Micromirror and microaperture arrays are fascinating. One of the NIR spectrometers on JWST has a particularly cool one. And it’s the basis for all of Texas Instruments’ IP on DLP.
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.
Great points. Gps fixing does not have to do with better cpu's per say, but better prediction lookup tables for faster signal fixes. If you note a first startup of a fresh gps without any tables, it takes a while to get a fix, but subsequent power ups provide faster fix times. These tables can be pre programmed, and are geographically based. However, not all systems utilize them to their full potential for quickest signal locks. Those spinning gyroscopes are bulky, but neat. Name another instrument that makes such a sound! The protective casings are a farce if the gyro decided to let go of itself fully spun up. Beautifully scary! If car bearings are packed with gyro grease, will there be a performance gain? 😝
@D R That's a great question. In fact we could just use the altitude from the GPS system. Right now you dial in the barometric "base pressure", or pressure at sea level. This is used to calibrate the altimeter so that it delivers accurate results, I believe it is within 100 feet of accuracy (other sources say the FAA allows 75 feet of accuracy). Its a big big deal. A few feet could mean if you hit a building or pass over it. Thus when you fly, you are always getting pressure updates from the controller, because you are going to need updates that are as close as possible to the pressure in your area. So why not use the GPS altitude, which is more accurate? 1. Not everyone has a GPS. 2. Even fewer have built in GPS (in the panel of the aircraft). 3. A large number of aircraft don't re calibrate their altimeters at all. 4. New vs. old. Aircraft have been around for a long time. GPS not so much. If you know a bit about aircraft, you also know that number 3 there lobbed a nuclear bomb into this conversation. Don't worry, we will get there. First, there is GPS and there is GPS, implied by 1 and 2. Most GPS units in use are portable (in light aircraft). Long ago the FAA mandated a system based on transponders called "mode-C" that couples a barometric altimeter into the transponder. OK, now we are going into the twistly road bits. That altimeter is NOT COMPENSATED FOR BASE PRESSURE. In general the pilot does not read it, the controller does (ok most modern transponders do read it out, mine does, but an uncompensated altitude is basically useless to the pilot). The controller (generally) knows where you are, and thus knows what the compensating pressure is (no, he/she does not do the math, the system does it for them). Note that GPS had nothing to do with that mode C discussion. So for the first part of this, for a GPS to be used for altitude, the pilot would have to go back to constantly reporting his/her altitude to the controller. UNLESS! You could have a mode S transponder, or a more modern UAT transceiver. Then, your onboard GPS automatically transmits the altitude, and the position, and the speed and direction of the aircraft. Now we are into equipage. Note "onboard GPS". That means built into the aircraft. Most GPS on light aircraft are handheld, which are a fraction of the cost of built in avionics. Please lets not get into why that is, its about approved combinations of equipment in aircraft, calibration, and other issues. The mere mention of it can cause fistfights in certain circles. Ok, now lets get into number 3. If you are flying over, say, 14,000 feet, its safe to say you are not in danger of hitting any mountains, or buildings, or towers. Just other aircraft. So you don't care about pressure compensation. So the rules provide that if you are over 18,000 feet, you reach down and dial the "standard pressure" of 29.92 inches of mercury, which the FAA has decreed is "standard pressure" (the FAA also has things like standard temperature, standard tree sizes, etc. fun outfit). So what does that mean? Say you are TWA flight 1, and TWA flight 2 is headed the opposite direction, same altitude. Both read 18,000 feet. Are they really at 18,000 feet? No, but it doesn't matter. If they are going to collide, they are in the same area, and thus the same pressure. Meaning that their errors cancel. It doesn't matter that they are really at 19,123 feet, they both read the same. Thus climbing to 19,000 (by the altimeter) means they will be separated by 1,000 feet. So the short answer is the final one. The barometric system is pretty much woven into the present way aircraft work. It may change, but it is going to take a long time. Like not in my lifetime.
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 UA-cam channel to spread their latest update on their works. Their explanation videos on FPPGAs are easily digestible and quite fun to watch.
Photonic chips have a much larger feature size than electrical ones. So unless you only care about energy spending, I don't get how can it compete with the electrical ones even if it has 100 times higher frequency.
@@isaacdorfman a device that can commute 100 times faster than ics in optical communications have some potential. Like for example optical switch's and routers
@@eljuligallego You are right about switches(I think) but we were talking about compute. Maybe some electric/photonic hybrid can improve the current ones.
@@isaacdorfman You didn't get it, they are still field programmable gate arrays, but the gates themselves are photonic (if I myself got it right). For certain tasks benefits are huge especially so if you have some AI to recognise what better to compute with optical circuitry.
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. ;)
Another big difference is that scaling doesn't really work. Reducing the size of a MEMS sensor often makes the noise worse, but more important, there is really no benefit to fitting more sensors on a die after say 6 in the case of an IMU. Smaller dice are a bit cheaper, but if the package really dominates then this does nothing.
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...
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.
Depends. On PCBs, when very high accuracy is required, they laser trim them. We used laser trimmers on resistors in hybrids as well, really nothing beats it for accuracy. There was an outfit selling laser configured ICs, like an FPGA but the fuses were laser burned. The company failed, and I ran into one of their engineers later and asked him why. "contamination" -- was the answer.
I love watching your videos. One of the few UA-camrs that makes in-depth, good quality content that obviously cares to do a deep dive and show relevant visuals in the video.
You were the first one to mention it, I thought of those immediately after someone mentioned DLP, those tiny structures of MBOL's are amazing tech. Tiny temperature probes arranged in a grid that has to be thermally isolated from the substrate (and one another).
Years ago I used an off the shelf TI DLP chip to make a calibration device for TICs. It had the window carefully removed, then a super thin gold layer deposited on it, and recapped with a ZnSe optical window. Made testing a lot simpler since the patterns could be changed on the fly to simulate movement. Our images were BST ferroelctric sensors btw. The VOx sensors were a game changer to be sure. ❤
One thing I did for a project was decap a MEMS light modulator and very carefully coat the mirror assembly with gold. Then the device was capped with a ZnSe window under a high vacuum. It got used for a thermal image projector to make test patterns for flir type thermal imaging cameras. MEMS made this project a lot less costly than attempting to use gross optical pattern generators for each test pattern. The light source was incredibly cheap, literally a simple halogen lamp.😂
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.
@@Asianometry LOL! Well I can assure you that's solely because she doesn't share our interests in it...and its not a reflection of you or the video content/quality ...because it's amazing as usual!
@@Asianometry As someone who's been heavily interested in tech/IT/Cybersecurity/this list could go on for quite awhile (lol) for most of my life now, I've found myself knowing relatively little about chip fabrication / processes. I mean obviously I know how they work, I know about the architectures and memory hierarches and transistors and all that, but was comparatively lacking on my knowledge of how they're actually produced. Not so much anymore though, because you make entertaining, incrediblely informative / educational videos on this topic (and of course many others, too!) and I truly appreciate you and what you do!!!
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)
Yup that was the one I modified for use to calibrate thermal cameras. Decanted it and coated the mirror assembly with a very thin layer of gold then recapped it under vacuum with a ZnSe window. It saved a lot of money on that project since a bunch of test patterns could be generated as needed. ❤
For those of you interested in learning more about MEMS I can highly recommend this video by New Mind: ua-cam.com/video/iPGpoUN29zk/v-deo.html It doesn't cover as much of the economic detail, but has some rather fascinating use cases.
Good video summary but light on the actual physics, specially the idea of using the coriolis effect to make mems gyroscopes. The video below goes into more details on the concept and equations for designing such a tiny gyroscope. Very ingenious! Warning! Physics equations used, not very difficult but mathemophobes have been warned. ua-cam.com/video/PK05u9c3yWI/v-deo.html
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.
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..
I'm a little surprised Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing (DLP) is not mentioned. There are Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD) with over 8 million tiny mirrors on the die.
Quadcopters (aka "drones") aren't possible without gyros. It's because of tiny MEMS gyros that we have radio-controled drones. Even the tiny toy drones use them.
MEMS have made consumer medical products cheap. when i was 4 my nebulizer was the size of a fax machine and $600, i bought one on amazon the size of a coke can for $20 several months ago. i own a BP cuff that was $25, and the genuine size of a pip boy
With 100 million cars produced every year, and many cars having multiple airbag accelerometers, the number of MEMS airbag sensors ever made must be in the billions, way, way higher than 60 million.
MEMS pressure sensors and accelerometers are everywhere on an airplane and I would go as far to say they are one of the main great enablers for the extreme autonomy of modern day aircraft. Fuel capacity sensors, altimeters, speedometers, flow rate sensors, gyros; older mechanical systems were larger in size and mass while harder to manufacture, had high maintenance costs and low reliability in the changing environmental conditions during flight. Now we can place 10 sensors for redundancy together with 10 EMI filters in the same space where we had 1 or 2 purely mechanical systems.
I know a guy who worked at a silicon chip manufacturer in the UK long ago, apparently at some point they made a projector that reflected little mirrors using this kind of tech. It was super super difficult and prohibitive, but worked. Until they got beat to market by like LCD projectors and that was that.
You mention IoT devices near the end. Accelerometers, barometers, temp sensors, all kinds of sensors, if made smaller, allow more and cheaper IoT devices. I got an assembly kit from a guy for a small rocket altimeter and ejection triggering device. I think it just had barometer for altitude, one accelerometer to sense apogee for drogue deploy, ESP32 microprocessor to allow you to program it and access it with a cell phone over Bluetooth to set main chute trigger altitude and to download flight data. This all fits within 1 inch by 2 inches of circuit board. Its at least a few magnitudes smaller than a decade ago, built by a hobbyist, costs a quarter of what previous devices were and 4 times the functionality.
Can you make a MEMS standardization efforts and organizations that working on it as next topic? I think only I\O plate\connectors need to be standard. Rest will come in time. Much like USB or PCI-E compatibility. We can plug in tons of devices there, but they all "magically" work without need to understand or worry about internals of such devices.
Almost all MEMS devices are i2c if they're low data rate digital and i2s if they're audio specific and digital, but analogue devices exist as well. Their packages and pinouts tend to be engineering driven rather than standardised, especially since the industry is pushing for smaller packages, you can have packages the size of the actual die pretty much, but that leaves no room for standardisation. A neat thing about i2c is that you can have a single bus of 2 data wires running throughout your whole device and all the sensors can be on there. Indeed there's an i2c bus running throughout your PC called SMBus which contains a great number of sensors and also your SDRAM SPD chips and it's also exposed onto PCIe connections. However most sensor ICs are not SMBus compliant, they cannot hotplug themselves an address, you can't auto detect them, you just hardwire them an address from the available ones via pin pullups/pulldowns and then do a register read, about a few seconds of looking in the datasheet and hardwired into your firmware according to your hardware, more complexity really isn't generally desired by the hardware designers. What use-case are you thinking of? USB HID is suitable and Bluetooth (LE) GATT is intended for sensor use.
@@SianaGearz So, is there hot switch option? Can we actually program address before or after use? It will make hotswap option available, or it will complicate things or dramatically increase pricing?
@@vputilov As long as there are no address collisions, and every address corresponds also to a particular type of device, you can treat i2c devices as polled hotplug. The addresses aren't software determined, they are determined in hardware at board layout stage, or the device can include address set jumpers. You can also get SMBus to i2c chips which handle just the dynamic address assignment (the adapter chip talks to a sensor on a fixed address, and to host it just gets a valid address from the arbiter) and device type query.
I just want to let you know that I know very little about politics in SE Asia aside from the broad strokes so I’d love to see more just general video essays about the politics of Taiwan and the like I doubt I’m the only one and I feel like there’s a niche here just being a sort of window into your neck of the woods in a similar way to JJ McCullough does with Canada with a more technological focus versus his cultural focus Im sure there are better channels for that but the algorithm has never showed them to me you’re the first channel I’ve stumbled upon Also sure you are categorized with geopolitical channels I found you while watching Caspian report so just keep in mind that there may be folks stumbling upon your channel looking for geopolitical content And finally I think the deer is cute I dig your voice and ur videos are informative learning a lot more about silicon than I expected to but it’s interesting none the less even if I’m having to look up a few acronyms
Google says in 2020 there were around 80 million cars produced each year, which matched up to 60M perfectly. I'm guessing it's a bit lower cause he took past data
Fun fact: iPhones will temporarily break when placed in a helium atmosphere due to reliance on some MEMS oscillators being calibrated to oxygen/ nitrogen atmosphere.
Brilliant overview of what I believe a very under rated technology. Mems or something similar is going to be the future of nanometer robots etc and so I see this as fundamental to much of our future objectives. I have been fascinated with miniaturization all my life and I absolutely love the principles of MEMs. Im surprised DARPA etc are not putting more funding into this area
Can you make a video only about semiconductor package substrates like BT substrate, ABF substrates etc and companies. PBGA, FCCSP, WBCSP, FCBGA designed substrates.
I can see MEMS chiplets being a thing. Just purchase them "off the shelf" and add them to your SOIC. No need to design your own gyro etc for your project, no need for the extra volume to add an external gyro.
I'm lead to believe that a number of MEMS devices are indeed MCMs - multi chip modules, such as 9-axis IMUs. But i'm not super certain. And yeah putting an existing MEMS onto an MCM leadframe makes sense i suppose. But also it may be unnecessary. Have you seen WLCSP packages? Like damn.
Aren't MEMS chips typically powered from specific purpose low-noise supplies different to the main cpu buses? They're way more electrically noise sensitive than other devices.
@@gblargg Yeah, as one of the commentators mentioned above the WLCSP packaging, holy crap how tiny. PCB real-estate isn't such a big deal for MEMS devices nowadays.
@@SianaGearz you’re right, because MEMS use silicon-on-insulator instead of bulk silicon they are a separate chip than their electronics most of the time
Yes, I agree. standardization for MEMS might be a valid solution for reducing costs, but in the area there will be a struggle to present which competing design and methodology is best where some parties will always try to set some type of proprietary restrictions to make a profit which would increase overall industry costs, but the culprits demanding those directives will not care because they are potentially receiving a bulk amount of profits from the situation.
A counter argument is that enforcing a packaging standard would end up creating a natural monopoly for the company that is best able to optimise for that packaging. Basically whoever is already closest to the adopted design will most likely end up controlling that market. It is important to note that due to the bespoke nature of mechanical engineering solutions mean that there are few standard interfaces in that field. You can't effectively created standard solutions for bespoke problems. What happens when the standard solution is then not fit for purpose for an application? Do you then create a bespoke package or make the customer design around the limitations?
@@SurmaSampo I don't think the decision would be made that would effect the entire industry. I believe when there are decisions regarding standardization that the client's preference and his willingness to pay for what customization he wants will take precedence over the one assigned to produce the products. The clients' willingness to pay for their design preference will take precedence which is what has happened in the IC industry although within each foundry the process and standards are different. Thanks for the response.
@@fturla Yeah I think we are both on the same page that standardisation in MEMS wouldn't be bad in itself but there are risks to the industry in doing so and achieving a workable standard would be hard.
If you want to see what actually goes on in a MEMS academic fab, check out some of the videos we've posted on Practical Microfabrication. More to come once this PhD is done. :)
(1) A demonstration of the calculations need to make a device based on a vibrating structure that generates capacitance 0.5 to 3pf depending on an input force. (I hope this is simple ) (2) If request (1) is too complex a demonstration of the calculations for a cantelever beam that would can deflect down or up when energized by an external force.
As per google translate: Lithographie Galano- formung Abformung Lithography Galano- formation Impression And, as I suspected, the original was in German.
Another fine video! Always worth watching. One quick note: "micron" is obsolete. Even if a source you consult uses that term, it is better to replace it with "micrometre" (MY-kroh-mee-ter) in your video. . Keep up your excellent work!
@@Grak70 My sources are BIPM and NIST. Check them out for the status of "micron". Similar story when it comes to bar (use pascal), Centigrade (use Celsius), and angstrom (use nanometer or picometre).
@@punditgi my point is regardless of the “official” word, micron is in extremely wide use. ESPECIALLY in the semiconductor industry. There’s also IUPAC names for complex organic molecules but chemists don’t use them. In this industry, “micron” is the correct choice of word. Saying “micrometer” in this field to a colleague makes you sound like a pretentious asshole.
Third Silicon Revolution: micro-scale Babbage Engines running at millions of cycles per second. Mechanical parts at small scale aren't as troubled by mass, inertia or friction as macro-scale parts. The efficiency of a single Babbage cycle is the real pay-off! MEMS could be the bridging technology: Babbage Engines are 'programmed' mechanically, MEMS can shove stuff around rapidly and accurately in response to electronic signals. Output of a Babbage is mechanical as well; optical sensors read the data, translate to electronic signals. From the outside, the Processor would look like any other.
What other MEMS topics would you like to see?
Do a video on MEM(E)S.
MEMS for relays was something I came across recently.
Would like to see a video on lab on a chip and microfluidics
Micromirror and microaperture arrays are fascinating. One of the NIR spectrometers on JWST has a particularly cool one. And it’s the basis for all of Texas Instruments’ IP on DLP.
I love this if this gives me more fps
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.
That would save lives if it stops the death spiral. (AKA the graveyard spiral). thanks for the post.
Great points.
Gps fixing does not have to do with better cpu's per say, but better prediction lookup tables for faster signal fixes. If you note a first startup of a fresh gps without any tables, it takes a while to get a fix, but subsequent power ups provide faster fix times. These tables can be pre programmed, and are geographically based. However, not all systems utilize them to their full potential for quickest signal locks.
Those spinning gyroscopes are bulky, but neat. Name another instrument that makes such a sound! The protective casings are a farce if the gyro decided to let go of itself fully spun up. Beautifully scary! If car bearings are packed with gyro grease, will there be a performance gain? 😝
@D R That's a great question. In fact we could just use the altitude from the GPS system. Right now you dial in the barometric "base pressure", or pressure at sea level. This is used to calibrate the altimeter so that it delivers accurate results, I believe it is within 100 feet of accuracy (other sources say the FAA allows 75 feet of accuracy). Its a big big deal. A few feet could mean if you hit a building or pass over it. Thus when you fly, you are always getting pressure updates from the controller, because you are going to need updates that are as close as possible to the pressure in your area.
So why not use the GPS altitude, which is more accurate?
1. Not everyone has a GPS.
2. Even fewer have built in GPS (in the panel of the aircraft).
3. A large number of aircraft don't re calibrate their altimeters at all.
4. New vs. old. Aircraft have been around for a long time. GPS not so much.
If you know a bit about aircraft, you also know that number 3 there lobbed a nuclear bomb into this conversation. Don't worry, we will get there. First, there is GPS and there is GPS, implied by 1 and 2. Most GPS units in use are portable (in light aircraft). Long ago the FAA mandated a system based on transponders called "mode-C" that couples a barometric altimeter into the transponder. OK, now we are going into the twistly road bits. That altimeter is NOT COMPENSATED FOR BASE PRESSURE. In general the pilot does not read it, the controller does (ok most modern transponders do read it out, mine does, but an uncompensated altitude is basically useless to the pilot). The controller (generally) knows where you are, and thus knows what the compensating pressure is (no, he/she does not do the math, the system does it for them).
Note that GPS had nothing to do with that mode C discussion. So for the first part of this, for a GPS to be used for altitude, the pilot would have to go back to constantly reporting his/her altitude to the controller. UNLESS!
You could have a mode S transponder, or a more modern UAT transceiver. Then, your onboard GPS automatically transmits the altitude, and the position, and the speed and direction of the aircraft.
Now we are into equipage. Note "onboard GPS". That means built into the aircraft. Most GPS on light aircraft are handheld, which are a fraction of the cost of built in avionics. Please lets not get into why that is, its about approved combinations of equipment in aircraft, calibration, and other issues. The mere mention of it can cause fistfights in certain circles.
Ok, now lets get into number 3. If you are flying over, say, 14,000 feet, its safe to say you are not in danger of hitting any mountains, or buildings, or towers. Just other aircraft. So you don't care about pressure compensation. So the rules provide that if you are over 18,000 feet, you reach down and dial the "standard pressure" of 29.92 inches of mercury, which the FAA has decreed is "standard pressure" (the FAA also has things like standard temperature, standard tree sizes, etc. fun outfit). So what does that mean? Say you are TWA flight 1, and TWA flight 2 is headed the opposite direction, same altitude. Both read 18,000 feet. Are they really at 18,000 feet? No, but it doesn't matter. If they are going to collide, they are in the same area, and thus the same pressure. Meaning that their errors cancel. It doesn't matter that they are really at 19,123 feet, they both read the same. Thus climbing to 19,000 (by the altimeter) means they will be separated by 1,000 feet.
So the short answer is the final one. The barometric system is pretty much woven into the present way aircraft work. It may change, but it is going to take a long time. Like not in my lifetime.
Ohh now i get how new feature of Google maps work
you are very professional!
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 UA-cam channel to spread their latest update on their works. Their explanation videos on FPPGAs are easily digestible and quite fun to watch.
Working in photonics here and can confirm, FPPGAs can popularize the usage of photonic logic, and the guys from UGhent are amazing at communicating it
Photonic chips have a much larger feature size than electrical ones.
So unless you only care about energy spending, I don't get how can it compete with the electrical ones even if it has 100 times higher frequency.
@@isaacdorfman a device that can commute 100 times faster than ics in optical communications have some potential. Like for example optical switch's and routers
@@eljuligallego You are right about switches(I think) but we were talking about compute.
Maybe some electric/photonic hybrid can improve the current ones.
@@isaacdorfman You didn't get it, they are still field programmable gate arrays, but the gates themselves are photonic (if I myself got it right). For certain tasks benefits are huge especially so if you have some AI to recognise what better to compute with optical circuitry.
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. ;)
Another big difference is that scaling doesn't really work. Reducing the size of a MEMS sensor often makes the noise worse, but more important, there is really no benefit to fitting more sensors on a die after say 6 in the case of an IMU. Smaller dice are a bit cheaper, but if the package really dominates then this does nothing.
Maybe it will go the way of 3d printing.
@@luminousfractal420 Interesting thought
thhx....
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...
I thought the acronym stands for LIGMA?
@@econman5670 what's LIGMA??
@@Gabagool22 LIGMA Balls B)
@@Gabagool22 Ligma ballz
@@it6647 gottem good
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.
Depends. On PCBs, when very high accuracy is required, they laser trim them. We used laser trimmers on resistors in hybrids as well, really nothing beats it for accuracy. There was an outfit selling laser configured ICs, like an FPGA but the fuses were laser burned. The company failed, and I ran into one of their engineers later and asked him why.
"contamination" -- was the answer.
I love watching your videos. One of the few UA-camrs that makes in-depth, good quality content that obviously cares to do a deep dive and show relevant visuals in the video.
A noteworthy historical detail: Kurt Petersen's seminal review paper, "Silicon as a Mechanical Material" May 1982 issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE
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.
This video brought back alot of memories. Some 35+ years ago I worked on microbolometers for LWIR thermal imaging.
You were the first one to mention it, I thought of those immediately after someone mentioned DLP, those tiny structures of MBOL's are amazing tech. Tiny temperature probes arranged in a grid that has to be thermally isolated from the substrate (and one another).
@@spikester Yup! the amazing VOx microbolometers
Years ago I used an off the shelf TI DLP chip to make a calibration device for TICs. It had the window carefully removed, then a super thin gold layer deposited on it, and recapped with a ZnSe optical window. Made testing a lot simpler since the patterns could be changed on the fly to simulate movement. Our images were BST ferroelctric sensors btw. The VOx sensors were a game changer to be sure. ❤
One thing I did for a project was decap a MEMS light modulator and very carefully coat the mirror assembly with gold. Then the device was capped with a ZnSe window under a high vacuum. It got used for a thermal image projector to make test patterns for flir type thermal imaging cameras. MEMS made this project a lot less costly than attempting to use gross optical pattern generators for each test pattern. The light source was incredibly cheap, literally a simple halogen lamp.😂
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.
Yesss I've been waiting on this! Everything you put out is great, but I'm *especially* loving these chip videos!!!
Glad you like them. My mother considers them the most boring videos I put on the channel.
@@Asianometry LOL! Well I can assure you that's solely because she doesn't share our interests in it...and its not a reflection of you or the video content/quality ...because it's amazing as usual!
@@Asianometry As someone who's been heavily interested in tech/IT/Cybersecurity/this list could go on for quite awhile (lol) for most of my life now, I've found myself knowing relatively little about chip fabrication / processes. I mean obviously I know how they work, I know about the architectures and memory hierarches and transistors and all that, but was comparatively lacking on my knowledge of how they're actually produced. Not so much anymore though, because you make entertaining, incrediblely informative / educational videos on this topic (and of course many others, too!) and I truly appreciate you and what you do!!!
@@Asianometry They're the best!
@@NNOTM
*She
He has only one mother
I'm always blown away at the high quality of these videos. They are supremely well researched, interesting, and easy to understand. Good job!
I really enjoy how you have new areas of technology to explore and it's not about the software
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)
Yup that was the one I modified for use to calibrate thermal cameras. Decanted it and coated the mirror assembly with a very thin layer of gold then recapped it under vacuum with a ZnSe window. It saved a lot of money on that project since a bunch of test patterns could be generated as needed. ❤
For those of you interested in learning more about MEMS I can highly recommend this video by New Mind: ua-cam.com/video/iPGpoUN29zk/v-deo.html
It doesn't cover as much of the economic detail, but has some rather fascinating use cases.
Good video summary but light on the actual physics, specially the idea of using the coriolis effect to make mems gyroscopes. The video below goes into more details on the concept and equations for designing such a tiny gyroscope. Very ingenious!
Warning! Physics equations used, not very difficult but mathemophobes have been warned.
ua-cam.com/video/PK05u9c3yWI/v-deo.html
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
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.
MEMS *is* silicon. It's literally made from silicon using roughly the same techniques as for making microelectronics.
The closing statement are so true. Never heard it stated so well. I am in that industry. Its total ciaos.
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LIGA actually stands for Lithographie, Galvanoformung, Abformung
literally lithography, electroplating and molding
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!
I'm a little surprised Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing (DLP) is not mentioned. There are Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD) with over 8 million tiny mirrors on the die.
These are the best tech videos on youtube, thank you for making them.
Brings me back to my undergrad days where we used SCREAM to fab some comb drives. FUN FUN FUN.
A video validating the claims in most of these MEMS labs. As someone who spent time in a few, they LOVE making HUGE claims.
Quadcopters (aka "drones") aren't possible without gyros. It's because of tiny MEMS gyros that we have radio-controled drones. Even the tiny toy drones use them.
MENS was once called nano mechanical parts known as nano gears and nano motors, etc.
MEMS have made consumer medical products cheap. when i was 4 my nebulizer was the size of a fax machine and $600, i bought one on amazon the size of a coke can for $20 several months ago. i own a BP cuff that was $25, and the genuine size of a pip boy
People are fascinated by "drones" but I doubt they understand that this is the technology that made them possible.
Yes indeed. MEMS makes them flyable. Without MEMS accelerometers and gyros, they would just flop over faster than a human can react.
And yet real helicopters are 100% human controlled so they don't flip over (most of the time).
When I saw IBM's electron microscope image of molecules arranged in order of spelling out "IBM"...I knew then anything is possible...
These little devices absolutely amaze me! Fantastic achievements!
As a guy working in mechanical design field, I'm very happy that you told something about how difficult and customized mechanical design is....
Probably one of the best researched UA-cam channel.
Thanks a lot!
Bosch a pioneer and global market leader
in the field of MEMS sensors.
Absolutely great video!
anyone else remember those iphone MEMs things going haywire in a hospital because of excess helium messing up their function not too long ago?
With 100 million cars produced every year, and many cars having multiple airbag accelerometers, the number of MEMS airbag sensors ever made must be in the billions, way, way higher than 60 million.
As someone who learned about it at university, I am really looking forward for more topics on MEMS
Really small microphones blew my mind when I first saw them under a microscope. It's incredible what an Airpod microphone actually looks like
I'm interested in using it as a speaker. I've heard of glasses that are said to have MEMS speakers.
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MEMS pressure sensors and accelerometers are everywhere on an airplane and I would go as far to say they are one of the main great enablers for the extreme autonomy of modern day aircraft. Fuel capacity sensors, altimeters, speedometers, flow rate sensors, gyros; older mechanical systems were larger in size and mass while harder to manufacture, had high maintenance costs and low reliability in the changing environmental conditions during flight. Now we can place 10 sensors for redundancy together with 10 EMI filters in the same space where we had 1 or 2 purely mechanical systems.
I know a guy who worked at a silicon chip manufacturer in the UK long ago, apparently at some point they made a projector that reflected little mirrors using this kind of tech. It was super super difficult and prohibitive, but worked. Until they got beat to market by like LCD projectors and that was that.
Still exists. High end stuff.
You mention IoT devices near the end. Accelerometers, barometers, temp sensors, all kinds of sensors, if made smaller, allow more and cheaper IoT devices.
I got an assembly kit from a guy for a small rocket altimeter and ejection triggering device. I think it just had barometer for altitude, one accelerometer to sense apogee for drogue deploy, ESP32 microprocessor to allow you to program it and access it with a cell phone over Bluetooth to set main chute trigger altitude and to download flight data. This all fits within 1 inch by 2 inches of circuit board. Its at least a few magnitudes smaller than a decade ago, built by a hobbyist, costs a quarter of what previous devices were and 4 times the functionality.
very good. I learned a lot. Thank you for sharing.
MEMS are something that runs long long time here, it started with tape needle for reading tapes and hard disks
Can you make a MEMS standardization efforts and organizations that working on it as next topic? I think only I\O plate\connectors need to be standard. Rest will come in time. Much like USB or PCI-E compatibility. We can plug in tons of devices there, but they all "magically" work without need to understand or worry about internals of such devices.
Almost all MEMS devices are i2c if they're low data rate digital and i2s if they're audio specific and digital, but analogue devices exist as well. Their packages and pinouts tend to be engineering driven rather than standardised, especially since the industry is pushing for smaller packages, you can have packages the size of the actual die pretty much, but that leaves no room for standardisation.
A neat thing about i2c is that you can have a single bus of 2 data wires running throughout your whole device and all the sensors can be on there. Indeed there's an i2c bus running throughout your PC called SMBus which contains a great number of sensors and also your SDRAM SPD chips and it's also exposed onto PCIe connections.
However most sensor ICs are not SMBus compliant, they cannot hotplug themselves an address, you can't auto detect them, you just hardwire them an address from the available ones via pin pullups/pulldowns and then do a register read, about a few seconds of looking in the datasheet and hardwired into your firmware according to your hardware, more complexity really isn't generally desired by the hardware designers.
What use-case are you thinking of? USB HID is suitable and Bluetooth (LE) GATT is intended for sensor use.
@@SianaGearz So, is there hot switch option? Can we actually program address before or after use? It will make hotswap option available, or it will complicate things or dramatically increase pricing?
@@vputilov As long as there are no address collisions, and every address corresponds also to a particular type of device, you can treat i2c devices as polled hotplug. The addresses aren't software determined, they are determined in hardware at board layout stage, or the device can include address set jumpers.
You can also get SMBus to i2c chips which handle just the dynamic address assignment (the adapter chip talks to a sensor on a fixed address, and to host it just gets a valid address from the arbiter) and device type query.
I just want to let you know that I know very little about politics in SE Asia aside from the broad strokes so I’d love to see more just general video essays about the politics of Taiwan and the like
I doubt I’m the only one and I feel like there’s a niche here just being a sort of window into your neck of the woods in a similar way to JJ McCullough does with Canada with a more technological focus versus his cultural focus
Im sure there are better channels for that but the algorithm has never showed them to me you’re the first channel I’ve stumbled upon
Also sure you are categorized with geopolitical channels I found you while watching Caspian report so just keep in mind that there may be folks stumbling upon your channel looking for geopolitical content
And finally I think the deer is cute I dig your voice and ur videos are informative learning a lot more about silicon than I expected to but it’s interesting none the less even if I’m having to look up a few acronyms
Well done, Sir. Concise and very informative!
that explains why when you talk to someone about a particular thing, you begin receiving ads with the exact same words spoken.
The Airbag mems sensor was more about faster reaction time than about price. They would probably had done it even if it had came out more expensive.
You are clearly not destined for the executive suite. 🤣
Before the cheap MEMS accelerometer, only a handful of luxury cars had airbags. Since the mid 90s, practically every car has them.
4:43 60 million airbag sensors sounds very low. That's even less than the total number of new cars currently produced per year.
Google says in 2020 there were around 80 million cars produced each year, which matched up to 60M perfectly. I'm guessing it's a bit lower cause he took past data
Man your work is pure gold.
Fun fact: iPhones will temporarily break when placed in a helium atmosphere due to reliance on some MEMS oscillators being calibrated to oxygen/ nitrogen atmosphere.
That airbag MEMS is on the cover of an edition of the Sedra Microelectronics book.
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Great to see you and your content!
That was quite educational for me. Thank you!
This is a very well presented. thank you
Mems, funnily enough, can also apply towards replacing windscreen wipers, generating ultrasonic vibrations in clearing rain water away.
Very interesting video. Thank you.
Very informative video. Thank you!
Brilliant overview of what I believe a very under rated technology. Mems or something similar is going to be the future of nanometer robots etc and so I see this as fundamental to much of our future objectives. I have been fascinated with miniaturization all my life and I absolutely love the principles of MEMs. Im surprised DARPA etc are not putting more funding into this area
Outstanding video
Can you make a video only about semiconductor package substrates like BT substrate, ABF substrates etc and companies. PBGA, FCCSP, WBCSP, FCBGA designed substrates.
Very informative video, thanks for these insights, very much appreciated!
Thanks, that was great!
Fascinating as always.
This is a good video. Solid content.
The ad i got just before this video was about a metal 3d printer. What the ad failed to mention was the price. About 80k last time i checked.
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Fascinating, thank you
I can see MEMS chiplets being a thing. Just purchase them "off the shelf" and add them to your SOIC. No need to design your own gyro etc for your project, no need for the extra volume to add an external gyro.
I'm lead to believe that a number of MEMS devices are indeed MCMs - multi chip modules, such as 9-axis IMUs. But i'm not super certain. And yeah putting an existing MEMS onto an MCM leadframe makes sense i suppose.
But also it may be unnecessary. Have you seen WLCSP packages? Like damn.
Aren't MEMS chips typically powered from specific purpose low-noise supplies different to the main cpu buses? They're way more electrically noise sensitive than other devices.
Given their different manufacturing challenges, seems like you'd have your SOIC and a separate MEMS chip that combines all the sensors you need.
@@gblargg Yeah, as one of the commentators mentioned above the WLCSP packaging, holy crap how tiny. PCB real-estate isn't such a big deal for MEMS devices nowadays.
@@SianaGearz you’re right, because MEMS use silicon-on-insulator instead of bulk silicon they are a separate chip than their electronics most of the time
I was looking for DLP chip here.
Yes, I agree. standardization for MEMS might be a valid solution for reducing costs, but in the area there will be a struggle to present which competing design and methodology is best where some parties will always try to set some type of proprietary restrictions to make a profit which would increase overall industry costs, but the culprits demanding those directives will not care because they are potentially receiving a bulk amount of profits from the situation.
A counter argument is that enforcing a packaging standard would end up creating a natural monopoly for the company that is best able to optimise for that packaging. Basically whoever is already closest to the adopted design will most likely end up controlling that market.
It is important to note that due to the bespoke nature of mechanical engineering solutions mean that there are few standard interfaces in that field. You can't effectively created standard solutions for bespoke problems. What happens when the standard solution is then not fit for purpose for an application? Do you then create a bespoke package or make the customer design around the limitations?
@@SurmaSampo I don't think the decision would be made that would effect the entire industry. I believe when there are decisions regarding standardization that the client's preference and his willingness to pay for what customization he wants will take precedence over the one assigned to produce the products. The clients' willingness to pay for their design preference will take precedence which is what has happened in the IC industry although within each foundry the process and standards are different. Thanks for the response.
@@fturla Yeah I think we are both on the same page that standardisation in MEMS wouldn't be bad in itself but there are risks to the industry in doing so and achieving a workable standard would be hard.
@@SurmaSampo We're just hoping for the best. Politics and drama usually mess up things like all other industries.
Great video. Excellent work
3:30, wrong. In ABS and ESP, they indeed use acc. sensors. so that was commercial i guess. it is by Bosch
This is a great essay ⚡️⚡️⚡️
They make memes out of silicon now WOW!
Micro memes
Memes out of sillicon?
Shut up and take my upvotes
Thanks!
If you want to see what actually goes on in a MEMS academic fab, check out some of the videos we've posted on Practical Microfabrication. More to come once this PhD is done. :)
Use of various metals in use for mems
(1) A demonstration of the calculations need to make a device based on a vibrating structure that generates capacitance 0.5 to 3pf depending on an input force. (I hope this is simple )
(2) If request (1) is too complex a demonstration of the calculations for a cantelever beam that would
can deflect down or up when energized by an external force.
Well done.
a speaker smaller than a penny wow sounds like something that's in my phone already
Imagine an array of such speakers, each playing at different ranges of frequencies.
Yesssss took a MEMS class in 99, now it’s more like…NEMS….. 🧬 📲
As per google translate:
Lithographie Galano- formung Abformung
Lithography Galano- formation Impression
And, as I suspected, the original was in German.
UA-cam suggested me this video which is now 2yrs old.. wondering if you think Nanusens have solved some of the scaling challenges?
I look forward to the widespread adoption of mixed-signal integrated circuits in general purpose computing.
How do mems decern a quick stop from a crash? It's amazing how reliable they are yet so mysterious
Did a course in college about sensors and this was the most fascinating topic there.
You deserve 40 million subscribers
Another fine video! Always worth watching. One quick note: "micron" is obsolete. Even if a source you consult uses that term, it is better to replace it with "micrometre" (MY-kroh-mee-ter) in your video. .
Keep up your excellent work!
What are you even talking about. “Micron” is standard diction in the entire semiconductor and electronics industry.
@@Grak70 My sources are BIPM and NIST. Check them out for the status of "micron". Similar story when it comes to bar (use pascal), Centigrade (use Celsius), and angstrom (use nanometer or picometre).
Micron is very heavily used in materials handling industry. I've never heard the idea that it's obsolete.
@@punditgi my point is regardless of the “official” word, micron is in extremely wide use. ESPECIALLY in the semiconductor industry. There’s also IUPAC names for complex organic molecules but chemists don’t use them. In this industry, “micron” is the correct choice of word. Saying “micrometer” in this field to a colleague makes you sound like a pretentious asshole.
A micrometer is a measurement tool or adjustment mechanism. I will just stick with microns and nanometers.
Third Silicon Revolution: micro-scale Babbage Engines running at millions of cycles per second.
Mechanical parts at small scale aren't as troubled by mass, inertia or friction as macro-scale parts.
The efficiency of a single Babbage cycle is the real pay-off!
MEMS could be the bridging technology: Babbage Engines are 'programmed' mechanically, MEMS can shove stuff around rapidly and accurately in response to electronic signals.
Output of a Babbage is mechanical as well; optical sensors read the data, translate to electronic signals.
From the outside, the Processor would look like any other.
Great job
Could you talk about the rise and use for memristors?
Congratulations 👏
Lots of love and blessings 💞
Yeah I got a theory of Tesla APIs they might be MEMS integrated to embedded systems
who are the most famous companies and most profiting company?
Just wanted to know if it can work the other way like making small and delicate action from the semiconductor.