoidanceofresourcelimitations,andtheopportunity
to turn the customer/supplier relationship into a
partnership.
Hamelin was followed by Georges Kotrotsios, who
stressed CSEM’s mission in the development and
transfer of microtechnologies to the industrial
sector. Providing several examples, he illustrated the
numerous opportunities for SMEs to work with CSEM,
ranging from subcontracting in large projects to
participation in European SME- and direct projects.
Patrick Furrer from the Euresearch Office gave
a presentation on the monitoring and coaching
services provided by his organization.
A concrete example of a successful EU-SME project
was presented by Vincent Peiris of CSEM. The ‘Wear
a Ban’ project started in 2010 and ran for two years
with funding of €3.6M, €2.7M of which came from
Europe. It brought together 15 partners across the
EU, including seven SMEs/SME-associations. Peiris
also provided a good overview of pros and cons for
SMEs, including the challenge of moving toward the
EU mindset, a certain administrative burden (that
can be reduced when working with partners), and
concerns regarding trade secrets and IP (which are
addressed by strict contractual and confidentiality
agreements).
Last but not least, Géraldine Andrieux-Gustin,
COWIN coordinator, concluded the workshop with a
look toward Horizon 2020, Europe’s new framework
program for research and innovation, which begins
in 2014. Andrieux-Gustin reminded participants that
all types of innovative SMEs (new actors/FP7) are
targeted, and that the program only allows SMEs
to apply for funding. She emphasized the potential
of the EU-dimension and of a competitive, market-
oriented approach, the simple rules and procedures,
and how the quality of evaluation would be essential
to the framework’s success.
“We are convinced that this type of workshop meets
a real need”, stated Georges Kotrotsios of CSEM,
adding—“Similar events will therefore be organized
in other areas of Switzerland to inform SMEs and to
support their innovation endeavors.”
www.csem.ch
Event co-organized by:

Romain Fraux,
Electronics Cost
Engineer,
System Plus
Consulting
Romain Fraux is
Project Manager
for Reverse Costing
analyses at System Plus Consulting.
Since 2006, Romain is in charge of
costing analyses of MEMS devices,
Integrated Circuit and electronics
boards. He has signiﬁcant experience
in the modeling of the manufacturing
costs of electronics components.
Romain has a BEng from Heriot-Watt
University of Edinburgh, Scotland and
a master’s degree in Microelectronics
from the University of Nantes, France.
27
I S S U E N ° 1 5 J U L Y 2 0 1 3
R E V E R S E E N G I N E E R I N G
Adding value to MEMS with bigger die
While most MEMS devices have been steadily driving down to smaller sizes to
reduce cost and footprint, there are also applications where the distinguishing
feature is increased functionality, even if that means a larger device.
B
oth STMicroelectronics and Analog Devices
Inc. have recently drawn upon their ASIC
design expertise to make more complex
controller die that add value to standard inertial
sensors even as they add more costly silicon
area. ST adds the processing power to its existing
gyroscope to make a dual purpose version, while
ADI adds extreme power management to a
standard accelerometer to make an ultra low power
device. While gyros for optical image stabilization
are commonly included in digital cameras, the
Nokia Lumia 920 is one of the ﬁrst smart phones
to add the feature, using ST’s L3G4IS 3-axis gyro.
The device is in a 4mm x 4mm LGA package,
though it uses the exact same MEMS die as the
company’s standard 3-axis gyro which comes in a
smaller package. The difference, as can be seen in
the cross-section SEM image below, is the larger
ASIC on top. This more complex processor allows
the single MEMS die to be used both for the very
precise, high sensitivity motion sensing needed
for the optical image stabilization and also for the
coarser motion sensing needed for gaming and
other gesture controls. Even with this larger and
more expensive ASIC, which we estimate accounts
for >50% of the total cost of this device, this single
dual-purpose gyro will likely still be cheaper, and
take up less space, than two separate gyros with
their own separate ASICs and packages. And it
suggests how economics pushing MEMS towards
combination sensor solutions, as there may not be
much room left to reduce costs by continuing to
simply reduce die size, now that the typical 2-axis
gyro package is down to a 2mm x 2mm package.
It’s not yet clear how widely smart phone makers
will adopt image stabilization, or if they will use a
single gyro or two separate ones. Rival gyro maker
InvenSense argues that integrating two separate
gryos for the two separate applications will be the
simpler and preferred approach.
We found two version of the dual-purpose MEMS
device in our teardowns. The one in the Nokia
phone, used traditional glass-frit wafer bonding,
while one sourced as a component used gold-gold
thermocompression wafer bonding to shrink the
MEMS die size by ~30%. The smaller version also
replaced the usual buried polysilicon interconnect
layer with a stack of three materials.
ADI, meanwhile, makes its ultra-low power
ADXL362 3-axis accelerometer by adding smarter
power management, by similarly adding a larger
ASIC to the same MEMS die used in its more
standard 3-axis accelerometer. The device is
currently being tested to extent battery life in the
always-on Blast Gauges used by the US military
to continuously monitor soldiers for exposure
to concussive forces. ADI also targets other
monitoring applications where batteries are hard to
replace for the device, with its 1.8μmA operation at
a 100Hz output data rate, 270nA in motion sensing
wake-up mode, and 10-nA in deep-sleep mode.
Here the ASIC is 3X larger, and likely costs ~3X
more, to account for roughly half the total cost of
the device. Instead of packaging the MEMS and
ASIC dies side by side, ADI stacks the MEMS on
top of the larger ASIC, which enables it to keep
the package to the same 3mm x 3.25mm footprint.
www.systemplus.fr
Nokia Lumia 920 camera module
(Courtesy of System Plus Consulting)
L3G4IS cross-section
(Courtesy of System Plus Consulting)
Top: ADXL362
Bottom: ADXL342.
(Courtesy of System
Plus Consulting)
IR FILTER
CIS
MEMS
gyroscope
OIS
controller
Package epoxy
ASIC
MEMS Cap
MEMS Sensor
Package PCB
Camera Module PCB
MEMS
ASIC
MEMS ASIC

J U L Y 2 0 1 3 I S S U E N ° 1 5
Editorial Staff
Board Members: Jean-Christophe Eloy – Editor in Chief: Dr Eric Mounier - Editors: Frédéric
Breussin, Paul Danini, Wenbin Ding, Jean-Christophe Eloy, Dr Eric Mounier, Laurent Robin,
Benjamin Roussel, Paula Doe, Kathy Liszewski – Media & Communication Manager: Sandrine
Leroy – Media & Communication Coordinator: Clotilde Fabre - Production: atelier JBBOX
About Yole Développement
CONTACTS
Founded in 1998, Yole Développement has grown to become a group of companies providing marketing, technology and strategy consulting, media in
addition to corporate finance services.
With a strong focus on emerging applications using silicon and/or micro manufacturing, Yole Développement group has expanded to include more than 50 associates
worldwide covering MEMS, Compound Semiconductors, LED, Image Sensors, Optoelectronics, Microfluidics & Medical, Photovoltaics, Advanced Packaging,
Nanomaterials and Power Electronics. The group supports industrial companies, investors and R&D organizations worldwide to help them understand
markets and follow technology trends to develop their business.
CONSULTING
• Market data, market research & marketing analysis
• Technology analysis
• Reverse engineering & costing services
• Strategy consulting
• Patent analysis
More information on www.yole.fr
For more information about :
• Consulting Services: Christophe Fitamant (fitamant@yole.fr)
• Financial Services: Géraldine Andrieux-Gustin (Andrieux@yole.fr)
• Reports: David Jourdan (jourdan@yole.fr)
• Media & Communication: Sandrine Leroy (leroy@yole.fr)
MEDIA
• Online disruptive technologies website: www.i-micronews.com
• Editorial webcasts program
• Six magazines: Micronews - MEMS Trends – 3D Packaging – iLED –
Power Dev' - New in 2014: Image Sensors Industry
• Communication & Webcasts services
REPORTS
• Collection of technology & market reports
• Manufacturing cost simulation tools
• Component reverse engineering & costing analysis
• Patent analysis
FINANCIAL SERVICES
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Due diligence
• Fundraising
• Coaching of emerging companies
• IP portfolio management & optimization
More information on www.yolefinance.com

Mobile Phones Driving MEMS Sensors to $6B

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (9)

Similar to Mobile Phones Driving MEMS Sensors to $6B

Similar to Mobile Phones Driving MEMS Sensors to $6B (20)

More from Satya Harish

More from Satya Harish (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Mobile Phones Driving MEMS Sensors to $6B