Objective
The aim of this Europractice Project is to establish a flexible manufacturing cluster to provide commercial access to integrated microsystems incorporating sensors and microelectronics. The dual-centre cluster incorporating a dedicated MST facility and a standard CMOS foundry will reduce barriers to entry and risks by providing low-cost prototyping and low-volume manufacture before committing to volume production on the same processes. The cluster will offer a combination of technologies and potential products and solutions which is not generally available elsewhere, focused on integration of components with associated control and data processing electronics. Processes include CMOS-compatible low temperature metal/nitride based surface micromachining and high aspect ratio deep reactive ion etching of thick SOI, with monolithic integration. The consortium consists of QinetiQ (co-ordinator and low-cost prototyping), Coventor (design software/consultancy) and European Semiconductor Manaufacturing (foundry).
Objectives:
- Provide access with reduced costs/risks to MEMS products for SMEs and medium/large companies by establishing a seamless one-stop service, including design, product development, prototyping, packaging and low/medium/high volume production in integrated microsystems for rf/sensor/transducer applications;
-Offer a flexible dual-centre microsystems technology (MST) prototyping/ production capability with the same processes, with low-cost prototyping and flexible low-volume manufacture at a dedicated MST facility and potential volume manufacture via a pure play standard CMOS foundry;
- Offer a range of Si-based processes not generally available including:
- Fine geometry poly-Si sacrificial surface micromachining (SSM) (0.2-2 micron)
- CMOS-compatible low temperature metal/nitride based SSM
- High aspect ratio (~30:1) deep reactive ion etching of thick SOI (100 micron)
- Dry release and deep isotropic etching using a cluster-based chemical etch module;
- Offer prototype products and full solutions using both hybrid and integrated packaging.
Work description:
The work is split into 8 Workpackages which are grouped as follows:
i) Project Management;
ii) Access and Marketing;
iii) Specification;
iv) Technologies and Service;
v) Measurement and Evaluation. QinetiQ, as the Principal Contractor, will set up the Cluster Office, which will act as the interface with potential customers. The services to be offered and the business model will be defined and the methodology for processing enquiries, sales and contracts established. Market research will be performed to identify demand and channels to market. Major tasks are production of marketing/dissemination materials, workshops/training and pro-active customer acquisition. A web-site will be developed with links to establish multi-site web-based selling and linkages with packaging providers and other design houses developed. The application areas will be defined and a study performed to specify basic MEMS components and associated processing and integration requirements. Major tasks are concerned with establishment of the one-stop shop service and offering easy customer access to the technologies and processes, and the routes for prototyping, low/medium volume production and potentially high volume production. QinetiQ and Coventor will produce prototyping bundles for CMOS-compatible processes and customer-friendly design software incorporating worked examples and case studies. QinetiQ will offer a low-cost prototyping facility based on multi-project wafers and/or small (3-wafer) batches. A potential route for volume manufacture of MEMS components based on QinetiQ's processes will be demonstrated at the CMOS foundry (ESM), by evaluating compatibility of the processes and post-processing of CMOS wafers from ESM. Demonstrator components will be produced. The project and its performance will be evaluated against success criteria based on number of contracts and revenue generated.
Milestones:
Month 6 Report on business plan, market demand and channels to market;
Month 6 Report on applications, component specifications and process requirements;
Month 12 Cluster office functional and web-site operational; Europractice workshop;
Month 12 Low-cost prototyping/low-medium volume manufacture available;
Month 12 Post-processing of CMOS wafers demonstrated;
Month 18 Demonstrator components;
Month 33 Approximately 75 potential customers visited and 30 contracts obtained.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software
- social sciences economics and business business and management business models
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors
- natural sciences physical sciences electromagnetism and electronics microelectronics
- natural sciences computer and information sciences data science data processing
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Coordinator
SW1E 6PD London
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.