How our e-MEMS are made
Until now, creating MEMS has involved expensive bespoke processes. Each MEMS design has required a unique process that can take 5-7 years to perfect. Production on custom lines by specialized companies means that there are no economies of scale and there is no way to ramp production apart from duplicating the production line.
Nanusens creates nanoscale structures inside the CMOS layers using standard CMOS processes, within the same production flow as the control electronics, on the same chip. This innovative approach reduces the size by orders of magnitude and significantly cuts the costs due to the vast economies of scale of using giant CMOS fabs.Â
OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS
Our e-MEMS and Silicon Photonics
Silicon photonics is increasingly being used to implement optical interconnects between AI processors within data centers and hyperscalers in order to increase bandwidth and reduce power consumption. However, there are number of significant challenges to overcome, such as misalignment. At Nanusens, we can address this by using our novel e-MEMS technology to incorporate nano-mechanical devices inside the silicon photonic chips. Our nano-aligner reduces laser alignment time from several minutes to only a few seconds. There is also a locking mechanism after alignment to ensure accuracy and stability, with the option to realign at any point if needed. Leveraging our innovative e-MEMS enables volume production.
How our e-MEMS Sensors work
This scanning electron microscope picture shows the structure of a Nanusens motion sensor that detects movement in one plane – up and down in this illustration. The design consists of a load mass in the middle supported off of four rectangular pillars via four springs. The interleaved ‘fingers’ on the left- and right-hand side move relative to one another as the load mass moves. This movement is detected by the change in the capacitance between the fingers.
Multiple sensors on one chip
We will soon be making combination solutions with several nanosensors on the same chip. This is very easy for us to do as all our sensors use the same standard CMOS techniques to make them. What’s really exciting is that the additional sensor structures are all about the same tiny size so that there is only a tiny increase in the overall chip size as we add more sensor structures. The control electronics are mainly shared so again there is hardly any size increase as the number of sensors increases from this aspect. Now designers can add sensors for improved functionality and device awareness without having to sacrifice valuable space.
In addition, a single package solution with multiple sensors needs far less PCB real estate than a set of individually packaged MEMS sensors.
Rugged
Importantly for a sensor in a device that is likely to be dropped, our NEMS designs are more robust and reliable than MEMS designs. This is because, when dropped, the large load mass of a MEMS hits another part of the MEMS and sticks due to Van der Waals or Casimir forces creating reliability issues for MEMS. By contrast, there is less mass in a small, light NEMS load mass so these forces have less of an effect. The NEMS device is thus much less likely to be affected by impacts, making it more rugged and reliable.
