The development and future development trend of MEMS sensors

MEMS sensors have been widely used in various fields such as consumer electronics, automotive, industry, medical care, and communications. With the development of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technology, the application scenarios of MEMS sensors will become more diverse. MEMS sensors are one of the important underlying hardware of artificial intelligence. The richer and more accurate the data collected by the sensors, the more complete the functions of artificial intelligence.

The core of the IoT ecosystem is sensing, connection and computing. With the continuous growth of networked nodes, the requirements for the number of smart sensors and the degree of intelligence are also increasing. In the future, new industrial fields such as smart homes, industrial Internet, Internet of Vehicles, and smart cities will bring a broader market space for the MEMS sensor industry. Because of its unique advantages, MEMS sensor applications are by no means limited to wearable devices. In the future, the underlying transmission architecture of medical, artificial intelligence, and automotive electronics will all rely on MEMS sensors for layout.

Judging from the current global development trend, the automotive industry and consumer electronics markets have developed sufficiently developed to become the basis for the development of MEMS sensors. In the future, the trend of intelligent modernization in medical, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, smart cities, and other application fields is obvious, and the development potential of MEMS sensors is great.

Future technology development trends:

(1) MEMS and sensors present a trend of highly integrated and combined multiple functions. As the design space, cost, and power budget are increasingly tightened, integrating multiple sensitive components on the same substrate and making a multifunctional combined MEMS sensor capable of detecting multiple parameters has become an important solution.

(2) Sensor intelligence and edge computing. Software is becoming an important part of MEMS sensors. With the further integration of multiple sensors, more and more data needs to be processed. The software makes it possible to integrate multiple data. The development of MEMS products must start from the definition of system applications, develop smart sensors with software fusion functions, and promote the broader application of artificial intelligence in the sensor field.

(3) The demand for low power consumption and self-supply energy of sensors is increasing day by day. With the rapid growth of sensing requirements for applications such as the Internet of Things, the number of sensors used has increased sharply, and energy consumption will also double. The demand for reducing sensor power consumption, using environmental energy harvesting to achieve self-supplied energy, and enhancing endurance will accompany the development of sensors and become increasingly strong.

(4) The evolution of MEMS to NEMS. With the miniaturization and diversification of terminal equipment, the rapid development of microelectronics processing technology, especially nano processing technology, is the general trend for smart sensors to evolve to smaller sizes. Similar to MEMS, NEMS (Nano-Electro-Mechanical System) is a micro-nano system technology that focuses on the nano-scale field, but with a smaller size.

(5) The rise of new sensitive materials. Thin-film piezoelectric materials have better process consistency, higher reliability, higher yield, smaller area, and can be used in MEMS actuators, speakers, tactile and touch interfaces, etc. In the future, the drive mode of MEMS devices is expected to shift from traditional electrostatic comb drive to piezoelectric drive.

(6) Larger wafer size. Compared with the 6-inch and 8-inch wafer manufacturing processes commonly used in the industry, larger wafer sizes can greatly reduce costs and increase yield, and the expansion of wafer size and the reduction of chip feature size are correspondingly promoted And push each other. For example, the development and future trends of MEMS products manufactured with a 12-inch wafer process line.