Over the past few decades, uncooled infrared sensors have evolved by detecting changes in electrical properties resulting from temperature variations when absorbing infrared radiation. The integration of 3D MEMS technology has enabled high performance, miniaturization, and low power consumption, facilitating both commercial and military applications. This paper reports on the development of uncooled infrared sensors capable of detecting LWIR wavelengths using TiOx material-based microbolometer-type 2D array technology. Initially, 0.35µm node CMOS technology and 2µm node 3D MEMS technology were applied to implement a 320x240 array with a 50µm pitch. Recently, to meet the military's ongoing demand for higher resolution, 0.18µm CMOS and 0.18µm 3D MEMS technologies were used to implement an 8µm pitch, 1280x1024 microbolometer array. The advancements in these technologies have significantly improved the resolution and performance of uncooled infrared sensors, making them vital for modern military applications.

After receiving my PhD from MIT in 1975, I interviewed for jobs at TI, IBM, and Xerox PARC. While visiting PARC in Palo Alto, the Xerox folks gave me a tour of the Stanford labs of Professor Jim Angel. I was stunned to see academic posters for an accelerometer and a gas chromatograph fabricated on silicon wafers. I eventually joined IBM Research in San Jose, not far from Stanford. While touring around the research Building 28 at IBM, I noticed a black stain on the tile hallway outside of one laboratory. I was stunned again to see that the occupants were developing tiny ink jet nozzle arrays by etching minute holes in silicon wafers – the test set-up had leaked. More mechanical devices on silicon? I was hooked! Within a short time, I put together my own research program at IBM to build mechanical devices on silicon, published a number of papers, and wrote the review paper “Silicon as a Mechanical Material” in 1982. I left IBM in 1982 to join my first start-up company, Transensory Devices. Since 1982, I have been involved in developing commercial MEMS-based products in several start-up companies, 2 of which went IPO (Cepheid and SiTime) and 2 of which were acquired (Verreon by Qualcomm and NovaSensor by Rohm). This talk will discuss the ups and downs of MEMS product development and the significant MEMS product and process milestones over the past 50 years.

The future is unpredictable yet technology innovation is transforming the world and the semiconductor market continues on a $1Trillion trajectory. AI, robotics, and MEMS & sensors are driving growth and impacting the application landscape in spectacular ways. Tien Wu's keynote will explore the new normal, and convey perspective on how we can collectively navigate through complex challenges and unique opportunities, while meeting immense ESG responsibilities for the ultimate benefit of humankind.

The exceptional electrical and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) make them highly suitable for a wide range of MEMS applications. CNTs can be directly synthesized on MEMS via chemical vapor deposition or utilized as composites by blending them with polymers, which provides flexibility while preserving electrical conductivity. In this talk, I will present several examples of CNTs-integrated devices for mechanical sensing, with reliable contact, and to form flexible structures.

MEMS are efficiently produced at very high volumes using large-scale semiconductor manufacturing techniques. However, these techniques are not viable for the cost-efficient production of MEMS devices with complicated geometries at low- and medium-scale volumes. Thus, applications that require custom-designed MEMS devices for markets with low- and medium-scale volumes of below 5000 - 10,000 components per year are extremely difficult to address efficiently. 3D printing of MEMS could enable the efficient realization and production of MEMS devices at these low- and medium-scale volumes. In this talk we will present our research on 3D-printing of functional microstructures made of polymers and glass and discuss their potential use in MEMS applications.