MEMS targets mass-market apps

PORTLAND, Ore.—In a market crowded with dozens of MEMS manufacturers, Kionix has compiled a catalog of targeted designs that has landed it major contracts with smartphone (Motorola Droid Bionic), tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab), gaming console (Xbox), and other high-volume manufacturers (Asus, Acer, Lenova) while it was still a small single-source startup. Now that it has been acquired by Rohm Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan), Kionix is expanding its targeted design philosophy with multi-sensor combos, fusion software, and a second-sourcing strategy aimed to catapult it into maturing mega-markets.

"We have doubled our capacity each year for last three years," said Scott Miller, vice president of engineering at Kionix, which to date does all its manufacturing at its headquarters in Ithaca, N.Y. "In 2012, we will finish the transition from six-inch to eight-inch wafers in Ithaca, plus we are building a new eight-inch fab in Japan."


The Japanese fab will give Kionix a second-source manufacturing plant--a requirement for tier-one OEMs like Apple—which will arrive just-in-time for Kionix new crop of combo and ultra-small inertial sensors. In addition, Kionix promises a three-axis magnetometer in 2012 to add to its three-axis accelerometers and three-axis gyroscopes, enabling it to supply complete inertial measurement units (IMUs).

At the Consumer Electronics Show (Jan. 10-13), Kionix will be showing its latest and most advanced MEMS inertial sensors to date, including it first six-degree-of-freedom combo-sensor, a three-axis accelerometer wire-bonded to a three-axis gyroscope stacked atop a single application-specific-integrated circuit (ASIC) all packed into a single four-by-four millimeter package.

"Our combo part has the lowest power consumption in the industry [4 milliamps operating] plus you can put everything to sleep except the accelerometer for ultra-low-power [10 microamps asleep] with auto wake-up when motion is detected," said Ed Brachocki, director of marketing at Kionix.


Kionix' next-generation 3D mechanical structures requires less compensation for temperature changes, can survive stronger shocks, and requires no recalibration steps after reflow soldering.

MEMS targets mass-market apps

TAG:CES MEMS Kionix