PRESS RELEASE:  November 17, 2003

MEMX Receives $100,000 SBIR Phase I Award from the NSF for Research Program to Develop SUMMiT VII, a Seven-Level Surface MEMS Technology

ALBUQUERQUE, NM -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded MEMX, Inc. a $100,000 SBIR Phase I research grant to enhance the world’s most sophisticated surface micromachining technology – the SUMMiT V technology developed at Sandia National Laboratories -- with an additional structural and interconnect level.  The resultant technology, SUMMiT VII, will enable the monolithic fabrication of devices to address the most difficult MEMS product requirements.

The proposed transition to SUMMiT VII mirrors the progression of integrated circuits and printed circuit boards, where the availability of additional vertical levels permitted the design of smaller, cheaper devices with even better performance and functionality.  The incremental mechanical sophistication of the new structural level in SUMMiT VII permits design enhancements like flatter mirror surfaces, integrated particle and electrostatic shields, and increased device robustness and reliability.  The additional interconnect level permits larger, denser arrays and removes many of the routing constraints inherent in any single level interconnect scheme.

The primary technical challenge associated with the additional polysilicon and oxide levels is the management and mitigation of stress in the films deposited on the wafer.  Left unchecked, this stress would lead to excessive wafer bow that could affect the accuracy of subsequent lithography processes or make the wafers impossible to handle with automated equipment.  The goal of this research program is to better understand and characterize the stress in the additional SUMMiT levels during the fabrication process.  A variety of techniques to mitigate this stress will be analyzed to ensure SUMMiT VII devices can be built reliably.

Emerging MEMS device requirements in fields like adaptive optics and advanced tunable RF devices are starting to exceed the capabilities of even the most sophisticated surface micromachining technologies.  SUMMiT VII will not only permit the enhancement of existing MEMS application areas, but it will also enable solutions for product applications where current MEMS technologies simply fall short.  SUMMiT VII will enable a world class solution in ophthalmic adaptive optics, a MEMS market estimated at $20M per year.  The annual market for high performance tunable capacitors is estimated at $240M, part of a total RF MEMS opportunity which exceeds $1 billion annually. 

MEMX is a broad-based MEMS company pursuing a variety of high value commercial and government products.  MEMX was founded in October 2000 and possesses the world's most advanced MEMS capability. The MEMX technical team spent ten years at Sandia National Laboratories developing and perfecting the revolutionary SUMMiT V MEMS technology.  Our business focuses on design, fabrication, packaging, test and qualification of MEMS-based products, and we typically partner with others to integrate the chips into high value systems and products.  To find out more about this technology and the company behind it, please visit our website at www.memx.com.