MEMSCAP - The Power of a Small World

It is the first wireless, un-powered, permanently implantable pressure sensor for human use to be commercially available in the United States. The hermetically sealed circuit is inserted during the same procedure as the stent graft. Once in place, an antenna held over patient’s abdomen uses RF energy to measure pressure inside the aneurysm sac. The process of measuring the pressure causes no discomfort whatsoever to the patient. A real-time pressure measurement can be obtained as frequently as desired subsequent to its implantation.

David Stern, President and CEO of CardioMEMS, explains:
“We chose MEMSCAP as the key supplier for our EndoSure Sensor because we needed a partner with proven expertise in medical applications. CardioMEMS is engaged in providing its customers with breakthrough solutions, and MEMSCAP’s certified manufacturing and track-record for medical solutions in severe environments brought us the accuracy and reliability we were looking for”. “This first product is part of a global roadmap between MEMSCAP and CardioMEMS”.

These sensor solutions, including SP82 AL, SP82 DL or TP3100, are embarked onboard ultra-light Adam Aircraft new Very Light Jet A700, CESSNA Mustang Citation, or even the whole aircraft fleet of New Piper. They are also to be found in aeronautics systems of Liebherr Aerospace or at the core of Avidyne’s Entegra integrated flight deck system.

"We selected the MEMSCAP Transducer because it provides us the accuracy and stability needed to exceed our customers expectations," says Mark Perkins, Executive Vice President of Aerosonic Corporation.

Mark Krebs, Director of Avidyne’s Guidance and Controls Group, explains: “Avidyne requires low costs, exceptional reliability and high accuracy”. “We chose MEMSCAP because we find they provide the optimum solution”.

Thus,Therakos, a Johnson&Johnson company and the Photoresis therapy specialist, uses MEMSCAP pressure sensors for the most crucial step of its cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), treatment procedure, i.e skin cancer. For the same reasons, Sedat, has chosen our sensors as key element of its revolutionary cardiology product, Nautiflux.

Cynthia Star, Engineering Program Manager at Therakos, declares:

"We have selected MEMSCAP because we need extremely highly accurate and precise instruments when it comes to safety of our patients, yet we strive to reduce our costs in order to maintain reasonable price". "MEMSCAP offers us both quality and cost-effectiveness".

“We chose the SP844 transducer as key element of our Nautiflux because we needed a partner with proven expertise in medical applications. Sedat is engaged to providing its clients with ever improving solutions and MEMSCAP certified manufacturing and track-record for disposable solutions in severe environment brought us the accuracy and reliability we were looking for,” explains Jean-Pierre Desseignes, Sedat General Manager.

Fabricated out of the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina facility for over eleven years, the MUMPs prototyping service quickly thrived as the standard MEMS process for thick metal, SOI or polysilicon surface micromachining. MUMPs has delivered over hundreds of thousands of devices to diverse user groups ranging from the academic, commercial and government sectors worldwide. Results from these devices have provided detailed proof-of-concept data for use in graduate theses, published conference papers and most importantly advanced commercial product development.

The success of the original MUMPs process (now called PolyMUMPs) drove MEMSCAP’s decision to expand its offering by rolling out two additional processes in 2002: SOIMUMPs (double-sided etch on bonded SOI-Silicon wafers) and MetalMUMPs (20mm thick nickel electroplating). MEMSCAP now has the most diverse standard process portfolio in the industry available for its customers.

The unique features of MUMPs characterised by an easy and cost-effective access to multiple processes enable side-by-side individual designs on the same mask set from multiple customers for fabrication on regularly-scheduled standard process runs. To participate in MUMPs, customers purchase die sites and submit their own designs. For each 1cm x 1cm die site reserved, customers receive 15 chips after fabrication at MEMSCAP.

Recently, using MUMPs® manufacturing and prototyping services, Dartmouth College researchers have realized a robot so small that 200 of them could fit on the tip of your finger. This tiniest robot of all is 250 by 60 microns (shorter than a human hair and shorter than a full stop at the end of a sentence).

Peter Stokes, Senior Manager, Engineering Operations at CMC (Canadian Microelectronics Corporation) explains:

"The MUMPs process has helped to enable innovative university research and discovery, particularly in the design of complex MEMS structures. The MEMSCAP tool has helped to create a blueprint for other organizations in the industry to transform their processes into a multi-project wafer environment. This environment is critical to help make MEMS prototyping affordable to industry and university researchers ".

Dr. Bruce Donald, Joan and Edward Foley Professor of Computer Science, Chemistry, and Biology and head of the Robot Project, states:

“MUMPs provides a unique capability to our laboratory to rapidly prototype micro-electromechanical designs,” explains Dr. Bruce Donald,. “In general, it is difficult to get access to sophisticated processing facilities that allow prototyping and product development, and MEMSCAP bridges that gap, allowing us to rapidly go from design to fab to working device.”

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