MEMS: The Second Silicon Revolution?

What other MEMS topics would you like to see?

My favorite application for mems is in aviation, since I am a recreational pilot. One of the first and most successful application of mems was accelerometers, which don't need openings in the package to work. Accelerometers can replace gyroscopes as well as enable inertial navigation, since they can be made to sense rotation as well as movement. With the advent of mems, avionics makers looked forward to replacing expensive and maintenance intensive mechanical gyroscopes with mems. A huge incentive was reliability: a gyroscope that fails can bring down an aircraft. The problem was accuracy. Mems accelerometers displayed drift that was worse than the best mechanical gyros. Previous inertial navigation systems used expensive laser gyros that worked by sending light pulses through a spool of fibre optical line and measuring the delay due to rotation. Mems accelerometers didn't get much better, but they are sweeping all of the old mechanical systems into the trash can. So how did this problem get solved? Well, the original technology for GPS satellite location was rather slow, taking up to a minute to form a "fix". But with more powerful CPUs it got much faster. But GPS cannot replace gyros, no matter how fast it can calculate. But the faster calculation enabled something incredible: the GPS calculation could be used to calibrate the mems accelerometers. By carefully calculating the math, a combined GPS/multiaxis accelerometer package can accurately and reliably find a real time position and orientation in space. You can think of it this way: GPS provides position over long periods of time,, but very accurately, and mems accelerometers provide position and orientation over short periods of time, but not so accurately. Together they achieve what neither technology can do on its own. The result has been a revolution in avionics. Now even small aircraft can have highly advanced "glass" panels, that give moving maps, a depiction of the aircraft attitude, and even a synthetic view of of the world outside the aircraft in conjunction with terrain data. It can even tell exactly which way the wind is blowing on the aircraft because this information falls out of the GPS/accelerometer calculation.

Another emerging application of MEMS is in all-optical field programmable photonics gate array (FPPGA). It is basically an FPGA for photonics integrated circuit (PIC). The PIC (and silicon photonics, as this is the most potential candidate for the platform) itself is already dubbed as post-moore technology so knowing researchers trying to build this technology is very exciting. Major project like H2020 MORPHIC has made significant result to realize this technology. PS: Photonics Research Group from U Ghent has a YouTube channel to spread their latest update on their works. Their explanation videos on FPPGAs are easily digestible and quite fun to watch.

I think the original German acronym LiGA stands for "Lithographie, Galvanik und Abformung" (lithography, electroplating, and molding), but for some reason the English Wikipedia disagrees...

Interesting video. Viewers should understand that MEMS developers have recognized the need for standards for more than 20 (30?) years. While there has been some success with packaging and interconnect technologies, available "standard" MEMS processes (usually offered by small foundries) are just not capable of manufacturing commercially competitive devices. In the end, 98% of the process might be standard, but the crucial 2% required to make the device successful is unique (kind of like human vs chimp DNA). And unfortunately every new device requires a different 2% of highly refined manufacturing capabilities. The key insight is that MEMS fabrication is fundamentally different than IC production. IC makers use the fab to lay down layers of electronic materials that interact in well defined ways. MEMS makers use the tools of the IC fab as a highly sophisticated machine shop. And unless you are machining exactly the same part, the manufacturing flow has to be tweaked - usually significantly. Even though both hammers and screwdrivers are mechanical devices, you wouldn't expect to be able to make the best hammer or the best screwdriver using the same process. This - and even greater difficulties in MEMS size (cost) reduction - make the economics of MEMS completely different from IC's. MEMS are never going to be capable of delivering the never ending year on year cost reduction that Analog Devices institutionalized years ago. THAT is probably the biggest lesson - and ultimately the greatest limitation on growth in the industry. ;)

A noteworthy historical detail: Kurt Petersen's seminal review paper, "Silicon as a Mechanical Material" May 1982 issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE

it's interesting to see how lithography can be so much better than traditional manufacturing. I remember when wifi antennas used to be rods or little wires, whereas placing these same antennas onto much more controlled surfaces like the PCB itself improves their performance by an order of magnitude. Given how controlled the lithographic processes are, I assume that similar gains, or at least consistency, can be achieved therein.

I love watching your videos. One of the few YouTubers that makes in-depth, good quality content that obviously cares to do a deep dive and show relevant visuals in the video.

Yesss I've been waiting on this! Everything you put out is great, but I'm especially loving these chip videos!!!

Great breakdown on the packaging aspect of it! I’m a tech noob but even I could follow along with that so I appreciate it.

First MEMS device that caught my interest was micro mirror array chip from Texas Instruments for DLP video projector. It was wonder technology, compared with then current 3-tube CRT or LCD projector. DLP technology enabled laser movie projector in digital movie theater of today. It opened age of digital cinema (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 1999)

This video brought back alot of memories. Some 35+ years ago I worked on microbolometers for LWIR thermal imaging.

dude you do the best job out of alllll the many other yt channels covering similar type topics. you really hit that sweet spot of not too much, but not too little, but also surprising us w/ little details that one would think only an insider has access to, things i never thot would be so interesting & more. cant afford patreon, but sub'd. --thanks a lot man..

Fantastic summary of a very exciting relatively new technology. Keep up the great work!

A wonderful channel and a great resource. I am embarrassed to admit that even $3 dollars is beyond my meager budget for the time being. Kudos

I really enjoy how you have new areas of technology to explore and it's not about the software

I'm always blown away at the high quality of these videos. They are supremely well researched, interesting, and easy to understand. Good job!

These are the best tech videos on youtube, thank you for making them.

MEMS was favorite college course. It was offered as an elective where I went to school. I was both feet in and it is one of the few classes that offers real world experience. Mechatronics and Control Systems being the other 2.

It seems that MEMS and silicon chips address different things. MEMS are interfaces to the physical world, and in any given application, you only need a handful of sensors (only so many things you can measure). Silicon is the internal world, processing data, building higher-level features. There's no limit to how much you might want to add i n this realm. Even if MEMS could achieve the same cost reduction and complexity increase as silicon, it doesn't seem like it would be so profound as silicon has been.