New MEMS, Sensors Emerge at MEMS Executive Congress US

http://semimd.com/blog/2015/11/09/new-mems-sensors-emerge-at-mems-executive-congress-us/
By Jeff Dorsch, Contributing Editor
A wide variety of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices, sensors, and MEMS sensors were described and introduced at the MEMS Executive Congress US in Napa, Calif.

(Courtesy MEMS Industry Group MIG.)

The Bosch Group, the world’s leading supplier of MEMS sensors, highlighted several new products from its Bosch Sensortec and Akustica units, while Bosch eBike Systems demonstrated its electronic bicycle, which won the conference’s MEMS & Sensors Technology Showcase.
Marcellino Gemelli, Bosch Sensortec’s director of marketing and business development, noted that Bosch Group has shipped more than 6 billion sensors. “The next 1 billion will be [in] less than a year,” he said.
The company targets automotive, consumer, and Internet of Things applications, Gemelli explained. Bosch has “one of the largest MEMS fabs in the world” in Germany, he said, while outsourcing production of its application-specific integrated circuits to foundries.
Smartphones are Bosch’s biggest market, with three out of four smartphones containing a Bosch sensor, Gemelli added.
Bosch Sensortec has introduced the BMF055 MEMS sensor, a programmable 9-axis motion sensor. The MEMS sensor is paired with an Atmel microcontroller.
The BMF055 “can run sensor fusion algorithms,” Gemelli said.
Akustica debuted the AKU151 and AKU350 ultra-high-performance MEMS microphones. The microphone chips are aimed at mobile and wearable applications. They both feature new ASIC design elements, a new MEMS architecture and fabrication process, and new packaging technologies, according to the company.
Bosch also brought out the SMA130 triaxial acceleration sensor for automotive applications. “This accelerometer is based on the type of accelerometer for the consumer space,” said Davin Yuknis, Akustica’s vice president of sales and marketing. It targets non-safety applications within the auto. “The technology comes from the same hands, the same fab” as Bosch’s consumer-oriented MEMS sensors, he added.
Bosch is emphasizing the development of application-specific sensor nodes, Gemelli said, describing them as “ASICs for the sensor world.” ASSNs can work alongside stand-alone sensors and may be connected to microcontrollers, application processors, and radio chips, according to Gemelli.
Ian Chen of Freescale Semiconductor had a big presence at the MEMS Executive Congress, making a presentation in the conference program and being frequently found in the press room, giving interviews.
“Sensors track changes in the physical environment,” said the senior director of marketing for systems and applications in Freescale’s Sensor Solutions Division. Applications include smart cooktops, smart beds (for consumer and health-care applications), smart power tools, and asset tracking and monitoring, he added.
In “breaking down cost barriers” for sensor adoption, Freescale is offering evaluation kits for Internet of Things applications, Chen said. These include the chip company’s Kinetis microcontrollers and sensors, packaged on Arduino boards and integrated with multiple real-time operating systems.
Vesper CEO Matt Crowley was touting his startup’s piezoelectric MEMS microphone technology at the conference, demonstrating for analysts and journalists how the piezo microphone can minimize ambient sounds, such as the conversation of other people, in recording an interview.

Sensor technology on display on the show floor. (Courtesy MEMS Industry Group MIG)

Piezoelectric offers several advantages over capacitance microphones, such as insensitivity to dust and being waterproof, according to Crowley. “Piezo is very rugged,” he said.
Apple is driving the growth in advanced MEMS microphone technology, the Vesper CEO noted. “There are so many acoustic applications,” Crowley said. The Amazon Echo device has seven microphones, automotive vehicles may have a dozen microphones, and there are smartphone prototypes with eight microphones, he added.
PNI Sensor was represented at the MEMS and sensor conference by Becky Oh, president and CEO; George Hsu, chairman, chief technology officer, and founder; and Deanna McKenzie, sales and marketing manager. The company on November 4 introduced the SENtral-A2 ultra-low-power co-processor, a tiny chip intended for smartphones and wearable gadgets.
The sensor fusion co-processor, which can also be used as a sensor hub, includes an algorithm feature set and a context framework to enable easier development of products with the chip.
The SENtral-A2 is “Google-compliant” with the Android mobile operating system, Oh noted, while Hsu said the chip can deal with the physical sensors and virtual sensors in Android-based products.
PNI Sensor was established in 1987 to develop sensors for the American military. In shifting its focus to consumer applications, the company found “there is a lot of interest in dead reckoning,” Oh said. “We did get a lot of design wins in wearables and in Chinese smartphones.”