Microtechnology News articles from December 1998

Microtechnology News archives from December 1998

DEVELOPMENTS: Motion Sensor for Vehicle Security.
December 1, 1998... Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) will supply its new ADXL202 MEMS-based motion sensor to E.R.M. Electronic Systems Ltd. of Israel, a manufacturer of vehicle security systems. The motion sensor measures static acceleration forces to detect any change...

MEMS Development at New Jersey Center.
December 1, 1998... The Microelectronics Research Center (MRC) at New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, NJ) was established to foster the design, manufacture, packaging, and testing of integrated MEMS and CMOS devices. The Center operates a Class 10...

Roadmap May Get MEMS On Track.
December 1, 1998... There seems to be a lack of cohesiveness in the MEMS/MST industry. That was the consensus of those attending the biennial SEMI/Engineering Foundation MEMS Commercialization Conference in San Diego. The field is large, with sales estimated at $6...

BCAM Microvalve Gets Ninth Patent.
December 1, 1998... BCAM International (Melville, NY) Chairman and CEO Michael Strauss announced the company had been awarded U.S. Patent 5,810,325 for its invention entitled "Microvalve." The new BCAM device requires very little power to control large air...

Smart Shoes and Car Seats.
December 1, 1998... A new MEMS based microvalve is able to adjust surfaces such as shoes and car seats to accommodate the shape and needs of the user. By its ability to control large air pressures using little power and at relatively low cost, the device has the...

MEMS Program in Singapore.
December 1, 1998... The Institute of Microelectronics (IME) in Singapore is a multidisciplinary research institute that specializes in core areas of electronics. Their mission is to assist microelectronics industries in such areas as MEMS. IME is working closely...

APPLICATIONS: Two Fiber Optic Devices Announced.
December 1, 1998... Mitsubishi Cable Industries' Central Research Laboratory (Itami-City, Japan) has developed a fiber optic, tactile, blood-vessel microsensor. This new application was reported in a paper by O. Tohyama and others at the IEEE/LEOS meeting in...

Accelerometer/Seismometer.
December 1, 1998... A silicon micromachined accelerometer designed specifically for seismologic applications is currently under development at NASA'a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA). The device is designed for a very high sensitivity and a frequency range...

Photodiode/Bolometer Arrays.
December 1, 1998... Researchers at Caltech have also developed these devices for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Micromachined planar arrays of detectors that could operate either as photodiodes or as bolometers have been proposed by these researchers for use in...

MCNC to Supply Blanks for SCALPEL.
December 1, 1998... Lucent Technologies has signed an agreement with MCNC's MEMS Technology Application Center to supply commercial-quality mask blanks for Lucent's SCALPEL electron-beam lithography program. Lucent expects this step to accelerate the...

MEMS-based Servo System.
December 1, 1998... Quinta Corp. (San Jose, CA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seagate Technology Inc., demonstrated its revolutionary magnetic recording architecture called Optically Assisted Winchester (OAW) technology. OAW holds great promise in taking disc...

FABRICATION: Oxide Control Improves Systems on a Chip.
December 1, 1998... Bell Labs researchers have developed a method to enhance the efficiency and reliability of system-on-a-chip products. They have replaced a uniform gate oxide thickness, which limits the chip's performance, with a gate oxide whose thickness...

Breed Opens Sensor Plant.
December 1, 1998... Breed Technologies Inc. (Helsinki, Finland) has opened what it claims is the world's largest facility dedicated exclusively to silicon micromachined sensor manufacturing. The 17,000 sq. ft. facility provides greater capacity for subsidiary VTI...

Microvision Combines LEDs & MEMS Scanner.
December 1, 1998... Microvision Inc. (Seattle, WA) announced that, in conjunction with a prominent materials research and development company, it has achieved a breakthrough in the development of high-intensity blue and green light emitting diodes (LEDs). Because...

MATERIALS: Moving Toward Atomic Precision.
December 1, 1998... Five major advances in the atomically precise control of matter were announced at the Sixth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology in Santa Clara, CA, last month. The field of nanotechnology is expected to bring atomic precision to...

ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES Spire to Make Photodiode Arrays.
December 1, 1998... Spire Corp. (Bedford, MA) has been awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to design and build compact pixellated cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) imaging arrays with high energy and spatial resolution for nuclear medical...

JMAR Gets $13 Million DARPA Contract.
December 1, 1998... JMAR Technologies (San Diego, CA) received a $13 million contract from the U.S. Army Research Lab (ARL, Adelphi, MD) sponsored by DARPA (Arlington, VA) to advance further development of its PXS laser plasma X-ray source for advanced...

Photronics Joins Optical Lithography Program.
December 1, 1998... Photronics (Brookfield, CT) and IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) announced a cooperative agreement to explore and develop photomask manufacturing technologies and processes needed to produce integrated circuits with features down to and below 0.13 um. A...

Light Source for UV Lithography.
December 1, 1998... Researchers at the University of Central Florida's Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers are developing a new light source for lithography. Their extreme UV light source is expected to be smaller, simpler, and less costly than...

TEST AND MEASUREMENT Two-Stage Vacuum Valve.
December 1, 1998... The Vacuum Products Group of MKS Instruments Inc. (Boulder, CO) has published a new brochure for the HPS Two-Stage Vacuum Valve. The two stages allow the poppet-style valve to slow initial system evacuation. The eight-page color brochure...

MKS Starts Vacuum Store.
December 1, 1998... MKS Instruments also announced the complete reconstruction of its web site to accommodate customer needs for extensive product data and enable comprehensive online ordering. In addition to a complete library of technical data, CAD drawings can...

Small-footprint AFM Isolation System.
December 1, 1998... Digital Instruments (Santa Barbara, CA) introduced a new small footprint acoustic/ vibration isolation system for its best-selling Dimension 3100 Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The IS3K system provides the highest performance isolation from...

Acess a Decade of Metrology Research.
December 1, 1998... Reprints of a decade of key papers by the Optical Frequency Measurement Group in NIST's Time and Frequency Division have been compiled and published as Precision Spectroscopy, Diode Lasers, and Optical Frequency Measurement (Technical Note...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Lam Reports 1Q Loss.
December 1, 1998... Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, CA) announced financial results for the company's first quarter of fiscal 1999, ended September 30. Revenue for the first quarter was $142.2 million, compared to revenue of $289.9 for the same prior-year period. The...

...and Donates Etch System.
December 1, 1998... Lam also announced donation of a plasma etch system to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. The Tech Museum, which officially re-opened October 31, will display the etch system in its new wafer-fabrication clean room exhibit. The...

Plasma-Therm's Acquisition Strategy.
December 1, 1998... Plasma-Therm Inc. (St. Petersburg, FL) announced it had retained a leading full-service global investment bank as exclusive financial advisor relating to all acquisition activities. They will be responsible for assisting the company in pursuing...

MEMS Systems for Samsung and Seoul.
December 1, 1998... Plasma-Therm (St. Petersburg, FL) announced the sale of multiple Shuttlecock plasma processing systems in Korea for advanced development of MEMS devices. Customers for these systems include Seoul National University and Samsung Advanced...

SMSC and SEEQ Form Alliance.
December 1, 1998... Standard Microsystems Corp, (Hauppauge, NY) and SEEQ Technology Inc.(Fremont, CA) announced a strategic alliance relating to their Ethernet products and technologies. Under the agreement, SMSC has initially received a license to SEEQ's 0.35...

OSI Systems Acquires Silicon Microstructures.
December 1, 1998... OSI Systems Inc. (Hawthorne, CA) has acquired Silicon Microstructures Inc. (SMI) from Exar Corp. (Fremont, CA). The purchase price is $6.5 million in cash, with $2.6 million of the total to be paid at the closing of the transaction and $3.9...

MEETINGS: Commercializing Microsystems.
December 1, 1998... A European version of The Commercialization of Microsystems conferences organized by the Engineering Foundation and SEMI will be held June 10-12 at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, Dortmund, Germany. The conference will give firms with...

CALENDAR.
December 1, 1998... January 17-21, 1999, MEMS '99 IEEE, Orlando, FL. Contact: Tel: 619/298- 3559, www.eecs.umich.edu/mems. March 1-4, 1999, Semiconductor Pure Water and Chemicals Conference, Santa Clara, CA. Contact: D. Belanger; Fax: 408/734-2276.