MEMS companies get together

Coventor has formed a partnership to improve and expand the use of advanced design and manufacturing techniques for developing CMOS integrated MEMS.

The partnership includes alignment on R&D roadmaps and collaboration on research topics. The companies will collaborate on expanding imec’s use of Coventor’s software tools suite for MEMS + IC design and will jointly develop process design kits for imec’s SiGe MEMS-above-IC process.

Building on both organisations’ success with MEMS design and manufacturing, the partnership aims at developing solutions to make MEMS more accessible to both MEMS and IC designers. Process design kits will be developed to improve the efficiency of this MEMS-IC co-design.

The kits will target imec’s SiGe MEMS technology that uses a MEMS-last approach, where the MEMS are processed after and on top of the CMOS circuits, enabling a monolithic integration of MEMS devices with the driving and readout electronics on the same die.

The SiGe MEMS platform’s flexible and modular approach also allows application-specific tuning and optimisation of MEMS layer thicknesses and properties, and the processing of optional functional layers on top of the MEMS devices.

The partnership will use Coventor’s background in developing the necessary infrastructure for MEMS design environments.

Recently, Coventor introduced a new product range, MEMS+, aimed at integrating MEMS design with mainstream IC design environments. And imec has a SiGe MEMS process that allows monolithic integration on top of standard CMOS.