{"id":240,"date":"2009-02-05T19:26:07","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T03:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betasights.net\/wordpress\/?p=240"},"modified":"2009-02-05T19:26:07","modified_gmt":"2009-02-06T03:26:07","slug":"microbridge-pressure-sensor-family-funded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/?p=240","title":{"rendered":"Microbridge pressure sensor family funded"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microbridge Technologies<\/a>, the inventor of passive, analog, MEMS-based precision IC calibration products known as rejustors<\/a>, announced it has successfully closed an internal round of funding to build out a new presssure sensor family of chips<\/a>. \u201cThe company will launch a line of Micro-Flow pressure sensors that achieve new levels of performance for a wide range of differential pressures,\u201d said Dr. Adam Chowaniec, Chairman of Microbridge Technologies. \u201cWith on-chip signal conditioning and amplification, this family of gas pressure sensor chips can address full-scale pressures from tens of Pascal to thousands of Pascal, all with a 0.1 Pascal resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cNo new materials or unit processes were developed,\u201d said Bob Frostholm, Microbridge Technologies vice president of marketing, strategic alliances, and business development. Instead, established 1\u00b5m-node unit-processes and materials running at foundry partner XFab<\/a> have been integrated in a new flow. Since the company\u2019s rejuster is MEMS-based, it is relatively straightforward to imagine combining a rejuster with a pressure sensor as a single-chip (see Figure<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The rejustor uses a polysilicon resistor to heat and modify the grain structure of an adjacent polysilicon trim resistor<\/a>. University of Freiburg researchers in 2001 reported on the operation and characterization of micromachined CMOS microstructures with integrated polysilicon heaters at temperatures up to 1200K<\/a>. Also, ST has recently patented an irreversible method to reduce the value of an integrated poly resistor, by subjecting the resistor to a stress current<\/a>. In all cases, the resistance varies with changes to the poly grain structure<\/a>; from first principles we know that larger grains reduce resistance, while voids in grain boundaries increase resistance.<\/p>\n

Microbridge will sell these new chips in die form to sensor manufacturers, with a full family of products to be announced around the time of the Sensors Expo show in June 2009<\/a>. The chips reportedly achieve high pneumatic impedances, up to tens of kilo-Pascals, substantially reducing demands on subsequent packaging operations.\u00a0 \u201cThe company is sampling selectively now\u2014under strict NDA\u2014and receiving rave reviews,\u201d claimed Frostholm. \u2013E.K.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microbridge Technologies, the inventor of passive, analog, MEMS-based precision IC calibration products known as rejustors, announced it has successfully closed an internal round of funding to build out a new presssure sensor family of chips. \u201cThe company will launch a line of Micro-Flow pressure sensors that achieve new levels of performance for a wide range […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,8],"tags":[36,143,147,466,144,468,145,146],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-manufacturing-fabrication-line","category-integrated-circuit","category-micro-electro-mechanical-system","category-market-segment","tag-cmos","tag-foundry","tag-funding","tag-integrated-circuit","tag-integrated","tag-micro-electro-mechanical-system","tag-pressure","tag-sensor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}