MEMS foundry silterra unveils monolithic PMUT on CMOS platform
SilTerra, a Malaysian CMOS and MEMS foundry services provider, this week unveiled a piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducer (PMUT) on CMOS platform for fingerprint sensing and medical imaging applications. According to the company, this unique process platform offers a monolithic solution and integrates the PMUT on top of the CMOS resulting in a single-chip solution.
The PMUT is formed using a CMOS compatible piezoelectric materials and surface micro-machining techniques. Designers can choose any of the SilTerra’s traditional CMOS, BCD, RF, and ultra low-power platforms in 180nm or 130nm nodes to build the PMUT on the top of these platforms.
This platform is supported by the relevant CMOS IP and PDK to enable a fully integrated system-on-chip. The PDK supports a configurable PMUT cell to address various market applications such as a 20MHz PMUT cell for fingerprint sensing or a 5MHz PMUT cell for medical imaging. SilTerra’s PMUT-on-CMOS platform is currently available for prototyping.
PMUT devices (top view).
“We are very pleased to release this innovative process for prototyping. As this process uses most of the standard CMOS process modules, we are confident to achieve manufacturability and defect density levels similar to the traditional CMOS technologies. By offering a truly monolithic solution, we managed to reduce the parasitics significantly and also offer high fill-factors,” said Arjun Kumar Kantimahanti, Senior Vice President of SilTerra MEMS and sensors business unit.
Some of the PMUT-on-CMOS platform key features include the aluminum nitride based PMUT device integrated over CMOS, resonant frequency of up to 25 MHz, 9 additional mask layers to implement PMUT on the top of the traditional CMOS devices, as well as demonstrated working devices in water and FC-70.
Some of the PMUT-on-CMOS platform key features include the aluminum nitride based PMUT device integrated over CMOS, resonant frequency of up to 25 MHz, 9 additional mask layers to implement PMUT on the top of the traditional CMOS devices, as well as demonstrated working devices in water and FC-70.
PMUT devices (actual silicon view).
SilTerra’s also offers a MEMS-on-CMOS technology which enables MEMS designers to build into single MEMS chip solutions, which deliver better product performance at lower package cost as compared to conventional two chip solutions. The company operates state-of-the-art CMOS facilities, and specializes on MEMS-on-CMOS surface micromachined MEMS devices.
SilTerra is a CMOS and MEMS foundry services provider. The company offers fabrication and design support services in CMOS logic, high-voltage, mixed-signal, RF, BCD, power, silicon photonics, and MEMS technologies down to 90nm feature size. SilTerra’s wafer fab has a design-in capacity of 46,000 eight-inch wafers per month and currently serves customers in US, Taiwan, Korea, and China.
The company started commercial production in 2001, and its factory is located in Malaysia’s Kulim Hi-Tech Park, with sales and marketing offices in San Jose (California) and Hsinchu (Taiwan).
Source: http://www.memsjournal.com/