Contents

3

Safety and Security for Vehicles

Predictive Safety Systems

"3D-SIAM": 3D Sensor Technology for Forward LookingSafety Systems in Automobile

ICAR Infrared Camera for CaRs

PReVENTive and Active Safety Applications (PReVENT)

CMOS Imaging: From Consumer to Automotive

Exploratory Study on the Potential Socio-Economic Impactof the Introduction of Intelligent Safety Systems in RoadVehicles

Events / Short News

News from NEXUS Association and NEXUSPLUS

News from Europractice - Microsystems Service for Europe

News from NoE Patent-DfMM -Design for Micro & Nano Manufacture

News from Eurimus -Eureka Industrial Initiative for Microsystem Users

News from the German Programme Microsystems 2004 - 2009

News from MINAEAST-NET - Micro and Nanotechnologiesgoing to Eastern Europe through Networking

EU Programme News

eSafety

Microsecurity

Main Topic:

MST/MEMS for Safetyand Security

S. Krüger (D), F. Solzbacher (US)

P. M. Knoll (D)

F. Zywitza et al (D)

O. Legras, H.J. Lenz (D)

E. Bastiaensen (B), P. Mengel (D)

A. Darmont (US)

J. Abele et al (D)

B. Wybranski

P. Salomon

P. Salomon

P. Salomon

E. Arbet

W. Ehret

D. Dascalu

M. Kreibich

M. Huch, S. Krüger

B. Michel, T. Winkler

6

12

14

39

41

43

44

17

26

28

31

32

33

35

36

37

37

mstnews 1/05 on “Assembly and Packaging” in February 2005:

New concepts and developments in the field of “backend processing” of Microsystems and MEMS, particularlyin assembly and packaging.

Deadline for press releases, short news, event announcements and advertisement orders: Jan 17, 2005

Date of distribution: Feb 09, 2005

mstnews 2/05 on “Smart Textiles”in April 2005

Overviews about microtechnologies for Smart Textilesand applications of Smart Textiles.

Deadline for abstracts: Dec. 15, 2005

Deadline for press releases, short news, event announcements and advertisement orders: Mar 07, 2005

Date of distribution: April 01, 2005

Look ahead to the next issues:

Further Sponsors and Advertisers

Editorial

Publisher:VDI/VDE - Innovation + Technik GmbH(VDI/VDE-IT)Rheinstraße 10 B, 14513 Teltow, Germany

mstnews is published 6 times a year in February, April, June, August, October andDecember.

mstnews comprises newsletter pages fromseveral European Networks (Nexus, Euro-practice, Eurimus, Patent-DfMM) and theGerman Microsystems Frame Programme.

Managing Editor / mstnews Office:Bernhard Wybranski, VDI/VDE-ITRheinstraße 10 B, 14513 Teltow, GermanyPhone: +49 3328 435-167Fax: +49 3328 435-105E-mail: mstnews@vdivde-it.de

Editors:Alfons BotthofPatric Salomon Dr. Matthias WernerWiebke Ehret (German MST Programme News)Sven Krüger(Safety and Security)

Assistant Editors:Annette Wittmann, Uwe Klädtke

Cover design:Isabelle Brämer

Setting:klahr.de

Advertising:We welcome sponsors and advertisers.Please visit www.mstnews.de to downloadour media data and advertising rates.

Subscriptions:Subscriptions are free of charge to qualifiedreaders in Europe. Readers from outside Europe and commer-cial resellers may order a subscription at anannual rate of 120.- Euro. Please make use of our on-line subscriptionservice at www.mstnews.de

Submission of Articles:Your submissions are appreciated. The maintopics of the future issues are listed on theleft, but other interesting articles that donot fit into this scheme are also welcome.Please send your abstract to the mstnewsoffice. Guidelines for authors are availableon www.mstnews.de

Announcements, New Products, Books,Studies, Company Information:mstnews publishes selected announce-ments, product and company news free ofcharge. Please send your news (100 to 200words preferred) to mstnews@vdivde-it.de.

Opinions expressed by the authors are notnecessarily those of mstnews.

Dear Readers,

Making our lives more safe and se-cure is an ambitious and multi-dimen-sional goal. Security matters arefound nearly everywhere, at home, atwork, in individual and public trans-portation, in public health, in produc-tion and power industry, in civil ser-vices and military defence and so on.Accordingly, there is a wide spectrumof challenges for MST/MEMS tech-nologies to contribute innovativesafety and security functions to exist-ing systems and to enable completelynew solutions. These challenges areplaying an important role for exam-ple in the EC security research mea-sures under the current and futureframework programmes (see reporton the Microsecurity network onpage 37). Quite honestly, the whole range ofMST/MEMS technologies can be ap-plied more or less to innovating safe-ty and security matters. I guess thedescription of all possible approacheswould fill a whole series of books. Inorder to keep this very interestingand important application field man-ageable as the main topic for this De-cember issue of mstnews, the editorshave focused on a particular, detailedaspect of safety and security. One of

the most important safety and securi-ty problems with the highest rele-vance to people can soon be identi-fied: The individual road traffic in Eu-rope leads to 1.3 million accidents an-nually, with 40,000 deaths. And thisaffects all of us!The most obvious approach to im-proving security in road traffic is au-tomatic obstacle detection and driversupport for reacting timely and prop-erly to dangerous situations. You willsurely notice that we have focused inour selection of articles on topics thatdeal with obstacle detection by opti-cal and radar microsystems and ap-propriate driver assisting functions. I hope you enjoy this issue!

Bernhard WybranskiChief editor

Main Topics of mstnews until 6/05 Deadline forIssue Main Topics abstracts

Feb. 05 Assembly and Packaging passedApr. 05 Smart Textiles Dec. 15, 2004Jun. 05 Design for Manufacturing Feb. 15, 2005Aug. 05 Energy Self-supplying Microsystems April 15, 2005Oct. 05 Technology Prgrammes and Initiatives June 15, 2005Dec. 05 Ambient Assited Living Aug. 15, 2005

Sensors: See article on page 12 ff.; Source: Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany

Further Sponsors and Advertisers

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

Road Safety is a precondition to takeadvantage of mobility's benefits.Mobility is an expression of individu-al freedom and quality of life. Safetyand security is, however, valuedmore highly than mobility (figure 1).Plainly speaking, one rather stopsdriving than to risk life. Safety andsecurity as well as mobility can becounted as basic needs while activity

and information ontop of mobilitymight contradict orcounter safetyneeds. In consumer buyingbehaviour this corre-lation is not evident.The customer quiteoften prefers to in-vest in improvedmobility and ad-vanced informationsystems rather thanin safety and security. The underlyingunderstanding is, however, that in-herently safe and secure cars are pro-vided by the automotive industry. Itis therefore important for the indus-try to make use of the technologicalopportunities to produce safer carsat an affordable price. The past twodecades have shown tremendousprogress and success. Road traffic is a key economic factor.Increasing needs for mobility and

transport in Europe call for action inorder to improve road safety. Acci-dents further amplify the problem ofcongestion, which more and moreaffects the whole road network.There is still an unacceptably highnumber of injuries and people killedin road accidents. 1.3 million acci-dents happen in Europe annually, inwhich 40,000 people lose their livesand 1.7 million are injured. The esti-mated economic damage is about

Safety and security are the mostimportant concerns for road users.Mobility at the cost of safety is notacceptable. An increasing numberof technical systems will becomeavailable to ensure safety and secu-rity. Whether these systems canovercome deployment obstacles re-mains an open question - unattrac-tive cost-benefit ratios from a cus-tomer standpoint in conjunctionwith, at the least, demanding HMIconcepts. Microsystems technologyand new approaches might help toovercome these obstacles.

Figure 1: Driver needs

Advertisement

Safety and Security for VehiclesSven Krueger and Florian Solzbacher

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

6

160 billion Euros, amounting to ap-proximately 2% of Gross DomesticProduct in Europe (Final Report ofthe Safety Working Group on RoadSafety, November 2002). In recentyears, the number of traffic accidentsand fatalities has been decreasing.

There is convincing evidence that theuse of new technologies has con-tributed significantly to this reduc-tion in the number of fatalities andinjuries. Research has shown thatmore than 90% of road accidents arepartly caused by human errors[ESafety 2002]. It therefore must be achief objective to support drivers' be-haviour and perception towardssafer traffic.

Automotive SecurityAutomotive security systems can beunderstood as anti-theft systems. Theintroduction of immobilizers effec-tively lowered the number of stolenvehicles. Supporting systems aretheft detection sensors and authori-sation systems. Solutions originatingin microsystems technology includeinclinometers, accelerometers, in-frared sensor for cabin monitoring aswell as fingerprint sensor and keylessgo systems. The described systemsare widely introduced and well de-veloped.

Automotive SafetyWith regard to socioeconomic im-pact, the brand perception of anOEM's and individual measures forautomotive safety, defined as the ca-pability of the car to protect the oc-cupants and other road users, are in-creasing in importance. Safety isclosely connected with accidents, andfor the clustering of safety systems,accident mitigation can be used (fig-ure 2).1. Normal driving (support and infor-

mation of the driver, indirectlysupports safety)

2. Warning/assistance phase (the ve-hicle predicts a dangerous situa-tion)

3. Pre-crash phase (the crash is un-avoidable)

4. In-crash phase (the crash happens)5. Post-crash phase (the crash has

happened and e.g. emergency ser-vices are approaching)

Following this philosophy intelligentsafety systems are covering phases 2

to 5, therefore startingwith warning and assistance andending with the post-crash phase.Nowadays safety relevantsystems are often introduced as com-fort systems. By experience, the buy-er pays more easilyfor comfort than for safety. The pathclearly shows mitigation of functiontowards safer vehicles.

Figure 3 gives an overview of auto-motive safety systems.

The impressive number of safety sys-tems discussed correlates with morethan 50 sensors, many of them mi-crosystems. They are the source of in-formation for advanced automaticvehicle handling or communicationto the driver.

Examples are: (active) tire pressuremonitoring requires a pressure sen-sor and a transmitter for each wheel;active body control works with posi-tion sensors on each shock absorberand an additional 5 accelerometers;air conditioning makes use of at leastone pressure sensor, one tempera-ture and humidity sensor and an airquality sensor; parking aids use up to8 ultrasonic sensors or four 24-GHzsensors, vision enhancement compris-ing cameras for night vision andblind spot in combination with dis-plays or head up projection; drivermonitoring based on cabin camera

and position as well as force sensorsfor steering wheel and pedal actua-tion sensing; vehicle stability systemsincluding anti-lock braking systembased on 2 accelerometers, 2 gyro-scopes, 4 pressure sensors and oneyaw rate sensor.

In summary, a great number of sen-sors and actuators for safety systemsare building an ever-increasing mar-ket. Frost & Sullivan estimates themarket for automotive safety sys-tems in Western Europe at 5.66 bil-lion Euros in 2003 and predicts 6.59billion Euros for 2010 [Frost & Sulli-van 2004]. Within this market activesafety systems are a growing posi-tion.

The introduction of systems likeairbags or the anti-lock braking sys-tem (ABS) helped to decouple trafficdevelopment from the number of fa-talities. But the majority of ad-vanced safety functions under discus-sion have not yet been introducedinto the market. The reasons aremanifold, including

Lack of proper legislative solu-tions/boundary conditionsLack of standardisationLack of applicationsLack of technology

Some safety features have not beenintroduced yet, because necessaryfrequencies are not approved by leg-islation. The other major legislativedrawback is liability. Especially forpredictive systems, the following is-sue remains unsolved: whether theforeseen event would really happen

Figure 3: Safety-related vehicle functions

Figure 2: Accident mitigation

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

7

in the way foreseen and whether theautomatic systems reaction would bethe proper one. Perhaps, a somehowcollective liability is needed assumingthere is no built-in guarantee for thepredictions. However, the technicalsystem on average already acts morereliably than a human.

Talking about communication fre-quencies also means dealing withstandardisation. The automotive in-dustry has not yet solved the prob-lem of systems interoperability, in-cluding the need for software up-dates. The AUTOSAR initiative, devel-oping a common electronics architec-ture, seems to be the right answer tosupport interchangeability andvolume production. Legislationand standardisation have so farhindered market deployment.Even though first reliable tech-nologies are available, con-straints in functionality preventa widespread use. Therefore,buying a radar sensor just foran ACC system is not too ap-pealing, whereas a few moresensors would open a variety ofinteresting additional applica-tions. An additional problembalancing between standardis-ation and function remains theproper human-machine inter-face (HMI). Complex correla-tions have to be made trans-parent and conflicting interestsbetween human and machineperception to be solved. Tech-nology should answer thesequestions, but it has to be well-tested as well as affordable. Im-proved solutions and approach-es are needed especially in thefield of predictive and environ-mental sensors. Assisting andcollision avoidance functionsare based on a clear under-standing of the traffic and driv-ing situation and state by thevehicle.

Predictive systems have thusmoved into the focus of auto-motive R&D. They are basedon obstacle detection or com-munication solutions. The cor-relating technologies can be di-vided into four groups:Passive light wave technolo-gies (vision): vision-based ap-proaches focus on the analysis

of single images or sequences thathave been acquired by a monocularor stereo camera system. Vision sen-sors must be able to handle a widerange of illumination conditions(from bright light to tunnels, shad-ows, etc.), resistance against blur dueto vehicle motion and blooming dueto oncoming headlights and directsunlight. Active light wave technologies (Li-dar): Lidar (light detection and rang-ing) based approaches measurerange by evaluating the time differ-ence between the transmission of alight pulse and reception of the re-flection caused by an object at a cer-tain distance. The time difference

can either be measured directly or byanalysing the phase shift of an am-plitude or frequency-modulated sig-nal. Laser scan approaches are basedon the point-wise illumination of anobject using a laser beam and theevaluation of the reflection by a po-sition sensitive (PSD) or imaging de-vice (CCD, CMOS). Since the distancebetween only one point in space andthe sensor can be computed, a me-chanically or electronically scannedsystem must be used in order to ac-quire the range information in ascene. Radar: is an acronym for radio detec-tion and ranging and defines a de-vice that transmits electromagnetic

Advertisement

8

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

signals (f = 100 kHz - 300 GHz) andreceives echoes from objects (targets)within its volume of coverage. Infor-mation provided by a radar deviceincludes distance by measurement ofthe elapsed time between transmis-sion of the signal and reception ofthe echo, range rate by measure-ment of the Doppler shift and direc-tion by the use of antenna patterns. Communication: Car-to-car as well ascar-to-infrastructure communicationcan be used to provide informationabout dangerous spots. All kinds ofcommunication technologies mightbe used, including mobile phonetechnologies, hazard warning sys-tems, WLAN technologies derivingfrom computer industry, tollingequipment or even modulation ofbrake lights. In contrast to the vehi-cle centred technologies used before,communication provides an absoluteposition as well as further informa-tion on the object or event of inter-est. It therefore has to be coupledwith the position of the vehicle.

The technologies are competing ormight be combined. Each technologyhas its drawbacks. Microsystems sen-sors and actuators are facing strongcompetition. Even though there is nodirect technological competition forMST products, an increasing trendtowards eliminating true or per-ceived redundancies in a cars sensoryor electronics networks are beingeliminated for cost reasons: i.e. if aspecific information necessary tocontrol a process in the car is implic-itly contained in an already existingsensor network, the implementationof a new sensor is highly unlikely,even if the sensor performance ex-

ceeds the existing system perfor-mance. An example would be theuse of wheel speed sensors (ABS sen-sors) to detect loss of tire pressure in

tire pressure monitoring systems as acheap alternative to individual tirepressure sensors. The systems complexity adds newchallenges: the increasing integra-tion of functionalities (multiple sens-ing/actuation quantities, intelligence,communication, power supply), in-creasing accuracy and stability re-quirements lead to ever more com-plex micro systems. Engineers arenow faced with a set of problems:

Required integration densities andfabrication accuracies start to ex-ceed current capabilitiesMany of the required modules(e.g. micro fuel cells as power sup-ply) are far from industrial reliabil-ity

A lack of fabrication tools and ba-sic understanding of some of themechanisms involved in micro fab-rication of devices is becoming vis-ible: MST is a field governed by afew high-potential applicationswhose processing technology iswell understood. In between thesepeaks, the technological know-how rather resembles a waste-land. Following the initial successof some applications the furtherdevelopment of the technologyand science base has been ig-nored. The technology "well" isnot being replenished. Key 1st tierautomotive suppliers such as e.g.Bosch as well as 2nd and 3rd tierMST suppliers have already ex-pressed grave concern about thisdevelopment, which according tothem has its origin partially in cur-rent federal research and develop-ment support programmes thathave assumed a phase model forthe development of MST ratherthan a pyramid model, where re-search is an ongoing activity feed-ing development and prototypingactivities [Gespraechskreis MST].

Harsh environments are becoming anever-increasing factor: almost all ofthe future MST applications requireoperation in harsh environments,i.e.:

Temperatures typically between180°C and 450°C, e.g. for enginemanagement systems (piezo-injec-tor nozzle unit, gas sensors) andemissions control (gas sensors, e.g.for NOx and NH3, differentialpressure sensors for soot filtercontrol in diesel engines)The elevated temperatures entaila multitude of problems affectingthe electrical (e.g. semiconductingor conducting) and mechanical(Young's modulus, yield strength,hysteresis) material properties ofthe chip bulk substrate material orthe package/interconnects, as wellas the chip metallization systems.Aggressive gas and fluid mediasuch as exhaust gas, hydraulics oil,etc. are directly in contact withMST components, leading tochemical reaction (etching, corro-sion (dissimilar metals), oxidation,etc.) and a subsequent (irre-versible) change in material prop-erties. Device stability defects like

Figure 4: GM concept car (Cadillac Cyclone 1959) with radar domes

Figure 5: 77-GHz Radar by DaimlerChrysler and24-GHz Radar by Hella

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

9

drifting and hysteresis are fre-quently observed. Acceleration/shock: placement ofsensors in vibration-prone areassuch as the engine compartmentand drive train or the suspensionsystem lead to fatigue of assemblyand packaging of the devices.Electromagnetic fields due to amultitude of internal (car) and ex-ternal (wireless networks, RF com-munication, etc.) sources interfereeither with sensor input signal,sensing mechanism, signal process-ing or output signal.

Due to the huge variety of differentapplications and their subsequenttechnical requirements and chal-lenges no concise solution can begiven for these problems. As a gener-al indication of a trend, current riskmanagement and RnD strategieshowever appear to focus on:

1. Establishing a broader under-standing of micro fabrication tech-nology and mechanisms leading toa technology toolbox

2. Implementation of and researchon new substrate materials (e.g.silicon carbide, SOI, compoundsemiconductors such as GaAs,GaN, GaAlN, etc.) frequently incombination with existing micro-machining technologies as well asmulti-layer metallization systems

for chips and packages - a link tocurrent silicon-based micromachin-ing technology however must pre-vail in order to allow implementa-tion of existing fabrication tech-nologies, device designs and signalprocessing procedures and devices

3. Packaging: higher integrationdensity of hybrid assemblies (sili-con, ceramic, polymer substrates;wafer level packaging (electrical(e.g. flip-chip bonding) and me-

chanical (e.g. anodic, fusion, eu-tectic, glass seal bonding)), encap-sulation as well as the study of therelevant failure modes and testingprocedures for improved reliabilitypredictions

4. Data fusion and sensor networkintegration in order to reduce thenumber of required sensors

5. Standardization of signals on dif-ferent system levels (IEEE 47??,AMA sensor interface, match-x,etc.) and fabrication processes inorder to reduce development costand required resources

Technological solutions however can-not be seen as being dissociatedfrom application demands and ambi-ent conditions. Radar systems are anexample of such applications, havinga short but interesting history andpromising future.

E.g. RadarThe history of radar goes back toWorld War II, when the Royal AirForce first used radar systems to de-tect German airplanes. Since the1960s, various ideas in the field ofautomotive applications have beendeveloped and tested, but the de-vices were either too bulky or too ex-pensive for mass production. One example is the 1959 Cadillac Cy-clone. The two-passenger automo-bile has a clear plastic cover that fitssnugly against the panoramic wind-

Advertisement

Advertisement

mst 3/9810

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

shield to give the driver true 360 de-gree vision. When not in use, thepower-operated canopy folds back-ward beneath the surface of thetrunk deck. It automatically lifts outof the way when either door isopened. At a touch of a button, Cy-clone's doors move outward fromthe car three inches. Moving smooth-ly on ball bearings, they can be slidback for easy entrance. Among itsadvanced engineering features is aradar device which scans the high-way, and warns the driver electroni-cally of objects in its path. Large,twin nose cones in the front of thecar house the proximity-sensingunits. They electronically alert thedriver with both an audible signaland a warning light if an object is inits path. Inside, instruments are clus-tered like an aircraft dashboard be-fore, and between, the two passen-gers. An intercommunication systemallows passengers to converse withpersons outside the automobilewithout raising the canopy.In 2000 Mercedes introduced the firstseries automotive radar system aspart of the ACC (adaptive cruise con-trol) function (figure 5). This systemworks at 79 GHz and is based onGaAs technology. But the price ofseveral hundred Euros for this com-fort feature is too high to allow athorough market penetration.Nowadays 24-GHz radar systems

have become introduced. They per-form in the short range (Ultra WideBand radar) and could substitute ul-trasonic systems. For distances up to70 m, i.e. longitudinal assistance sys-tems, 24-GHz long-range systems(CW radar) might be appropriate.But so far, the 24-GHz bandwidth isnot open for automotive use. Fur-thermore it is expected that it mightjust be licensed for temporary useuntil the year 2014. The automotive industry is alreadyworking on the next generation ofradar systems - bringing together theadvantages of the previously intro-duced 79 and 24-GHz systems. Newtechnologies are considered for fre-quencies above 70 GHz, allowing in-expensive productions such as thoseknown for the 24-GHz systems. SiGe technology as a potential candi-date for these applications is becom-ing more and more important. Lownoise, high linearity, frequencies upto 200 GHz and much lower costscompared to GaAs make this tech-nology very interesting for the lower(60 GHz car-to-car communication)and medium GHz range (above 70-GHz radar systems). The use of SiGein UMTS mobile communication sys-tems may help a rapid distribution ofthe technology and reduce fabrica-tion cost. In addition, the technologymight offer energy/power savings fora variety of digital applications.

OutlookLooking at the availability of tech-nologies and automotive functions inthe market it is evident that new ap-proaches are indeed needed. Oneapproach might be sensor and datafusion. The use of increasingly moreindividual sensors for each functionis not affordable anymore. The func-tional sharing of sensors and infor-mation within the car, but also theexchange of information with othercars and the environment will limitthe number of total sensors used,but may add a bit more freedom insensor design. Another approachmight be even tighter standardisa-tion, leading to higher productionvolumes. When sensor and communi-cation device cores are becoming in-dustry- and application-independent,the microsystems business may onceagain become lucrative.

Announcement We hereby would like to draw yourattention to two recently publishedR&D calls related to intelligent safetysystems:

European Commission, IST call 4,eSafety (see page 37) BMBF, Microsystems for ADAS (seepage 33)

References[1]Frost & Sullivan 2004: "Der wes-

teuropäische Markt der aktivenund passiven Sicherheitssystemefür Personenkraftwagen", innova-tions report article, 05/06/2004

[2]A. S. Teuner: "Overview - obstacledetection", Advanced Microsys-tems for Automotive ApplicationsYearbook 2002, Springer, 89 pp.,2002

[3]H. Li, H.-M. Rein and M. Schwerd:"SiGe VCOs operating up to 88GHz, suitable for automotiveradar sensors", IEE Electronics Let-ters, vol. 39, n. 18, pp. 1326: 27thSeptember 2003.

Contact:Sven KruegerVDI/VDE Innovation und Technik GmbHPhone: +49 3328 435 221E-Mail. krueger@vdivde-it.de

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Florian SolzbacherUniversity of UtahPhone: +1 801 581 7408E-Mail: solzbach@ece.utah.edu

Advertisement

12

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

Driver Assistance Systems for Vehicle StabilizationRecently statistics have been pub-lished [1] showing that accidentprobability for vehicles equippedwith ESP (Electronic Stability Pro-gram) is significantly lower than forvehicles without ESP. Additional im-provement is expected from systemslike PRE-SAFE. It combines active andpassive safety by recognizing criticaldriving situations with increased acci-dent possibility. It triggers preventivemeasures to prepare occupants andthe vehicle for a possible crash byevaluating the sensors of the ESP andthe Brake Assist. To best protect pas-sengers, reversible seat belt tension-ers, seat positioning and sunroof clo-sure are activated. Today, however,the release of collision mitigationmeans can be activated only when avehicle parameter goes out of con-trol or when an accident happens.Airbags are activated the momentsensors detect an impact. Typical re-action times last 5 ms. Nevertheless,there is no doubt that airbags havecontributed significantly to the re-duction of road accidents and, inparticular, of fatalities. But the po-tential of today's systems is limited.

This high accident avoidance poten-tial can be transferred to an everhigher extent to "predictive" driverassistance systems. They expand thedetection range of the vehicle by us-ing surround sensors. With their sig-nals, objects and situations in thevicinity of the vehicle can be includ-ed in the calculation of collision miti-gating and collision avoiding means.

Predictive Driver Assistance SystemsMany driver assistance systems canbe realized by making use of elec-tronic surround vision. Today, thecomponents for the realization ofthese systems - highly sensitive sen-sors and powerful microprocessors -are available or under developmentwith a realistic time schedule, andthe possibility of the realization ofthe "sensitive" automobile is fast be-coming a reality. Sensors scan the en-vironment around the vehicle, derivewarnings from the detected objects,and perform driving maneuvers all ina split second faster than the mostskilled driver.

An earlier reaction from the drivercan be achieved by early warning.Active driver assistance systems withvehicle interaction allow a vehicle re-sponse that is quicker than thedriver's normal reaction. The following sensors are availableor under development:

Ultrasonic SensorsReversing and Parking Aids today areusing Ultra Short Range Sensors inultrasonic technology. They have adetection range of approx. 2.5m.They have gained high acceptancewith customers. The sensors aremounted in the bumper fascia. When

approaching an obstacle, the driverreceives an acoustical and/or opticalwarning.Fig. 1 shows an ultrasonic sensor ofthe 4th generation. The driving andthe signal processing circuitry is inte-grated in the sensor housing.

Long Range Radar 77 GHzThe 2nd generation Long Range Sen-sor with a range of up to 200m isbased on FMCW Radar technology.

The narrow lobe with an openingangle of 8° detects obstacles infront of the driver's own vehicle andmeasures the distance to vehicles The CPU is integrated in the sensorhousing. The angular resolution isderived from the signals from 4 radarlobes. Series introduction started in2001 with the first generation.

VideosensorFigure 3 shows the current setup ofthe Robert Bosch camera module. The camera is fixed on a small PCboard with camera relevant electron-ics. On the rear side of the cameraboard the plug for the video cable ismounted. The whole unit is shiftedinto a windshield-mounted adapter.

CMOS technology with non-linear lu-minance conversion will cover a wideluminance dynamic range and willsignificantly outperform current CCD

Predictive Safety SystemsPeter M. Knoll

Some sensors that are designed todetect the vehicle environment arealready being used. Ultra-sonicparking aids meanwhile have highcustomer acceptance. ACC (Adap-tive Cruise Control) systems havebeen introduced in the market re-cently. New sensors, mainly videocameras, are being developed at arapid pace. Micro Systems Technology plays animportant role in the introductionof active safety systems. The sensortechnologies are manifold: Ultra-sonic, Radar, Lidar, and Video sen-sors, they all help to obtain relevantand reliable data on the vehicle'ssurroundings. Sensor technologyand sensor data processing, sensordata fusion and appropriate algo-rithms for function development al-low the realization of functions foraccident avoidance and mitigation.

Figure 1: Ultrasonic Sensor 4th generation

Figure 2: 77 GHz long-range Radar sensor withintegrated CPU for Adaptive Cruise Control

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

13

cameras. As brightness of the scenecannot be controlled in automotiveenvironment, imagers with a veryhigh dynamic range are needed.Due to the high information contentof video pictures, video technologyhas the highest potential for futurefunctions. They can be realized onthe video sensor alone or video sig-nals can be fused with radar or ultra-sonic signals.

Regarding sensor technology, all as-pects of highly sophisticated MST arecovered by these surrounding sen-sors. Sensor performance is still at anearly stage and cost of the compo-

nents is still too highto allow widespreadapplication. There isa huge potential forsensor performanceimprovement andcost reduction by in-troducing new MicroSystems Technolo-gies.

Surround SensingSystems and DriverAssistance Systems Figure 4 shows theenormous range of driver assistancesystems on the way to the "SafetyVehicle." They can be subdivided in-to two categories:

Safety systems with the goal ofcollision mitigation and collisionavoidanceConvenience systems with thegoal of semiautonomous driving

Driver support systems without ac-tive vehicle interaction can beviewed as a pre-stage to vehicleguidance. They warn the driver orsuggest a driving maneuver. One ex-

ample is the parking assistant ofBosch. This system will give the driversteering recommendations whenparking in order to park optimally ina parking space. Another example isthe Night Vision Improvement sys-tem. As more than 40% of all fatali-ties occur at night, this function hashigh potential for saving lives. Lanedeparture warning systems can alsocontribute significantly to the reduc-tion of accidents as almost 40% of allaccident are due to unintended lanedeparture.

Figure 3: Video camera module

Figure 4: Driver assistance systems on the way to the safety vehicle

Advertisement

14

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

The highest demand regarding per-formance and reliability is put on ac-tive safety systems. They range fromsimple parking stops, which auto-matically brake a vehicle beforereaching an obstacle, to PredictiveSafety Systems (PSS). Bosch will de-velop the Predictive Safety Systems inthree stages:

PSS1 prepares the brake system for apossible emergency braking. In situa-tions where there is the threat of anaccident, it prepares for it by build-ing up brake pressure, brings thebrake pads into very light contactwith the brake discs and modifies thehydraulic brake assist. The drivergains important fractions of a seconduntil the full braking effect isachieved.

PSS2 warns the driver against thedanger of driving into the vehicle infront. In about half of all collisions,drivers crash into the obstacle with-out braking. The second generation,PSS2, does not only prepare thebraking system; it also gives a timelywarning to the driver about danger-ous traffic situations by triggering ashort, sharp operation of the brakes.

PSS3 performs an emergency brakingin the case of an unavoidable acci-dent. The third developmental stageof the Predictive Safety System willnot only recognize an unavoidablecollision with a vehicle in front, butthe system will in this instance alsotrigger automatic emergency brak-ing with maximum vehicle decelera-tion. This will especially reduce theseverity of an accident when thedriver has failed to react at all to theprevious warnings. Automatic con-trol of vehicle function demands avery high level of certainty in therecognition of objects and the assess-ment of accident risk. In order to beable to reliably recognize that a colli-sion is inevitable, additional systems -such as video sensors - will have tosupport the radar sensors.

Outlook The political institutions have put theright emphasis on their programs toreduce fatalities and road traffic acci-dents, e.g. the European Union withthe e-Safety program, with the visionto reduce fatalities by 50% by 2010,and the German government withprograms such as INVENT. Carmakersand suppliers have responded to

these programs and are trying tomake their contributions to achiev-ing this goal [2].

In conjunction with these programs,there is a big challenge for Micro Sys-tems Technology: Sensor Technologyand sensor (data) fusion, setup andconnecting technologies, reliabilityand data security. The price of thecomponents will play a dominantrole. Only costly components allow awidespread distribution of safetytechnologies, which is a preconditionfor the effectiveness of future acci-dent prevention and mitigation.

References[1]Anonymous statistics of accident

data by the Statistisches Bunde-samt, Wiesbaden, Germany (1998 -2001)

[2]Knoll, P.M.: Predictive Safety Sys-tems - Steps towards CollisionAvoidance, VDA TechnicalCongress, Rüsselsheim, Germany(2004)

Contatct:Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter M. Knoll Robert Bosch GmbH, AE-DA/EL2E-Mail: peter.knoll@de.bosch.com

PMD TechnologyThis approach to 3D vision systems isbased on silicon imagers, which can

be used not only for the acquisitionof 2D grey-scale images, but also forthe acquisition of the corresponding3D distance images. Photonic MixerDevices represent a new kind of ac-tive pixel sensors (APS), manufac-tured in standard CMOS technology.With a PMD camera, a complete 3Dscene can be monitored and there-fore PMD technology offers high po-tential for automotive applicationswith respect to both active and pas-sive safety, as well as comfort sys-tems.Perception of traffic situations re-quires image sensors with high reso-lution, high dynamic range and highframe rate. CCDs (charge coupled de-vices) are well known as imagers inconsumer applications, but their lim-ited dynamic range and the risk ofblooming make them not very suit-able for automotive applications.

Therefore CMOS active pixel sensors(APS) are gaining importance. Theyoffer a higher dynamic range (up to120 dB), and their physical conceptdoes not involve the risk of bloom-ing. These imagers provide grey-scaleor colour images and therefore givea 2D representation of the scene be-ing monitored.

"3D-SIAM": 3D Sensor Technology for Forward Looking Safety Systems in AutomobileFriedrich Zywitza, Dr. Joachim Massen, Marcus Brunn, Christian Lang and Thomas Goernig

Fast and robust 3-dimensional per-ception of the vicinity is a key tech-nology for future automotive com-fort and safety systems. In 3D-SIAM,a project funded by the BMBF (Ger-man Ministry of Research and Edu-cation), a test vehicle is to be devel-oped that will be able to recognizeand classify obstacles in its ownlane, follow a vehicle ahead auto-matically ("Stop & Go") and recog-nize an unavoidable crash in an ear-ly phase ("Pre-Crash"). It uses a newand innovative sensor, a 3D cam-era, whose pixels consist of so-called Photonic Mixer Devices(PMD). Within the project, the po-tential and constraints of the PMDtechnology are evaluated.

Figure 1: PMD imager chip

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

15

Robust vision systems for obstacledetection and classification, howev-er, require 3D image data. As an al-ternative to stereo image acquisition,imagers with Photonic Mixer Devicesprovide the 3D image data of an en-tire scene as an array of voxels (vol-ume pixels). PMDs can therefore beused to get depth information aswell as grey-scale information of ascene.

Functional Principle of the PMDA camera with Photonic Mixer Deviceis based on the time-of-flight princi-ple, e.g. on the phase delay of re-flected RF-modulated light, which istransmitted by an active scene illumi-nation unit with LEDs of 850 nmwavelength. While 3D laser radarsneed scanners, a PMD camera usesintensity modulated incoherent lightfor simultaneous illumination of the

whole 3D scene. The modulation fre-quency is in the range of 10 to 20MHz. The back-scattered phase frontof the RF-modulated light containsthe complete depth informationwithin its local delay. The incomingwave front is correlated with an ac-cordingly modulated electrical fieldwithin each pixel. As a result, the pix-els provide a quasi-stationary RF in-terference pattern. The principle of aPMD camera is therefore similar tothat of the RF-modulation interfer-ome-try (RFMI).

Like other CMOS APS imagers, a PMDimager with a matrix array of pixelsis manufactured in a conventionalCMOS process. Each light-sensitive el-ement contains additional circuitryfor signal conditioning and amplifi-cation. It provides low-frequencyoutput signals, which contain the dis-tance information of each element.Due to an integrated electronic sup-pression of background illuminationwithin each PMD pixel, the camera isinsensitive to sunlight or to any arti-ficial light source besides the modu-lated illumination unit. The 3D im-

Figure 2: Schematic of a PMD camera system.

Advertisement

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

16

age data therefore are not affectedby varying illumination conditions.

The acquired distance image can beread out via a row- and column-se-lect addressing unit.

Applications in 3D-SIAMThe 3D-SIAM camera is based on aPMD imager with 16x64 pixels. Thesensor chip unit is mounted behindthe windscreen, while the two 850nm LED illumination units are builtinto the fog lamp position of the testvehicle. As the infrared light is invisi-ble to the human eye, it will not benoticed by other traffic participants.3D image processing is provided by amicroprocessor unit and connectedwith the HMI (for demonstration)and the engine control unit.

Application Stop & Go and Pre-crashObstacle detection is one of the mostimportant tasks with respect to ac-tive safety. The PMD sensor systemmeasures the distance of an object infront of the vehicle. It acquires the3D image and the correspondinggrey-scale image of a scene at thesame time and with the same field ofview. This helps to increase the quali-ty of the detection and classificationresults. In 3D-SIAM two applicationsare to be realized within one system:

1) The Stop & Go-system uses obsta-cle detection in the range of up to10 m and is able to follow a vehi-cle ahead in a traffic jam with low

speed by providing control signalsfor the engine control unit. Awide beam arrangement has beenselected for the sensor system tocover the complete area in frontof the vehicle.

2) The Pre-crash sensor system calcu-lates the speed of an approachingobject from distance information;the speed is calculated from repet-itive measurements. With thewide beam and pattern recogni-tion arrangement it is also possi-ble to calculate the direction ofthe approaching object. With thisinformation it is very early known,before the actual impact occurs,which restraint device should beactivated. It is also possible to esti-mate which severity the impactwill have since the relative impactspeed is calculated from the sen-sor signals. This information isused to control restraint deviceslike adaptive force limiters oradaptive airbag systems as well asreversible restraint devices.

OutlookFuture systems for active safety willinclude vision systems and will sup-port features such as lane departurewarning, lane keeping, lane changeassistance, automated stop & go andcollision warning. PMD would offeran image making device with the po-tential to classify objects like cars,pedestrians or all kinds of obstacles.A further application of the PMD-sensor is to use it for pedestrian pro-tection systems, as they will be intro-duced in Europe from mid-2005 on,according to the ACEA self-commit-ment. In a later step, even automat-ed emergency braking or collisionavoidance will be introduced.

As the innovative PMD imagers canbe realized in CMOS technol-ogy, they offer cost effectivesolutions for forward lookingsafety systems in automobile.3D perception is of great im-portance not only for auto-motive applications, but alsofor robotics, security, produc-tion technology or the con-sumer market. First series ofautomotive PMD camera sys-tems are foreseen for 2006. Arapid increase in demand forsuch systems is expected.

PartnersConti Temic microelectronic GmbH,Ingolstadt, A. D. C. GmbH, Lindau, DaimlerChrysler Forschung- undTechnologie, Ulm, S-TEC GmbH, Siegen, ZMD Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden AG, Fachhochschule Trier, Universität Siegen

Duration of Project8-1-2001 until 7-31-2006

ResponsibilityRainer Heinstein, VDI/VDE-IT

References[1]H. Riedel, A. von Dahl, C. Lang, S.

Marian, F. Zywitza: "3D Vision Sys-tems for Active Safety," SAE 2002,March 4-7, 2002, Detroit, USA

[2]Friedrich Zywitza: "Umfeldsen-sorik: ein innovativer Sensor fürFahrerassistenzsysteme - PhotonicMixing Device (PMD)", IIR-Fachkonferenz 2003, October 14-15, Nürtingen, Germany

[3]Friedrich Zywitza: "Photonic Mix-ing Device PMD - eine 3D-Kamerafür Fahrerassistenzsysteme", TÜVKonferenz Sensorik in Sicherheits-und Assistenzsystemen, 2004,February 10-11, Cologne, Germany

ContactDipl.-Phys. Friedrich ZywitzaProject managerConti Temic microelectronic GmbHRinglerstr. 1785057 Ingolstadt, GermanyPhone: +49 841 881 2770Fax: +49 841 881 2488E-mail: friedrich.zywitza@temic.comwww.temic.com

Figure 5: Test Vehicle with PMD camera, Illumi-nation units, LDWS camera, Radar and IR ACC

Figure 4: Example of a PMD image3D image (left), grey-scale image (right)

Figure 3: PMD-chip design

17

E V E N T S

Dec 13-14, 2004Course: Characterization and Modifi-cation of Micro- and Nano-structures(2 days) www.fsrm.chEindhoven - The Netherlands

Dec 15, 2004Seminar: Bio-Nano Engineering forNano Deviceswww.omnt.frParis - France

Jan 21, 20053.Kompetenztreffen Mikrosys-temtechnik und Mikroelektronik imAutomobil (in German)www.zvei.orgKronberg - Germany

Jan 22 - 27, 2005Photonics West 2005http://spie.org/San Jose, CA - USA

Jan 30 - Feb 03, 2005MEMS 200518th IEEE Int'l Conference on MicroElectro Mechanical Systemswww.mems2005.orgMiami, FL - USA

Feb 03, 2005Course: Dry Etchingwww.fsrm.chLausanne - Switzerland

Feb 08, 2005 Course: Existing and New MEMSEmerging Marketswww.fsrm.chNeuchâtel - Switzerland

Feb 10-11, 2005 Course: Glass Microfabrication www.fsrm.chMunich - Germany

Feb 26 - Mar 04, 2005Microlithographyhttp://spie.org/San Jose, CA - USA

March 07-10, 2005Microsystems USA Exhibitionwww.microsystems-usa.comChicago, IL - USA

March 17 - 18, 20059th International Forum on AdvancedMicrosystems for Automotive Applications AMAAwww.amaa.deBerlin - Germany

March 21 - 24, 2005SSD'05 - 3rd IEEE Int'l Conference onSystems, Signals and Devicessmarthome.unibw-muenchen.de/ssdSousse - Tunisia

March 22-23, 20052nd Int'l Workshop on Nano & Bio-Electronics Packagingwww.prc.gatech.edu/nanobiopackAtlanta, Georgia - USA

April 04-08, 2005VisionOnline Course: Advanced Nan-otechnology - Materials, Processes,Structures and ApplicationsContact: Julie Armstrong-Tait atjulie@tfi-ltd.co.ukCork - Ireland

April 06-08, 2005ECIO'05 - 12th European Conferenceon Integrated Optics www.minatec.com/ECIO05Grenoble - France

April 11, 2005MEMS/MST Industry ForumApril 12-14, 2005Semicon Europa 2005www.semi.org/semiconeuropaMunich - Germany

April 11-15, 2005MicroTechnology Int'l Exhibition New: SchauPlatz (arena) "Nano" at Hannover Int'l Industrial Fair www.schau-Platz.de/nanowww.hannovermesse.de

April 13-15, 2005ISOEN 2005 - Int'l Symposium on Ol-faction and Electronic Noseswww.isoen2005.orgBarcelona - Spain

April 26-29, 2005Microsystemtechnik 2005Special fair for Microsystems Technol-ogy and Ultra Precision Engineeringmicrosystemtechnik.schall-messen.de/de/microsystemtechnikSinsheim - Germany

May 08-11, 2005euspen 5th Int'l Conference & 7th An-nual General Meetingwww.euspen.orgMontpellier - France

May 08-12, 20052005 NSTI Nanotechnology Confer-ence & Trade Showwww.nsti.org/Nanotech2005Anaheim, CA - USA

May 10-12,2005SENSOR+TEST 200512th Int'l Trade Fair for Sensorics,Measuring and Testing Technologieswith accompanying Conferenceswww.sensorfairs.deNuremberg - Germany

June 05 - 09,2005Transducers '0513th Int'l Conference on Solid-StateSensors, Actuators and MicrosystemsAbstracts due date: Dec 03, 2004www.transducers05.orgCOEX, Seoul - Korea

June 12-16, 2005Optical Metrology 2005Sub-topic: Micro- and Nano MetrologyAbstracts due date: Dec 20,2004 tohttp://spie.org/Conferences/Calls/05/eom/SubmitAbstractMunich - Germany

July 31 - Aug 04, 2005Optics & Photonics 2005Abstracts due date: Jan 17, 2005 tohttp://spie.org/Conferences/Calls/05/am/SubmitAbstractSan Diego, CA - USA

Oct 05-06, 2005Micro System Technologies 2005Main topic fro 2005: MicrosystemPackaging and FabricationAbstract due date: Feb 25, 2005 www.mesago.de/mstMunich - Germany

Oct 28-29, 2005Sustainable Innovation 0510th Int'l Conference on global 'stateof the art' in sustainable product/ser-vice development and design Abstracts due date: Jan 31, 2005 tomcharter@surrart.ac.ukBrussels - Belgium

EVENTS

Call for Papers

mstnews publishes selected announcements and calls. Pleasesend your news to mstnews@vdivde-it.de.

18

E V E N T S

Hotel Steigenberger BerlinLos-Angeles-Platz 1

NEW: Demo Day: March 16, 2005

Scope of the conference:Over the past years enormousprogress has been made in the mi-crosystems area in transforming re-search results into marketable prod-ucts. Nearly all economic sectors didbenefit from these developments.Automobiles today are inconceivablewithout microsystems. New and im-proved functions related to safety,performance, comfort and emissionreduction are in the majority of casesbased on microsystems. They consti-tute in many cases the unique sellingproposition of a new automotiveproduct. ABS, break assistance, sta-bility control and further safety fea-tures, applications in air-conditioningsystems, power train and enginemanagement are examples of the in-dispensable role played by microsys-

tems in modern automobiles. Mi-crosystems and their underlying tech-nologies are often the driving forcesfor satisfying new customers' re-quirements.

Demo day:The AMAA 2005 event offers theunique opportunity to see and testcars equipped with advanced driverassistance systems. Cars provided byA.D.C., Agalia, Bosch, Continental,DaimlerChrysler and IBEO featuresystems like lane departure warning,lane keeping assistance, full rangeACC, pre-crash functions, crash miti-gation and traffic sign recognition.Most of the cars are available for areal driving experience either on aclosed circuit or on normal roads de-pending on the functions. The demoday will open on March 16, 2005, atapprox. 12:00. Details will be shownon the AMAA web page as soon asthey are available.

Some of the participating companiesare:3SOFT, A.D.C. GmbH, AglaiaGesellschaft für Bildverarbeitung undKommunikation mbH, ASTRI, AudiAG, CTS Automotive Products, Daim-lerChrysler AG, Hella KG Hueck & Co,IBEO Automobile Sensor GmbH,Melexis NV, Mitsubishi Electric Cor-poration, NIPPON SOKEN laboratory ,Raytheon Commercial Infrared,Robert Bosch GmbH, SensoNor, Toro-trak (Development) Ltd, VolkswagenAG, VTI Technologies Oy, X-FabSemiconductor Foundries AG, ZeissOptronik GmbH

Contact:AMAA Conference Chair Dr. Jürgen ValldorfPhone: +49 3328 435-183E-Mail: valldorf@amaa.de

AMAA 2005 - Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Applications -on March 17-18, 2005, Berlin, Germany

The 10th International Conference onthe Commercialization of Micro andNanosystems (COMS 2005) is the lead-ing conference on the commercializa-tion of MEMS/MST/micromachiningand nanotechnology. COMS 2005 willbe jointly organized by Forschungs-zentrum Karlsruhe and the Micro andNanotechnology Commercializationand Education Foundation (MANCEF).The Abstract Submission Deadline is20 Mar 2005.

The Conference fosters the commer-cialization of micro and nanotech-nologies and addresses commercial-ization issues unique to these emerg-ing and disruptive technologies.COMS 2005 will bring together keypeople from across the world andfrom every sector of industry, includ-ing leading practitioners in the field,equipment suppliers, end users, cus-tomers, Government representatives,education and financial experts. COMS2005 addresses recent advancesin micro/nanotechnology and their

impact on commercial markets. Topicsinclude, but are not restricted to:

Industry and Business overviewsBusiness modelsBuilding a customer/end user baseNiche and high volume applicationsThe Role of Roadmaps Packaging issuesChallenges of micro-nanosystems,integration and prototypingReliability and standardsDesign, production tools and testEmerging applications in communi-cations, life sciences, consumerproducts, environment, automo-tive, space, medical diagnostics, in-strumentation and security Commercialization of Silicon andHARMST technologiesNext generation of small technolo-giesCommercialization of nano-technology Social implications of nano-technologyEquipment and supply chains

Challenges in the managementand manufacture of small tech-nologiesBuilding successful Micro-Nano-Technology regional clustersThe role of Venture Capitalists /Business Angels in commercializa-tionThe role of foundries, specialistcenters in commercializationThe role of governments, develop-ment agencies and universities incommercialization Education and workforce develop-ment

New: 15 student posters will be ac-cepted and these students will receivea reduction of 50% in the conferencefee. The best two papers will get cashawards as prizes. The posters will bejudged on their content related to thecommercialization of MEMS/MST andnanotechnology applications.

For more information:www.mancef.org/coms2005.htm

COMS2005 on August 21-25, 2005, Baden-Baden, Germany - First Call For Papers

19

E V E N T S

CHICAGO, Oct. 5-7, 2004 -- An in-creasing number of U.S. companiesare shipping nano-enabled products,are profitable and are projectingrapid revenue growth over the nextfive years, attendees heard at thelargest nano business conference inthe U.S. And companies large andsmall are incorporating the word"nano" into their marketing cam-paigns as a sign to consumers of im-proved performance and value, saidspeakers at NanoCommerce 2004,held Oct. 5-7 in Chicago.

More than 400 business leaders atNanoCommerce 2004 heard aboutbusiness opportunities, partnershipsand marketing strategies from an ex-tensive lineup of speakers, includingMotorola, Wilson Sports, PPG,DuPont, Guidant, McKinsey & Com-pany, Easton Sports, Solutia,Hewlett-Packard, Nanosys,Nanogate, Cambrios and many oth-ers. Companies from Germany, theU.K., Australia, Japan, Switzerlandand Korea attended the event. Anaction-packed exhibit floor show-cased the more than 40 exhibitorsfrom the U.S., Japan and the U.K.The exhibit floor featured an Inter-net Café and company presentationsfrom an additional 25 companies.

NanoCommerce, known for the num-ber of business partnerships that areformed during the annual event, in-troduced an innovative online net-working program that allowed at-tendees to identify potential part-ners and exchange information be-fore, during and after the confer-ence. NanoCommerce is produced bySmall Times Media and was support-ed this year by the U.S. NanoBusinessAlliance.

"BRAND NANO""Don't be afraid to brand nano - it iseverything," said Brian Dillman, vicepresident of global marketing forWilson Racquet Sports. "We feel itfrom a consumer standpoint. It willbe huge."

Dillman said the nascent technologyis crucial to the manufacturing, mar-

keting and even the moniker ofnCode, a line of tennis racketslaunched in May. In ordinary rackets,tiny voids exist between the individu-al carbon fibers that can create stressand weak points. In nCode rackets,nanoscale crystalline structures of sil-icon dioxide fill those voids, whichDillman said boost the strength, sta-bility and power of the racket.

"The 'n' is for nanotech," he said."We've redefined the molecularstructure of the racket; we've brokenthe code."

In a separate panel discussion atNanoCommerce 2004, venture capi-talists expressed skepticism aboutfirms embracing "Brand Nano" andexpecting it to boost their value.

"A TWO-EDGED SWORD"Matt McCall, managing director ofDraper Fisher Jurvetson-Portage Ven-tures, compared it to companiesputting an "e" in front of their namein the late '90s. "It's a two-edgedsword - whenever you get a premi-um, you know you'll get a discountwhen (the market) snaps back. Don'tdo that unless you really like rollingthe die."

One company that has enjoyednano-enhanced success on the con-sumer front is opting for a compro-mise approach. Nano-Tex's nanoscaleadditives offer such qualities as re-sisting stains or softening the touchin more than 20-million garments in40 retail brands.

In a special presentation, Nano-Texinventor David Soane and companyCEO Donn Tice described how theirtechnology has been developed andsuccessfully integrated into the $2billion textile industry. BillionaireWilbur Ross Jr., the financier whobought bankrupt textile giantBurlington Industries in part to ac-quire its majority stake in Nano-TexLLC, sent prepared remarks describ-ing how he envisions cutting edgetechnology injecting new value into"old economy" businesses, includingthe textile industry.

The company now works with morethan 40 retail brands and more than50 manufacturers worldwide, andappears in more than 20-million gar-ments.

PRODUCTS AND PROFITSCommercialization and profitabilityare much more of a reality thanmany believe. Preliminary results ofthe 2004 National Small Tech Com-mercialization Survey, presented atNanoCommerce 2004, show that themajority of U.S. companies surveyedare shipping nano-enabled products,are profitable and are projectingrapid revenue growth over the nextfive years.

"While people typically portray theindustry as not having products, itwas interesting to note that over80% of the companies in this surveywere working with real productsthat were at least as far along as thebeta stage testing," said Patti Glaza,COO of Small Times Media. SmallTimes worked with the Nanotechnol-ogy Commercialization Group, agroup of graduate students at theUniversity of Michigan BusinessSchool, to conduct the survey.

"The majority of companies are ex-tremely optimistic on the level ofgrowth they will achieve over thenext five years - reporting expecta-tions of expanding over 4x their cur-rent size," Glaza said. No companiesreported zero growth.

Using conservative calculations, thesurvey showed there are at least12,000 people directly working atnanotechnology companies in the UStoday, she reported. Companies ex-pect a 25% growth next year in em-ployment levels.

NanoCommerce 2005 will be heldnext fall in Chicago. For information about NanoCom-merce 2005, please contact Kelli Felker Marketing Director at Small TimesE-Mail: kellifelker@smalltimes.com.

Nanotechnology Business Leaders from Around the World Gathered on October 05 – 07, 2004, Chicago, USA

Advanced technologies are being ini-tiated in the Manaus Free Trade Zone.Manaus is the capital of the Brazilianstate of Amazonia, located in theheart of the tropical rain forest. It hasbecome the largest electronic produc-tion site in South America. Within thealready existing CT-PIM (Technologi-cal Center of Manaus Industrial Pole),the initiation and implementation ofa Microsystems Technology Park isplanned. Additionally, by the end ofDecember 2004 the CBA (AmazonianBiotechnology Center) will be opera-tional, hosting up to 200 researchersin the area of biodiversity research atthe final stage.

Electronics Market BrazilIn Brazil, there exist a few productionsites for passive electronic compo-nents, mainly capacitors, resistors, andconnectors. However, there is no com-mercial-scale semiconductor manufac-turing in the country. On the other hand, Brazil has thelargest production base and thelargest market for consumer electron-ics goods in South America, with man-ufacturing sites in the Free TradeZone of Manaus and in the area ofSao Paulo. The GDP growth in Man-aus, which is the largest electronicproduction region in South America,has been around 10% during the lastfew years, reaching sales of morethan US$ 10 billion in 2003. Nearly50% of the sales are generated in theelectronics sector. Nearly 90% of thesales are realised within the country.This situation is leading to a rapidlygrowing demand in the area of elec-tronic components, mainly of semi-conductor devices, which have to beimported. As a result, the trade bal-ance deficit in this sector is increasing.The Brazilian government haslaunched a national policy for micro-electronics in order to revert thistrend. The focus of this policy is laidon strengthening R&D capabilitiesand the marketing of intellectualproperty by improving infrastructuresfor R&D and (higher) education. Thispolicy should create opportunities forinnovation in the electronics industryin the country.

In this context, the Superintendenceof the Manaus Free Trade Zone

(SUFRAMA, www.suframa.gov.br) as abranch of the Brazilian Ministry of De-velopment Industry and ForeignTrade is active in the development ofthe industrial cluster in Manaus (PIM),a cluster of more than 430 enterpriseswith more than 350,000 employees.

Micro- and NanotechnologyStarting in 2005, a technological cen-tre for microsystems technology(CMS-CTPIM) is going to be built inManaus. The planning phase is nearlycompleted at this time. This centreshould include a "Microsystems R&DCentre" including the necessary cleanrooms, equipment, etc., as well as a"Microsystems Product InnovationReference Centre" stimulating indus-trial application and industrial devel-opment. A strong emphasis is addi-tionally being laid on the develop-ment of know-how in the designarea. Already today, aspects of mi-crosystems technology are taught inthe local university, an activity to beexpanded. Additionally, human re-sources on the level of techniciansshould be trained by initiating dedi-cated education programs.

During the last 2.5 years, a number ofpossible co-operation partners andvendors worldwide have been con-tacted and supporting joint activitieswere negotiated. The results of thisphase were presented during the In-ternational Seminar on Micro andNano Technology (MINAPIM 2004), inManaus (www.suframa.gov.br/mi-napim). This seminar had about 200participants, mainly from all overBrazil, but from foreign countries aswell. It has been part of the 2nd Ama-zonian International Fair, a productshowcase and large conference heldevery two years. Speakers from allover Europe, from the US, from Ko-rea, and from Brazil described theirideas for activities related to the up-coming launch of the CMS-CTPIM.

Biotechnology: Potential applicationarea for microtechnology?As early as 2002 a research centre inthe area of biotechnology waslaunched. The CBA as a departmentwithin SUFRAMA will be operationalby December 2004 when a firststaffing phase is completed. The more

than 25 laboratories are ready at thisstage already. It is foreseen to concen-trate the Brazilian research in thearea of bio-diversity within this mod-ern facility. The CBA's main objectivesinclude developing new technologiesbased on integrated research, per-formed by a network of regional andnational laboratories. Priority will ini-tially be given to science, technologyand technological innovation, begin-ning with work in phytotherapy, cos-metics, and extracts, with the aim ofgiving greater competitiveness to thebioproducts and agricultural productsproduced in Amazonia by developingtechniques which yield greater pro-ductivity, quality and maximumadded value.

An additional rather new aspect is theprospect of the convergence of micro-and nanotechnology with biotechnol-ogy. As both activities are still in aramp-up phase (or even in an earlierphase), it would be possible to devel-op biotechnological research in a waythat this area could be one of the first"customers" of the Manaus basednew microsystems technology activi-ties. The Manaus Free Trade Zone hasa chance to develop a worldwideunique biomicrotechnology cluster,integrating the possibilities of "jun-gle-related" biologic or biotechnicalwith dedicated microsystems researchand development.

ConclusionsBased on the solid industrial growthand the broad production experiencein consumer electronics, the ManausFree Trade Zone has the (financial) re-sources for initiating R&D activities asa starting point for future economicactivities in the region. In order tomaintain a certain independency offoreign suppliers of (critical) compo-nents for electronic products, the ini-tiation of a broad microsystems tech-nology how is considered important.The possible integration of microsys-tems technology and biotechnologywould allow a further step in the di-rection of becoming a significantworldwide actor in micro- and nano-technology.

Contact: Helmut KergelE-Mail: kergel@vdivde-it.de

20

E V E N T S

Micro- and Nanotechnology in BrazilReport: 1st Int´l Seminar on Sep. 15-18, 2004 in Manaus, Brazil

E V E N T S

21

This year's conference "Seeing at theNanoscale" gave an up-to-dateoverview of the technology and appli-cation of scanning probe microscopy(SPM). The theme of the conferencewas "Exploring Nanostructure Imag-ing, Characterization and Modifica-tion using SPM and Related Tech-niques". To address these topics thetwo and a half day symposium includ-ed nearly 40 oral presentations bymainly academic researchers, postersessions and an award presentation.The event was sponsored and orga-nized by Veeco Instruments Inc. inconjunction with the micro/nano net-works Minatec, Nano2Life and Phan-toms. Veeco is a leading provider ofmetrology and process equipment so-lutions used by manufacturers in thedata storage, semiconductor and tele-com/wireless industries. Veeco'smetrology tools are used to measureat the nanoscale and process equip-ment tools help create nanoscale de-vices. The tools and devices are alsoenabling instruments used in the ad-vancement of scientific research and

nanotechnology. Minatec is a compe-tence centre and a talent pool dedi-cated to innovation in micro- andnanotechnology located in Grenoble.Nano2Life and Phantoms are Euro-pean networks of excellence on nano-biotechnology and nanotechnology,respectively.

This year's conference was the secondin the series "Seeing at theNanoscale". By moving the confer-ence from Santa Barbara (USA) to Eu-rope this year, communications andresearch sharing within the globalnano-scientific community was fur-ther encouraged. The symposium wasattended by researchers in nanoscalemetrology and nanoscience applica-tions and was an international multi-disciplinary event that attracted hun-dreds of scientists from all over theworld. Nanotechnology is foreseen tobe a key technology in the future andis gaining more and more public at-tention. The continued advancesmade in nanosciences and nanotech-nology will result in new materials,

devices and systems with enhancedproperties. Critical to these advancesis the ability to image, probe and al-ter nanostructures and scanningprobe microscopy is an important toolto address these aspects.

The conference included 5 technicalsessions: 1. Biomolecules and Biologi-cal Processes, 2. Materials and Poly-mer Systems, 3. Measurements of me-chanical, electrical, optical, thermalproperties of materials at theNanoscale, 4. Instrumentation: NewTools and Techniques for Nanoscienceand 5. Theory and Physics of SPM. Interms of application of SPM, biologi-cal and biotechnological examplesclearly dominated the conference.However, most of the presentationswere dedicated to basic research, thusshowing that nanotechnology is stillin its infancy concerning commercialexploitation.

Contact: Dr. Cord Schlötelburg, VDI/VDE-TE-Mail: schloetelburg@vdivde-it.de

Report: "Seeing at the Nanoscale II" on October 13 - 15, 2004, Grenoble, France

Initially, only an ordinary public statereport meeting regarding the na-tional research project "Mikroprüf"under the German Microsystems Pro-gramme (www.mstonline.de) was in-tended, but the final result, whichwas achieved within only a fewmonths, was much more. Even theorganisers themselves were very sur-prised: An international workshopon wafer bonding with about 90 par-ticipants from 13 countries, evenfrom the USA, with 34 oral presenta-tions during two days and a small ex-hibition with participation from therenounced European wafer bondermanufacturers AML, EVG and Süss-Microtec was achieved on the cam-pus of the University of Halle in Sax-ony-Anhalt.

The main topics of the workshopranged from

direct bonding at low and hightemperatures,anodic and glass bonding and

glass frit, metallic and polymerbonding tobonding equipment and market(trends).

The very positive international re-sponse to this workshop from re-search institutes as well asMST/MEMS companies, industrial ap-plicants and equipment manufactur-ers was taken as a clear sign of thehigh relevance of bonding technolo-gies for the packaging of microsys-tems, in particular on the wafer lev-el, as a cost-effective packaging solu-tion. And it seems that wafer bond-ing still needs its own, particularplatform of information exchange inEurope: The participants unanimous-ly voted for a continuation of such akind of workshop, if possible nextyear!

The workshop in Halle was organisedby Max-Planck Institute of Mi-crostructure Physics and by the con-

sortium of the above-mentioned re-search project "Mikroprüf", the Ger-man companies STEAG microParts,Bosch, XFAB and Hegewald&Peschkeand the research partners FraunhoferInstitute for Material Mechanics inHalle and the Center for Microtech-nologies of the University of Chem-nitz. The aim of research on and de-velopment of this project is to set upmethods and equipment for measur-ing the quality and reliability ofwafer bond connections for microsys-tems. This project was launched inApril 2003 and will terminate inMarch 2005. It is accompanied byVDI/VDE-IT, the Microsystems Pro-gramme manager of the GermanMinistry of Education and Research.More information is available atwww.microtesting.de

Contact:Bernhard Wybranski, VDI/VDE-IT, GermanyE-Mail: wybranski@vdivde-it.de

Report: Workshop on Wafer Bonding for MEMS Technologies on October 11-12, 2004, Halle, Germany

The 2004 International Semiconduc-tor Conference (CAS 2004) was the27th event of an annual sequenceand the 14th edition with interna-tional participation (www.imt.ro/cas).Beginning with 1995 CAS is an IEEEevent, sponsored by the IEEE EDS.The Conference profile was graduallyextended from semiconductor devicephysics and technology to micro- andnano-technologies.The organizer of the CAS Conferencewas IMT-Bucharest (National Insti-tute for R&D in Microtechnologies). CAS 2004 brought together 143 sci-entists from prestigious research cen-ters (LAAS Toulouse, IMT Bucharest,Fraunhofer Inst. Berlin, FORTH Herak-lion), universities (Cambridge, Darm-stadt, Bucharest) and also from in-dustry. The conference program had14 sections with 11 invited speakers,100 regular oral and poster papers.The contributed and invited paperswere published in the CAS Proceed-ings, delivered to the participants atthe beginning of the conference.This year's "Microphotonics" session

was a joint session together with theWAPITI Project (STREP/FP6) - Wafer-bonding and Active Passive Integra-tion Technology and Implementa-tion.Just after the closing of CAS 2004 thePATENT workshop was held, orga-nized by the Reliability Cluster of theNoE " Design for Micro & Nano Man-ufacturing - PATENT-DfMM "(IST/FP6). The workshop included ascientific session with contributionsfrom members of the Reliability Clus-ter; topics on MEMS: failure modes,test structures, reliability testing, de-sign rules. The CAS participants hadfull access to the scientific session.The Autumn School "Advancedmethods for Systems on Chip forAmbient Intelligence", organized bythe REASON project (REsearch AndTraining Action for System On ChipDesigN) (IST/FP5), was also held rightafter CAS 2004, bringing togetherparticipants (both teachers and stu-dents) from Romania and Europe.The school topics were focused on:Design of Cellular Automata Based

Cipher; Measurement, modeling andsimulation of thermal dynamics inmicroelectronic structures; Hierarchi-cal test approaches for digital sys-tems; Future trends in System onChip Design. Next year, CAS 2005 will be heldfrom 3rd to 5th October, in the beau-tiful mountain resort of Sinaia, Ro-mania. Main topics will be: Micro-and nanotechnologies for transduc-ers, interfaces and microsystems,biomedical and environmental appli-cation; Nanoscience and nanoengi-neering; Novel materials and intelli-gent materials; Power devices andmicroelectronics (including CAD); Mi-crooptics and microphotonics; Micro-machined devices and circuits for mi-crowave and millimeter wave appli-cations.

Contact: Conference Chairman: Prof. Dan Dascalu (Dascalu@imt.ro)Conference office: cas@imt.ro

22

E V E N T S

The conference on "Future Technolo-gy Polymer Electronics: intelligentplastics - the next revolution in elec-tronics" was organised by the VDMAfor more than 150 participants.

At the opening session KarlheinzKreuzer from the German FederalMinistry of Education and Researchoutlined the Ministry's funding activi-ties. In the field of polymer electronicsand organic displays, about �35 mil-lion was allocated to fund RTD activi-ties from 2001 to 2006. In the futuretoo, Polytronic will be an importantfield for funding, focusing on im-provements in flexible process tech-nologies, high-frequency RFID appli-cations and performance of OLEDs.

In the first technical session UlrichBuller from FhG-IAP, Potsdam, andUdo Heider from Merck Chemicalsgave an interesting overview overchances of polymers in several appli-cations like OLEDs/ displays, solar cells,field effect transistors, or sensors.Both highlighted the huge potentials

of organic semiconductors (OSC) asactive material in electronic devices.But: polymers will not and cannotcompete with silicon technology.Their chances of success are lying inthe field of applications, which re-quire low-cost fabrication and assem-bling combined with low perfor-mance as well as applications combin-ing several functionalities on flexiblesubstrates.

Hans Hofstraat gave an interestingtalk about the activities of Philips Re-search Eindhoven, focusing on the vi-sion of ambient intelligence. As an ex-ample, he described the successfuldemonstration of a 64-bit organicRFID chip working at a carrier fre-quency of at least 125 kHz. A similarresult was presented by PolyIC; futureresearch & developments are now tar-geting 13.56 MHz. The intention togo to higher frequencies definitely re-quires improved materials. With refer-ence to that, for instance Avecia'sroadmap, presented by Tom McLean,showed that OSCs are scheduled to

meet requirements concerning chargecarrier mobility and stability by theend of 2006.

Christian Polscher from DHL Solutionsfocused his talk on the requirementsof an end user and the benefit of us-ing RFIDs in logistics. Based on marketstudies and his own experience, hehighlighted the fact that the main ad-vantage of RFID technology is that itwill lead to significant cost savingsmainly for outlets and retailers assum-ing a broad implementation in allitems.

In summary, the conference provideda good overview from research to ap-plication scenarios and brought to-gether experts from different fieldslike material sciences, machinebuilders, technology providers, andpotential end users.

Contact:Dr. Yvette KaminorzE-Mail: Kaminorz@vdivde-it.de

Report: Future Technology Polymer Electronics on October, 18, 2004,Munich, Germany

Report: The 2004 Int´l Semiconductor Conference (CAS 2004)

E V E N T S

23

MICRONORA, the International Mi-crotechnology Trade Fair, was heldfor the 15th time in Besancon/France,from Sep. 28 - Oct. 01, 2004. At thisyear's event, covering an area of20,000 square metres, 871 exhibitorsand 14,718 visitors.

Focus on precision engineeringThis event, on one hand, is an inter-national trade fair with a specifictechnical focus (precision mechanics,microtechnology, watch production),but, on the other hand, a showcaseof the regional industry, regional re-search, and regional serviceproviders, too. The regional focus inthis context should be seen astransnational, between France andSwitzerland. 34% of the exhibitorsoriginated from 15 foreign countries,nearly half of the foreign exhibitorswere French though.

In comparison to the MicroTechnolo-gy in Hanover/Germany, MICRONORAallows suppliers of equipment andtooling for ultra precision milling toexhibit jointly with the users of suchmachinery, the suppliers and manu-facturers of precision engineeredminiaturised components and parts.The possibility of these groups of ex-hibitors to meet at a joint trade faircan be seen as a specific feature.

With a special section within the faircalled "Zoom", for several years now

MICRONORA has been illustratingspecific application areas for mi-crotechnology: "aeronautics andspace" in 2000, "medicine" in 2002.In 2004, "microelectronics and mi-cromechanics" was chosen as a specif-ic topic. 25 mostly French exhibitorsfrom microelectronics and (silicon-)micromechanics were present, againconsisting of suppliers and users,booth by booth.

Special EventsAs an additional highlight, MICRONORA awarded the "Micrond'Or", a prize dedicated to innovativemicrotechnology products that werepresented the first time at the tradefair. This innovation prize is awardedin six categories, products, tools,equipment, etc. As an example, onecategory was won by the companySILMACH (www.silmach.com), a Be-sancon based spin-off of the localCNRS research institute.

Organised by the Innovation RelayCentre "Grand Est"/France, partnerwithin the network of Innovation Re-lay Centres (http://irc.cordis.lu), a bro-kerage event "Micro-Nanotechnolo-gies: when microelectronics and mi-cromechanics meet" was organised,where 200 one-to-one meetings be-tween technology suppliers and po-tential users or partners were held.This kind of event already has a longtradition, held simultaneously with

MICRONORA. A catalogue of all tech-nology offers of the 2004 event canbe downloaded at:www.euro-innovation.org/docu-ments/Catalogue_micronora_2004.pdf

MICRONORA 2006The next MICRONORA will take placeon Sep. 26-29, 2006. It is to be antici-pated that the trade fair and addi-tional activities will be an interestingevent to attend.

Exhibiting at MICRONORA for region-al players in the area of microtech-nology and precision engineering is amust. The strong microtechnology fo-cus of the region around Besanconand the western part of Switzerlandis not only an interesting market forvendors and suppliers from this re-gion though. The international andtransnational scope of MICRONORAwill therefore surely increase. On theother hand, the strength of the exist-ing regional market with its tradi-tional regional relationships wasclearly noticeable. A well-definedstrategy and a well-prepared conceptto enter this rather closed marketseem to be indispensable in order tobenefit from exhibiting at MICRONO-RA in the longer term.

Contact:Helmut Kergel, VDI/VDE-ITE-Mail: kergel@vdivde-it.de

Impressions from MICRONORA 2004, held on Sept. 28 - Oct. 01, 2004,Besancon, France

S H O R T N e w s

Osram Opto Semiconductors Contin-ues to Rely on Photolithography Solu-tions from SUSS MicroTec AGOsram Opto Semiconductors hasplaced an additional follow-on orderfor SUSS LithoFab200 ProductionLithog-raphy Cluster for its high vol-ume light emitting diode (LED) pro-duction. The cluster is used for themanufacturing of nitride and ar-senide/phosphide based LEDs. TheLithoFab200 enables the streamliningof the LED production process by au-tomating and integrating all pho-tolithography process steps, namelycoat, bake, expose and develop, inone modular cluster system. For thefabrication of light emitting diodes it

is crucial to maximize both the num-ber of LED wafers processed per unittime as well as the number of goodLEDs per processed wafer. With itsproduction proven equipment designthe LithoFab200 enables exceptionalprocess scalability and fast time-to-market for new device designs, whilereducing cycle times and excess waferinventory.LED production is a maturing technol-ogy. In the years to come, as the raceto conquer the general lighting mar-ket heats up, the trend of increasedproduction efficiency is expected tocontinue and broaden. LED producersare setting up aggressive schedulesfor cost control in all aspects of the

LED manufacturing process. SUSS iscommitted to support the industry'sthrust towards lowering the all-im-portant 'lumen-per-dollar' benchmarkfor LEDs by supplying lowest cost-of-ownership production solutions. SUSSMicroTec's dedication to the LED andcompound semiconductor industry isalso reflected by the other SUSS prod-uct lines for related applications,namely automatic equipment solu-tions for LED bonding, LED testing,metal lift-off and nanoimprinting ofsmall features for next generationlight emitting devices.SUSS MicroTec is a leading supplier ofproduction, process and test technolo-gy for the semiconductor industry.

24

S H O R T N e w s

SUSS maintains its leadership positionwith over 7,000 systems installedworldwide. Headquartered in Munich,Germany, SUSS has 5 internationalmanufacturing sites and provides sup-port from sales and service centers inNorth America, Europe, Asia andJapan. See www.suss.com.

EV Group and Datacon Announce Co-operation on AC2W TechnologyEV Group and Datacon TechnologyAG announced a agreement on devel-opment in the field of advanced-chip-to-wafer (AC2W) technology and onjoint strategic marketing and sales ac-tivities to promote the cooperation.The unique technology combines Dat-acon's leading expertise in chip-bond-ing and key flip-chip bonding tech-nologies with the unique wafer-levelknow-how from EV Group. It hasbeen developed in a joint R&D pro-ject. The EVG540C2W chip-to-waferbonder permanently bonds a waferwith single devices, e.g., chips, underdefined process conditions, after theyhave been fixed with a temporary fix-ing agent in a high-precision flip-chipbonder from Datacon. The technologyused for the bonding process is calledSOLID F2F, in which "SOLID" standsfor solid liquid interdiffusion, a tech-nology that uses a metal solderingprocess. F2F stands for face-to-faceand describes the orientation of thetwo chips with their active side facingeach other. The new equipment plat-form has already been successfully in-stalled at Infineon AG, a major semi-conductor device manufacturer.AC2W technology offers high devicedensity through stacked devices, shortinterconnects and higher functionaldensity. It provides unique advan-tages for chip manufacturers as it en-ables the integration of various devicetechnologies such as hybrid integra-tion of IC and MEMS functionality. Itcan generate packages that are an al-ternative to expensive embedded pro-cesses. And it saves device manufac-turers time and money by combininghighest throughput and utilization ofwell established flip-chip and die at-tach processes with the permanentbonding process under well-con-trolled process parameters.Datacon, a leading supplier of flip-chip and die bonding equipment,founded in 1986 in Radfeld, Austria,consists of an international group ofcompanies that develops and pro-

duces high-precision machines forleading microelectronics companiesworldwide. Datacon employs some400 staff worldwide, including around100 in research and development, seewww.datacon.atEV Group, founded in 1980, is a glob-al supplier of wafer bonders, aligners,photoresist coaters, cleaners and in-spection systems for semiconductor,MEMS and emerging nanotechnologymarkets. Headquartered in Schärding,Austria, EV Group operates via a glob-al customer support network, see www.EVGroup.com

New MST Training Courses and CD-ROMIn 2005, FSRM Swiss Foundation forResearch in Microtechnology proposesfollowing five new course topics in itsprogramme "Training in Microsys-tems":

Existing and New MEMS EmergingMarketsPhoton Detection and CountingTechniquesLaser MicromachiningHigh Density Packaging and ASIC's- Synergies in MiniaturizationPolymer Optoelectronic Technolo-gies and their Applications.

Together with 30 further topics theyform a large course offer of short ap-plication oriented training coursesgiven by renown specialists all overEurope. In 2005, totally 50 course ses-sions will take place in Berlin, Munich,Barcelona, Stockholm, Zürich, Viennaand eight other European cities. Thecourses last between 1-2 days and areall given by specialists from renownresearch institutes, universities andcompanies. Since 1993, year of thefirst MST courses organized by FSRM,already over 3000 engineers and re-searchers participated in these coursesand thus got trained in specific topicsin a relatively short time. The course offer is completed by thenew CD-ROM "World of Microsys-tems". It describes microsystems mar-kets, technologies and products inthree languages (English, German andFrench) and in a very user friendly, in-teractive way. Movies, a detailed glos-sary and direct links to nearly 200mentioned manufacturers and institu-tions complete the information.Further information, demo version ofthe CD, course descriptions and agen-da: FSRM, CH 2001 Neuchâtel, +41 32720 09 00 and http://www.fsrm.ch

MANCEF and SEMI Sign MOU -Agreement Calls for Joint Hosting,Promotion of Events-SEMI and the Micro and Nanotechnol-ogy Commercialization EducationFoundation (MANCEF) have signed amemorandum of understanding(MOU) for mutual support of pro-grams in the areas of MEMS and nanotechnology. The agreementhighlights the expanding relationshipbetween the two organizations tofurther the development of smalltechnologies worldwide. SEMI andMANCEF will work to offer MEMS andnanotech events to engineers andother technical professionals acrossthe global micro-nano community,specifically events in Germany, Tai-wan, and the USA planned for 2005.Under the terms of the MOU, SEMIwill organize a MEMS StandardsWorkshop at the Commercializationof Micro and Nano Systems (COMS)conference series, next held August23-25, 2005, in Baden-Baden, Ger-many. MANCEF will promote andmarket MEMS events at SEMICONWest 2005, held July 11-15 in SanFrancisco. California. In addition, bothorganizations will discuss the holdingof co-sponsored events next year atSEMCON Europa and SEMJCON Tai-wan.SEMI is a global industry associationserving companies that develop andprovide manufacturing technologyand materials to the global semicon-ductor, flat panel display, MEMS andrelated microelectronics industries;please see www.semi.orgMANCEF is an educational non-profitorganization globally reaching thepeople, organizations, and govern-ments interested in commercializingmicro and nano technologies. Infor-mation is available at www.mancef.org

New Int'l LIGA Interest Group formedAn interactive workshop on the 'Ap-plications and Commercialisation ofLIGA' held at the COMS2004 confer-ence in Edmonton, Canada, was at-tended by over 30 delegates fromcentres around the world, includingthe US, Canada, Australia, and Ger-many. There was a consensus from the meet-ing that to enable LIGA technology tobe exploited effectively, the range ofinterest and size of the global com-munity needs to be determined and a

S H O R T N e w s

25

commercialisation strategy estab-lished. An International LIGA InterestGroup was formed at the workshopand is open to all who may be inter-ested in the activities of the Group.This Group will initially provide a com-munications exchange for people do-ing research, for practitioners, manu-facturing and marketing companies.Web pages will initially be providedby MANCEF, (Micro and Nanotechnol-ogy Commercialisation and Educa-tional Foundation) on the MANCEFWebsite (www.MANCEF.org/LIGA)The LIGA technique was first devel-oped at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe(FZK) in Germany in the 1980s. Itsstrength is based on the precision ofX-ray lithography. This requires in-tense, parallel beams of high energyX-rays, only obtainable from syn-chrotrons. Many of its practitionersand users are associated with or arelocated close to synchrotrons. Forprogress to be made in commercialisa-tion there is an increasing need to de-termine where the technical and prac-tical boundaries exist for the develop-ment and cost-effective production ofmarketable products; and to relatethese to developments in nanotechnology. During the last ten years much em-phasis has been placed on improvingthe technique and developing proto-types microstructures but only a rela-tively few of these have become mar-ketable products. The challenge is es-tablish design rules and reliable man-ufacturing methodologies; also to ex-tend the range of materials that canbe elecro-formed or micromoulded. The new Group will benefit from thevaluable experience gained overmany years from the commercialisa-tion activities at ANKA in Germany,CAMD and Sandia in the US. This ini-tiative is also timely as COMS2005 willbe hosted by FZK at Baden-Baden,August 21-25, 2005 and include aworkshop on HARMST and LIGA. Or-ganisations and companies are kindlyinvited to join the interest Group.Membership is free at this time.Please contact David Tolfree, Technoprenuer Ltd and VP EuropeMANCEF; Email:d.tolfree@dl.ac.uk

Coventor Ships Kyocera Package Li-braries for MEMS Enabled ProductsCoventor Inc., is now shipping stan-dard package libraries for MEMS ap-plications in partnership with Kyocera

Corp., an industry leader in IC andMEMS packaging solutions. The pack-age libraries, developed jointly byCoventor and Kyocera, will containsoftware models of a variety of MEMScompatible open tool hermetic ceram-ic packages, which are currently of-fered in Kyocera's product portfolio.The package libraries are shippingnow and all design information willbe made available at no charge tonew and existing CoventorWare soft-ware customers. The package librarieswill initially target RF, inertial and in-frared MEMS applications and will in-clude elements such as package mask,process descriptions, material proper-ty data, and 3D detailed models. Thelibraries will initially enable users tocouple MEMS devices and Kyocerastandard packages for analysis ofthermomechanical effects, low- andhigh-frequency coupled RLC effects,as well as failure modes and designfor reliability in the future. In addi-tion, coupled device/package macromodel extraction is supported for Ca-dence and Synopsys environmentswhich will provide users with the abil-ity to include package stress effects atthe system level thereby creatingmore robust designs. Kyocera packag-ing libraries are available immediate-ly.Coventor, Inc. headquartered in Cary,NC provides a comprehensive suite ofsoftware tools for the development ofmicro-electromechanical systems(MEMS), microfluidics and semicon-ductor process applications. Coventor-Ware is an industry standard platformadopted by leading MEMS and mi-crofluidics manufacturers around theglobe, and by an extensive networkof university partners. Coventor is aprivately held company with offices inCambridge, MA and San Mateo, CA.European headquarters is in Paris,France. For more information please contactsales@coventor.com or visit www.coventor.com.

Hot Embossing System at the MEMSand Nanotechnology Exchange fromJenoptik Mikrotechnik One of the world's leading MEMSfoundries, the MEMS and Nanotech-nology Exchange located in Reston,Vir-ginia, USA, has purchased a Jenop-tik HEX_03 system, a state-of-the-artHot Embossing tool. The MEMS andNanotechnology Exchange tested sev-

eral Hot Embossing tools from differ-ent vendors before deciding on theHEX_03. One of the reasons for thechoice was the excellent resultsachieved in the Jenoptik applicationlab, such as the high force, which isnecessary to get good mold fill. Thelarge force range of the HEX_03 sys-tem allows a wide variety of applica-tions. One of the biggest advantageof the Jenoptik Mikrotechnik equip-ment is the active de-embossing sys-tem that keeps the features clean andensures high throughput. In additionto these advantages, the HEX_03 sys-tem provides detailed process infor-mation, which simplifies trouble-shooting and reduces process devel-opment time. The MEMS and Nanotechnology Ex-change has decided to pursue HotEmbossing technology, because it al-lows a variety of microdevices to berapidly prototyped. The foundry, aprovider of high-quality foundry andconsulting services, expects it willhave broad applicability to a wide va-riety of devices. Their 49 individualstate-of-the-art foundries collectivelyoffer the most comprehensive and di-verse set of implementation solutionsfor MEMS, micro- and nano-technolo-gies found anywhere in the world.Jenoptik Mikrotechnik GmbH is atechnology leader in the field of HotEmbossing for manufacturing micro-fluidic and micro-optic devices. Thecompany located in Jena, Germany,was founded in 1996 and is a 100%-subsidiary of the Jenoptk Laser andOptik System GmbH. It has installedmore than 50 Hot Embossing Systemsin the leading R&D institutes andMEMS companies in Japan, USA, andEurope. The portfolio consists of HotEmbossing Equipment, LIGA-Scanner,Monochromators, EUV monitoringsystems, and Technology Services. Formore information please contact Mr. J. Fröhling, Director Sales andMarketing, johannes.froehling@jenoptik.com,or visit www.jo-mikrotechnik.com

Dear Readers,

Many more Short News belongingto this mstnews issue you will findat www.mstnews.de/Homepage/shortnews.html

26

N E X U S - N e w s

A group of 20 European companies,research institutes and universities,all with an active interest in futuredisplay technologies, today an-nounced that they together startedFlexiDis - an integrated project to re-search, develop and initiate marketstudies of high-performance flexibledisplays. Partially funded under theEuropean Union's 6th Framework Pro-gram as part of the IST (InformationSociety Technologies) priority, theFlexiDis project encompasses 26 mil-lion Euros of direct effort, enablingthe project to leverage a critical massof infrastructure and manpower re-sources worth substantially morethan that amount.

Flexible displays based on plastic andmetal foil substrates are seen as thenext major step in display technolo-gy, freeing users from the flat rect-angular format of current displaysand the fragility of glass. They willunleash the imagination of designersto put displays where it was previ-ously impossible to do so, such as onthe contoured surfaces of car dash-boards, rolled into narrow tubes orbuilt into clothing. One day they may

even bring to reality the video news-paper featured in the Harry Pottermovies. Ultimately the industrywould like to manufacture them onplastic substrates using reel-to-reelprocessing.

To demonstrate the success of theproject the FlexiDis group has set it-self two goals. The first of these is todevelop a flexible and low-powerelectronic paper (e-paper) displaythat enables mobile access to news-papers, e-mails and maps, and couldeventually be rolled up to fit inside atubular container - what it calls a'display in a small volume'. The sec-ond is to develop a 'video-photo-graph' - a paper-thin robust flexibledisplay that will enable users to viewfull-color video as well as still images.

Both types will be pixel-based active-matrix displays with a backplane in-corporating thin-film transistors(TFTs). The bendable e-paper displaywill initially be based on elec-trophoretic materials laminated ontoplastic substrates incorporating or-ganic TFTs (plastic electronics), whilethe video-photograph will be based

on organic LED (OLED) materials de-posited on metal or plastic foils, driv-en using inorganic (silicon) TFTs.

The FlexiDis project will run for threeyears and currently comprises the fol-lowing organizations:

Universities: Ecole PolytechniqueFédérale de Lausanne, University ofCambridge, University of Stuttgart

Institutes: CEA-LETI, CNR Rome, CNRSEcole Polytechnique de Palaiseau,IMEC, Institute of Polymer Mechanicsat University of Latvia

Industrial Partners: ASML, Avecia,BMW, LEGO, Nokia Research Center,NovaLED GmbH, Philips Center forIndustrial Technology, Philips Re-search, Plastic Logic, STMicroelec-tronics, Thomson, Unaxis DisplayTechnology

Contact:Eliav HaskalPhilips Research, The NetherlandsE-Mail: coordinator@flexidis-project.orgwww.flexidis-project.org

"FlexiDis", a New IST Integrated Project Started on Oct 1, 2004

The MASMICRO project kick-offmeeting was held at the Universityof Strathclyde with representativesfrom all 36 partners and two ProjectOfficers from the EU Commission.The MASMICRO Project is an EU FP6Integrated Project, launched on 1 Ju-ly 2004. Project duration is fouryears.

The overall objective of the project isto develop an integrated manufac-turing facility for the mass-manufac-ture of miniature/micro-products,and a technology transfer/trainingpackage for transferring the knowl-edge to and developing skills in in-dustry. A multi-discipline (horizontal-ly) and integration (vertically) ap-proach is used for the implementa-tion of the project. Research is beingconducted to resolve individual fun-damental and technological issuesconcerning the mass manufacture ofminiature/micro-products, with aview to achieving several break-

throughs. Demonstration of themass-manufacturing facility to be de-veloped will be subject to validationtrials and production applications.Knowledge and technologies gener-ated will be directly transferred tothe targeted groups, throughdemonstration, training and SMEtake-ups programmes.

The MASMICRO consortium is com-prised of 36 partners who provideexpertise in disciplines such as De-sign, Materials, Mechanics, Process-ing Technologies, Tool/Machine Fab-rication, Manufacturing Automation,Metrology, Software Development,Dissemination/Exploitation, and Pro-ject Management. The project ismanaged by an experienced teamwith several boards being involved indecision-making - Project Co-ordina-tion Board, Project Technical Board,Project Exploitation Board, ProjectTraining Board and Project AdvisoryBoard.

The MASMICRO consortium seeks:collaboration with existing EUprojects and Eureka projects;link to EU networks and industrialassociations;exchange of experience in devel-oping industrial training pro-grammes;exchange of experience in devel-oping "Virtual Enterprise";venture capital for exploitation ofproject results;potential interest referring to for-mulating new projects;provision of the services, throughparticipating organisations.

Contact: Yi Qin, UKE-Mail: qin.yi@strath.ac.ukRafael Rodríguez, SpainE-Mail: rrodriguez@ain.es www.masmicro.net

MASMICRO Project Kick-off Meeting, Glasgow, Sept 28-29, 2004

27

N E X U S - N e w s

NEXUS Membership is open to allcompanies and institutes, world-wide, that are able to contributeexpertise in areas relevant to microsystems technology.To apply for membership, com-plete the online questionnaire forthe NEXUS Who's who on theNEXUS website: www.nexus-mems.com

NEXUS Membership

On 12-13 Jan 2005, the 2nd NEXUS IP& NoE meeting will present the activ-ities of both IST and NMP micro- andnano-related projects. The aim of themeeting is twofold: The first is toprovide a means to further the ex-ploitation of ideas developed in oneproject into other projects and topromote the use of ideas in alterna-tive industrial sectors; the second isto provide a forum for Western andEastern partners to meet.This meeting provides an ideal op-portunity for selected Eastern part-ners (NMS and ACC) to present their

capabilities and for both Eastern andWestern partners to plan joint pro-jects. The detailed agenda for themeeting is available on the NEXUSwebsite home page www.nexus-mems.com.

NEXUS has launched this initiative tohelp IPs and NoEs to find the bestsuitable partners to join their pro-jects. Potential Eastern partners(companies and research labs) andSMEs from the West are listed in anonline directory at www.nexus-mems.com/viewacc.asp.

Potential Eastern partners (compa-nies and research labs) and SMEsfrom the West wishing to be listed,please contact the NEXUS News edi-tor by E-Mail nexus-news@4m2c.com.

2nd NEXUS IP & NoE meeting to be held in Prague, Jan 12-13, 2005

The NEXUS Steering Committee metat the Systems Engineering Innova-tion Centre (SEIC) at Loughboroughin the UK on 21 Sept 2004. The Com-mittee's focus at this meeting was onreviewing the operational effective-ness of the USC & MWG activitieswith a view to updating their remitin line with European strategies andplans for IST. To this end, the Steer-ing Committee members have under-

taken to each champion a topic ordomain-grouping from the USCs andMWGs. The new plans and objectivesfor the USCs and MWGs will be pub-licised to all members in upcomingissues of the NEXUS e-zine.

On behalf of the NEXUS SCAyman El-Fatatry, SEIC, UKE-Mail: ayman.elfatatry@baesystems.com

NEXUS Steering Committee: Focus on re-vitalising the USCs & MWGs

NEXUS Contact

NEXUS News is provided to NEXUSmembers and other interested mst-news readers by the NEXUS Associ-ation.

The NEXUS Association is partlyfunded through the NEXUSPLUSproject within the EC IST pro-gramme in FP6 to:

Disseminate and cross-fertilisebetween FP6 Integrated Projectsand Networks of Excellence.Increase ACC participation inNEXUS activities and within ECFP6 projects.

NEXUS Officec/o Leti, FranceE-mail: NEXUS@cea.frwww.nexus-mems.com

NEXUS News ContactPatric Salomon, Germany NEXUS News Editor 4M2C PATRIC SALOMON GmbHE-mail: nexus-news@4m2c.com

The current coordinator CoultonLegge has resigned from this post.He has announced that Julie Deaconwill take over. She has had manyyears of experience in these industri-al sectors and therefore has a goodappreciation of the USER require-ments, while her recent background

of working for CRL in microsystemsalso enables her to evaluate, from aSUPPLIER'S angle, the potentials forthe technology.

Contact:Julie Deacon, PERA, UKE-Mail: julie.deacon@pera.com

NEXUS User Supplier Club Pharmaceuticaland Diagnostic with new coordinator

ASSEMIC is devoted to training andresearch in handling and assembly atthe micro-dimension, involving ad-vanced methods and tools and pro-viding a multidisciplinary, comple-mentary approach. This is to beachieved by combining the researchcompetence of R&D centres and uni-versities, with the application-orient-

ed view from SMEs and industrialpartners.

Contact: Werner Brenner, Project CoordinatorVienna University of Technology, AustriaE-Mail: werner.brenner@tuwien.ac.atwww.assemic.net

New FP6 Marie Curie research training network "Advanced Methods and Tools forHandling and Assembly in Microtechnol-ogy - ASSEMIC"

28

E U R O P R A C T I C E N e w s

This was the fourth Europractice VCFunding Forum and this year it at-tracted over 20 investors. The eventwas held at the Institute of Physics,London, on 4th November 2004. Itwas organised by Technology for In-dustry Ltd (TFI), Yole Developpement(Yole) and KBI Commercial Ltd (KBIC)and was supported by the EuropeanCommission through Europractice.

A competition was held aimed atproviding assistance for 10 micro-and nanotechnologies (MNT) start-up projects to prepare for and bepresented to investors at a speciallydesigned funding forum, in additionto a range of follow-up support ac-tions. The competition was open toall companies working on MNT, in-cluding components manufacturers,those offering specific process steps(front-end, back-end, packaging),dedicated microsystems equipment -or innovative MNT based product

manufacturers and service suppliers(CAD tools, design houses, packag-ing, integration, test, etc.).

All submitted projects were receivedat the beginning of August and ex-amined by a panel of independentexperts: J Malcolm Wilkinson, TFI(UK), Jean-Christophe Eloy, Yole(France) and Rob Turner, KBIC (UK).

The criteria used for the selection ofthe winning projects included:

Time to marketIntellectual property positionRisk identification and manage-mentA focused business offer, targetedat a specified commercial opportu-nityReturn on investmentImplementation processMarket potentialDegree of innovation

The final selection was made com-prising 10 of the most promisingMNT start-up projects from Belgium,Estonia, France, Germany, Greece,Italy and the UK.

The event held in the celebrated sur-roundings of the Institute of Physics,London, hosted almost 40 attendees,including 21 representatives fromthe investment community and 9start-up incubators from throughout

Europe. Attendees were giv-en elevator pitches by eachstart-up company, followedby a number of longerbreakout sessions, which al-lowed funders to liaisemore closely with start-ups.

The first event was held aspart of COMS 2001 in Ox-ford, and was highly suc-cessful in attracting bothfunders and high qualitystart-ups alike as was thesecond event, which washeld at the Institute ofPhysics in 2002. The thirdevent was held in Frankfurtin 2003.

To contact any of abovestart-ups please email infor@tfi-ltd.co.uk.

Contact:Technology for Industry Ltd, UKJ Malcolm Wilkinson, ManagingDirectorE-Mail: jmw@tfi-ltd.co.ukor: infor@tfi-ltd.co.ukwww.europractice.com

EUROPRACTICE Start-up Funding Forum Attracts the InvestmentCommunity

The Start-up Companies presenting at this year's forum

Figure 1: Most interesting start-ups as evaluatedby the participants

29

E U R O P R A C T I C E N e w s

During the Europractice AMICUS pro-ject, Robert Bosch GmbH started toexpand its offer in micromachiningfoundry processes towards bulk mi-cromachining products, targeting atnovel applications in new segmentssuch as Life Science or Consumer. Thewell-established Bosch surface micro-machining foundry offers threescheduled Multi-Project-Wafer runsper year in a well-defined standardprocess.

The new bulk micromachiningfoundry, in contrast, uses customerdedicated processes in order to ad-dress specific requirements.Therefore, an extensive process cata-logue with state-of-the-art processeswas compiled for the benefit of ourcustomers. These were invited tosubmit project proposals and Boschoffered to evaluate the high-volumeproduction feasibility of those pro-

jects based on its large manufactur-ing experience in the field of bulkmicromachined automotive sensors(production volume well above 100million devices).

Within the scope of the project,more than 30 contacts with variouscompanies have been established.These companies include big playersas well as start-ups. For about 50%of the contacts, detailed technicalevaluations have been carried outconcerning high-volume productionfeasibility. Some of these contactswere extended towards joint projectsand volume production ramp-up ofcomponents.

The large manufacturing know-howand the experienced staff makes theRobert Bosch GmbH the number-onechoice for customers looking for reli-able and stable high-volume produc-

tion of MEMS devices. The basis forthe extension towards non-automo-tive markets was laid during the Eu-ropractice AMICUS project.

ContactRobert Bosch GmbHChristoph GahnE-Mail: Christoph.Gahn@de.bosch.comwww.europractice.bosch.com

The New Bosch Bulk-Micromachining Foundry

We are happy to present to you acomplete redesign of our web pages.We have increased overall usabilityand ease of use to help our cus-tomers to get a better overview overthe contents. The site now features afully database-driven event list,which allows visitors to submit pro-posals for event entries and, thus, toinform the community of biomedicalprofessionals on where to be.

www.medics-network.com

MEDICS' search engine MEDsearchhas been redesigned in the sameprocess and now allows a quicksearch option from the MEDICS site.MEDsearch provides 100% manuallyselected information on and for allplayers within the biomedical mar-ket.

www.medics-network.com/med-search

MEDICS also provides an electronicnewsletter. Registration is availableon the website.

Contact:Fraunhofer IBMT - MEDICS CoordinationOffice, GermanyAndreas Schneider, Head of MEDICSE-Mail: medics@medics-network.comwww.medics-network.com

News from MEDICS, the Competence Centre for Biomedical Microdevices

Figure 1: Life science analysis chip manufacturedduring the AMICUS project using a sophisticatedASE process

MEDICS' search engine MEDsearch

30

E U R O P R A C T I C E N e w s

Europractice partners will have theirnext 6-monthly meeting in Pragueduring the second week of January2005. These meetings are usually on-ly open to project partners; however,for the upcoming meeting, potentialnew partners from the AssociateCandidate Countries (ACC) and theNew Member States (NMS) will be in-vited to establish contacts with exist-ing and new Europractice initiatives.ACC and NMS countries include Bul-garia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Esto-nia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mal-ta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia andSlovenia.

Europractice currently has five part-ners from the ACC/NMS, and the aimis to add ten partners, half of whomshould be industrial, into the nextphase of the project. Work is current-ly being undertaken to identify po-

tential new partners using the exist-ing coordination team and two sub-contractors. Potential partners from the ACC/NMSwill be invited to participate in theJanuary meeting, convened to allowthem to demonstrate their capabili-ties to existing Western Europracticepartners. A booklet will be producedwith details of each of the potentialACC/NMS partners. In addition thecapabilities of potential ACC/NMSpartners will be placed directly onthe Europractice website, so that in-terested parties will be able to iden-tify suitable ACC/NMS partners.

Organisations from the West that areseeking Europractice partners in theACC/NMS, please browse the directo-ry on the Europractice website atwww.europractice.com/ACCpart-ners.asp

Organisations from ACC/NMS coun-tries that are interested in joining fu-ture Europractice projects, pleasecontact us by E-Mail.Organisations from Bulgaria, Hun-gary, Poland, and Romania, pleasecontact:Carmen MoldovanIMT, RomaniaE-mail: CMoldovan@imt.ro

Organisations from Cyprus, Czech Re-public, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia, pleasecontact:Andrus TasaBIA, EstoniaE-mail: atasa@ebc.eewww.europractice.com

Europractice Extension to the East

EUROPRACTICE News is provided tomstnews readers by EUROPRACTICEMicrosystems Service for Europe.

EUROPRACTICE is funded by theEuropean Commission DG INFSO E5within the framework of the Infor-mation Society Technologies (IST)Programme.

EUROPRACTICE Programme Manager:Leonello DoriEuropean Commission, DG INFSO C2E-mail: Leonello.Dori@cec.eu.int

EUROPRACTICE News Editor:Patric Salomon4M2C PATRIC SALOMON GmbHE-mail: ep-news@4m2c.com

For information on specific activitieswithin Europractice, please contactCompetence Centers, Design Housesand Manufacturing Centers directly.Contact information can be found atwww.europractice.com

EP Contact

On October 21st, LICOM organized aworkshop for industry at the premis-es of LICOM coordinator HSG-IMIT.The workshop was dealing with thegreat variety of sensors based onthermal effects e.g. thermal flowsensors, inclination sensors or humid-ity sensors. These were presented byspeakers from academia and indus-try. The workshop was attended byover 40 participants mainly from in-dustry which proves this topic to beof great interest.

As the feedback from the partici-pants was very encouraging, LICOMplans to repeat this event in spring2005 in changing localities. For fur-ther information regarding the datesplease visit the homepage www.li-com.net or subscribe to our newslet-ter service on the same site.

ContactIris SchmalhoffLICOM at HSG-IMIT, GermanyE-Mail: iris.schmalhoff@hsg-imit.dewww.microfluidics.de

LICOM-Workshop "Micromechanical Thermal Sensors"

Wireless technologies are takinghealthcare by storm. The compe-tence centre MEDICS is organising aninternational cooperation forum"Wireless Systems for Biomedical Ap-plications & Devices" that is based onthe successful "one-to-one" concept.

Please reserve the 26 April 2005 inyour calendar.

More information will follow in mst-news and other relevant media.

ContactFraunhofer IBMT - MEDICS CoordinationOffice, GermanyAndreas Schneider, Head of MEDICSE-Mail: medics@medics-network.comwww.medics-network.com

International Cooperation Forum "Wire-less Systems for Biomedical Applications& Devices", 26 April 2005

31

D f M M P A T E N T N e w s

First public workshop organized bythe Reliability & CharacterisationCluster of PATENT-DfMMThe first public workshop of the Reli-ability & Characterisation Cluster ofPATENT-DfMM network of excel-lence was held in Sinaia, Romania, 7-8 October, as a joint event with theIEEE International SemiconductorConference (CAS 2004). The programsolely contained contributions givenby cluster members: "RF-MEMS relia-bility research at IMEC" (Ingrid DeWolf, IMEC Leuven), "Reliability re-search at IXL Bordeaux" (Claude Pel-let, IXL Bordeaux), "Accelerated test-ing: from Microelectronics to MEMS"(Marius Bazu, IMT Bucharest), "Laseraccelerated aging of semiconductorchips" (Lucian Galateanu, IMTBucharest), "BUTE activities in mate-rial characterisation" (Andras Poppe,BUTE Budapest), "WP3 database -first results" (Adrian Frumuselu, IMTBucharest ), "Recent work at IEF onmaterials, testing and packaging ofMEMS" (Alain Bosseboeuf, IEF Paris),"Material characterisation at LAASToulouse" (Karim Yacine, LAASToulouse), "Standardization at micro& nano" (Virgil Ilian, IMT Bucharest),Late news: "About a new STREP inmicrofluidics" (Catalin Tibeica, IMTBucharest). Other speakers were:Hoc Khiem Trieu from FraunhoferIMS Duisburg, Erwan de Gourcufffrom Heriot-Watt University, andvarious participants in CAS 2004. Onthe second day, the main issues forthe next period were discussed dur-ing an internal meeting of Reliability& Characterisation Cluster ofPATENT-DfMM.

Contact:Marius Bazu, IMTE-Mail: MBazu@imt.roIngrid De Wolf, IMECE-Mail: dewolfi@imec.be

PATENT-DfMM Workshop plannedbefore DTIP 2005A public workshop on "Design forMicro & Nano Manufacture" isplanned to take place on 30-31 Mayin conjunction with DTIP. This work-shop will be co-organised with theNEXUS MWG Design Modelling Sim-ulation and will feature intermedi-ate results from the Network of Ex-cellence "Design for Micro & NanoManufacture", and also discuss in-dustry's needs in this area.

DTIP (Symposium on Design, Test, In-tegration and Packaging ofMEMS/MOEMS) will take place atHotel Eden au Lac, Montreux,Switzerland, 1-3 June 2005 and hasrecently published a Call for Papers.For more information:http://tima.imag.fr/Conferences/dtip

Contact: Patric SalomonE-Mail: info@patent-dfmm.org

softMEMS bought CAD BusinessUnit from MEMSCAPsoftMEMS was created earlier in2004 by Mary Ann Maher, previouslyCTO and head of the CAD BusinessUnit at MEMSCAP, to focus on theCAD tools business. MEMSCAP hassold to softMEMS an exclusive li-cense to sell, market and develop itsMEMS design tools, including MEMSPro and MemsMaster. softMEMS alsohired most of the previous employ-ees of the MEMSCAP CAD BusinessUnit, so the transition happenedwithout loss of know-how. soft-MEMS is maintaining the same prod-uct strategy. softMEMS is now amember of the PATENT-DfMM In-dustry Advisors Board.

Contact:Ridha HamzaDirector, European OperationssoftMEMS, France/USAE-Mail: ridha.hamza@softmems.comwww.softmems.com

PhD Job Opportunity at HWUThe MIcroSystems Engineering Cen-tre is looking for an EU PhD candi-date for this newly open positionwithin the Scottish ManufacturingInstitute. The candidate must haveexpertise in software programming(C++ based or Java) and a workingknowledge of microsystems technol-ogy. The work will deal with hapticbased sensing design for the manu-facturing and simulation of MEMS.More details can be obtained fromthe contact.

Contact:Marc DesmulliezHeriot Watt University, MISECEdinburgh, ScotlandE-Mail: m.desmulliez@hw.ac.ukwww.hw.ac.uk

Post-doc job opportunity at IMECIMEC is looking for a post-doc towork on FEM and reliability ofMEMSStarting date: January 2005.

Contact:Ingrid De Wolf, PATENT-DfMM Co-ordinator of WP3IMEC, Leuven, BelgiumE-mail: dewolfi@imec.bewww.imec.be

DfMM News is provided to mst-news readers by the project "De-sign for Micro & Nano Manufacture(Patent-DfMM)", a Network of Ex-cellence funded by the EuropeanCommission DG INFSO E5 withinthe Information Society Technolo-gies (IST) Programme of FP6.

The NoE Patent-DfMM aims to es-tablish a collaborative team to pro-vide European industry with sup-port in the field of "design for mi-cro nano manufacture" to ensurethat problems affecting the manu-facture and reliability of productsbased on micro nano technologies(MNT) can be addressed beforeprototype and pre-production.

NoE Patent-DfMM Co-ordinator:Andrew RichardsonUniversity of Lancaster, UKE-mail:A.Richardson@Lancaster.ac.uk

NoE Patent-DfMM News Editor:Patric Salomon4M2C PATRIC SALOMON GmbHE-mail: DfMM-news@4m2c.com

www.patent-dfmm.org

DfMM Contact

32

E U R I M U S N E W S

The fifth "Eurimus Annual ProgressMonitoring Meeting" was held in Bil-bao, Spain, on 13th -14th October,2004.

Only Eurimus projects running for atleast 6 months were invited to reporton their progress. Therefore 9 pro-jects were presented to 12 membersof the Eurimus Technical Committeeand to the French, German, Finish,and Israeli Public Authorities (PAs)representative. Among those pro-jects, SPI, ISIS presented their workfor the first time. All running pro-jects responded to the invitation topresent their progress. Regarding theproject Gyrosil, they will make a finalpresentation in December, becausetheir project will be finished by thatdate.

The principle of the 2004 "AnnualProgress Monitoring Meeting" wasthe same as that of previous meet-ings, i.e. it consisted of an oral pre-sentation given by each project lead-er (sometimes helped by other mem-bers of the Consortium) in the pres-ence of the Eurimus Technical Com-mittee. The meeting is organised incamera to guarantee the confiden-tiality of presented reports. All NPAswere invited to attend the presenta-tions of the projects relevant tothem.

After the meeting, an evaluationsheet was issued by the TechnicalCommittee on each project and sentto the project coordinator (to be dis-tributed within the Consortium) andto the Public Authorities affected bythe project.

The following items had to be takeninto account in any of the presenta-tions:

Progress according to the workplan (milestones and deliverables)

Technical highlights

Cooperation between differentpartners

Funding aspects

Exploitation and market prospects

Technical Committee meeting - Pro-ject Outlines (POs) evaluation

The evaluation of the Project Out-lines submitted for the 2nd call ofEURIMUS II took place in Bilbao on15th October. It was preceded by ameeting with the EURIMAC repre-sentatives (National Public Authori-ties). The objective was partly totransmit the feedback on the POsfrom NPAs to the Technical Commit-tee.

Five projects were submitted andevaluated, i.e.:

EPADMID (European Platform forAdvanced Active ImplantableMedical Devices) EM91.

MicroTrack (µ-IMU for MedicalTracking Systems) EM92.

Braille MEMS (MEMS technologyapplied to low-cost Braille and tac-tile displays) EM93.

MAGNIMIC (low-cost portableBiosensors based on Magnetic Mi-crosystems for in-situ/on-line ap-plications) EM94.

SMARTIS (Smart Thin Films on Alu-mina Substrate) EM95.

Two POs (EPADMID and SMARTIS)were accepted to submit a Full Pro-posal (FPP) and the other three (Mi-croTrack, Braille MEMS and MAGN-IMIC) required a new PO submission.

EURIMUS calls in 2005Two calls will be launched in 2005.Below the calendar:

EURIMUS II: 5th Annual Progress Monitoring Meeting (APMM)

EURIMUS OFFICEPhone: +33 438 78 36 38Fax: +33 438 78 56 70E-Mail: EURIMUS@cea.frwww.eurimus.com

EURIMUS Contact

G E R M A N M S T P R O G R A M M E N e w s

33

The Federal Ministry of Educationand Research (BMBF) has releasedfour new announcements under the"Microsystems" programme to fundspecific thematic projects. Eligible forfunding are projects that are con-cerned with the use of microsystemstechnology (MST) in the growth in-dustries of smart labels, driver assis-tance systems and preventive micromedicine and projects that supportmedium-sized enterprises in the de-velopment of microsystems.

Smart labels revolutionise logisticsA lorry loaded with textiles is arriv-ing at an intermediate storage facili-ty. Are all ordered sweaters in theagreed colours and sizes on board?Which goods belong to which store?Possibly in the near future, industry,logistic service providers and tradewill be able to track the route theirproducts have taken all the way fromthe manufacturer to the retailer us-ing smart label systems, which assurethat the goods arrive at their desti-nation on time and complete. In ad-dition, smart labels allow an accuratedata collection in warehouses withgoods receipt and issue and perma-nent inventory.The BMBF is funding "MicrosystemsTechnology for Smart Label Applica-tions in Logistics" with 15 million Eu-ros to provide the technologicalbases for a wide use of smart labelsand to strengthen the competitive-ness of German industry in this seg-ment. Research facilities and enter-prises still have the chance to submitdrafts for industrial collaborativeprojects by December 8th, 2004.For several core sectors in the Ger-man economy - trade, consumergoods, automotive and electronicsindustry - smart labels are openingup new ways to optimise their logis-tic processes. The long-term goal isto transfer logistic controlling to thelogistic goods themselves. They willthen move by themselves throughthe material flow nets as "smart ob-jects" and will get co-ordinated withother objects as well as with their en-vironment. Microsystems technology offerspromising solution approaches forthe development of high-perfor-mance, reliable and cost-effectivesmart label systems. By funding these

specific projects, the BMBF is seekingto overcome currently recognisabletechnological bottlenecks.

Saving lives with driver assistance systemsA child is running onto the streetand the car stops immediately - evenbefore the driver has overcome hismoment of shock. Such "intelligent"vehicles could very soon become re-ality. The BMBF is funding with 15million Euros the project "Microsys-tems Technology for Driver Assis-tance Systems". Research facilitiesand enterprises have the chance, un-til January 21st, 2005, to design adraft for an industrial collaborativeproject in the thematic fields "Mi-crosystems Technology to EnhanceEnvironment and SurroundingRecognition" and "MicrosystemsTechnology to Enhance the Man-Ma-chine Interface".Microsystems technology offerspromising approaches through thedevelopment of sensors and actua-tors to elevate the efficiency and at-tractiveness of underlying systems aswell as the technology base to en-hance communication between vehi-cle and driver. The extent of the nec-essary R&D demand within microsys-tems technology by far exceeds thecapacity of single components suppli-ers. The BMBF will contribute tohigher road safety and mobility andto maintaining and enhancing theappeal of German cars with targetedfunding in this area.

Microsystems Help to Cure Cardiovascular DiseasesIn many countries cardiovascular dis-eases belong to the most common ill-nesses. They cause the most cases ofdeath and they cause the most in-pa-tient and ambulant emergencies. Ifthe disease is diagnosed too late orcontrolled and medicated insuffi-ciently, it can gravely impair thewhole apparatus.The BMBF now supports the develop-ment of monitoring systems for theprevention and the diagnostic moni-toring of cardiovascular patients.These systems are able to control e.g.blood pressure, pulse, heart rate orrespiration round the clock. The pa-tient has not to stay in hospital forthat.

Microsystems technology allows newmethods for the long-time-monitor-ing of cardiovascular patients. Moni-toring systems will be miniaturised sofar, that they can be directly inte-grated in the everyday life of the pa-tients. In a little while, diminutivesensors implanted in or fixed outsideof the body will be able to detecte.g. hypertension or dysfunction ofthe cardiac rhythm. The sensors donot handicap the patient.Using a telemetric system, the datawill be sent to the doctor - 24 hoursa day and seven days a week (24/7monitoring). Then the medic will beenabled to prepare pattern of thepatient for the individual disease andhe will also be informed within sec-onds, if the sickness deteriorates.The development of intra- and extra-corporeal monitoring systems en-abling individual long-time-monitor-ing for the optimal therapy at homeor in the hospital is supported by theBMBF with 15 million Euros. Researchfacilities and enterprises can submitdrafts for collaborative projects untilFebruary 11th, 2005.

Easier Access to Development ToolsThe BMBF is funding the assignmentof computer-based developmenttools to strengthen the competitive-ness of the medium-sized industry inthe growth field of microsystemstechnology. The development of effi-cient MST products is a complex pro-cess, because many different mi-crotechnologies and physical princi-ples have to be integrated andaligned with each other. The fastestand most cost-efficient way to thatdevelopment objective is using com-puter-based tools for the draft andthe simulation of new microsystemsor microsystem components. Prod-ucts can be designed optimally, be-cause by using those tools multiplevariants can be tried.Small- and middle-sized companiesoften are not able to afford the in-troduction of these CAD tools, be-cause they require considerable in-vestment, expensive training and ori-entation courses for the staff at thebeginning. The ministry provides 2.5million Euros for the specific project"First use of computer-supportedtools for design and simulation in mi-crosystems technologies" in support

New Announcements Under the "Microsystems" Programme

34

G E R M A N M S T P R O G R A M M E N e w s

The forum for empowering compe-tencies in microsystems technology(MST) that takes place annually hasbecome an important platform fordiscussing relevant aspects of educa-tion and training in this high-poten-tial field of technology. At this year'sforum, held for the 4th time, expertsfrom education and industry as wellas graduated microtechnologists de-bated the consequences of theBologna process for the academiclevel of MST qualification. What arethe needs for German education inMST to remain competitive and be-come more international within theBologna process of harmonizing theEuropean higher education area?Authorized representatives from ASI-IN, DAAD, BLK and universities pro-vided a glimpse of the German situation.

MST can be seen with an internation-al demand in research, developmentand commercialization. Flexibilityand mobility of highly educated spe-cialists will be the factor of competi-tiveness. The German educationalsystem and the technological re-search activities are highly recog-nized all over the world. These ad-vantages should be kept within theprocess of harmonization, althoughthe graduate system is going to becustomized to the standards of bach-elor and master degrees. Severalcourses of study are reorganized andaccredited already.

Around 1.9 million students world-wide are studying abroad, in the

United States 30% and in Germanyand Great Britain 12% each. Ger-many is attractive for foreign stu-dents all over the world. Several ex-change programmes, managed byDAAD, can be taken advantage of tostrengthen the German situation esp.in the field of MST. These accompa-nying activities could be used by uni-versities and specific technologicalprojects on a higher level and there-fore would underline Germany's ef-fort to take a greater part in interna-tional education for MicrosystemsTechnology within the process ofharmonization. In 2005 first steps forestablishing an European Network ofExcellence will follow.

On the second day the participants inthe forum discussed the results of dy-namic technological developmentsfor vocational training. The ongoingprocess of diffusion in MST into vari-ous fields of application requires adynamic development within the ap-prenticeship. What are the opportu-nities in this field to include new re-quirements from industry into ap-prenticeship in order to solve the de-mands made by industry and by ap-prentices? The according process willbe started with a discussion paper.

Graduates of vocational training arehighly motivated to participate infurther training and gaining higherdegrees of education. They chooseMST because this guarantees work-ing at the edge of technological de-velopment. To advance the personaldrive of young professions the con-

cept of "work based learning" couldbe considered. It gives the opportu-nity to build up a personal and moreindividual way of higher qualifica-tion in this profession and links tothe academic level of MST educationafter all.

The documentation of the Forum canbe found at www.mst-forum.deSabine GlobischVDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH

MST-Students need an International Focus

Mikrofluidics for Analytic und Di-agnostic ApplicationsDecember 9, 2004Institute for MicrotechnologyMainzackermann@vdivde-it.de

MATCHDRUCK December 13, 2004Stahnsdorffernholz@vdivde-it.de

Events

GERMAN MST PROGRAMME Newsis provided to mstnews readers bythe German Programme Microsys-tems (MST), managed by VDI/VDE-IT on behalf of the German FederalMinistry of Education and Research(BMBF).

Support ProgrammeDr. Lars HeinzeVDI/VDE-ITE-Mail: heinze@vdivde-it.de

Accompanying MeasuresAlfons BotthofVDI/VDE-ITE-Mail: botthof@vdivde-it.de

German MST Programme News iscompiled by:Wiebke EhretVDI/VDE-ITE-Mail: ehret@vdivde-it.deFax: +49 3328 435 281

Contact

of the introduction and first-time useof modern development tools. Medi-um-sized companies may submittheir concepts by the end of Septem-ber 2005 to receive government aid. The development und enhancement

of sophisticated microsystems orcomponents that depend on comput-er-supported design tools not used inthe company before will be financial-ly supported.

More information on the announce-ments can be obtained from the in-ternet or directly from the projectmanager VDI/VDE-IT.www.mstonline.de/foerderungPhone: +49 3328 435 101.

Experts discussed the needs for German education in MST.

We are continuing the presentationof institutes and laboratories in-volved as partners in MINAEAST-NET.The National Institute for Researchand Development in Microtechnolo-gies (IMT-Bucharest), founded in1993, is a Romanian Institute for R&Dworking in micro- and nanotechnolo-gies.

IMT represents a "technologicalpole", with a Micro-NanofabricationFacility (the only "clean room" avail-able in Romania for research and ed-ucation), a mask shop, laboratoriesfor computed-aided simulation anddesign in microsystems and micro-electronics, characterization equip-ment, a centre for education andtraining and a technology transfercentre in micro-engineering (CTT-Baneasa). This is a "pole", because itis integrating research in various dis-ciplines, as well as various activities:

research, education and training, in-novation and technology transfer.Moreover, IMT and University "Po-litehnica" of Bucharest, togetherwith the private company ROMES SA,are developing MINATECH-RO, a sci-entific and technological park in mi-cro- and nanotechnologies.Examples of such microfabricated de-vices are given below:

The thematic areas of research inIMT are (www.imt.ro):

Nanostructured materials, nan-otechnologies and nanostructures:carbon nanotubes, carbide andDLC, nanoelectrode arrays, fieldemission nanostructures, poroussilicon.Microstructures and micro-nanosystems for sensing applica-

tions: chemical, mechanical, opti-cal sensors, micro fluidics.Micro/nanostructures for biomedi-cal applications Microstructures and MEMS andMOEMS for communications: RFand Optical MEMS.

IMT-Bucharest is involved in 8 re-search projects from FP6 on both pri-ority 2 (IST) and priority 3 (NMP):PATENT, AMICOM, 4M, NANOFUN-POLY, Nano2Life (associate partner),ASSEMIC, WAPITI, MI-lab on Chip.IMT is also involved in other foursupport projects devoted to micro- &nanotechnologies in Eastern Europe(NMSs and ACCs): ROMNET-ERA (co-ordinator), MINAEAST-NET, BRIDGE(subcontractor) and NEXUS PLUS(subcontractor).

35

M I N A E A S T - N E T - N e w s

MINAEAST-NET

Specific Support Action from FP 6 (2004-2006): MIcro- and NAnotechnologies going to EASTern Europe through NETworking" (MINAEAST-NET)

Again about MINAEAST-NET (seealso www.minaest.net). The mainobjective of the MINAEAST-NETproject consists in networking onMicro and Nanotechnologies, ac-cording to priority thematic areas2 (IST) and 3 (NMP) from FP 6. MI-NAEAST-NET will be a network ofnetworks formed by research bod-ies from several ACCs and NMSsthat are coordinators of local net-works formed by national highquality centres of research active inthis field. MINAEAST-NET intendsto provide the premier source ofinformation about resources andresults in MNT from NMS and ACCsand about the strong points of theACC organisations; will help in of-fering to NMS and ACC researcherstraining and consultancy in prepar-ing proposals, but also in structur-ing consortia; will support interac-tion between NMS, ACC and MSorganisations to initiate FP6 pro-posals through organising meet-ings, workshops and support travelcosts. Coordinator: National Institute forResearch and Development in Mi-crotechnologies, Romania.

Nanoelectrode array - Laboratory of Nanotech-nology (Dr. Irina Kleps, irinak@imt.ro)

Resonant gas sensor - Laboratory for Microsys-tems in biomedical and environmental applica-tions (Dr. Carmen Moldovan, moldovan@imt.ro)

AuSiO2 movable micromirror - Laboratory forMicro- and Nano-photonics (Dr. Dana Cristea,danac@imt.ro)

MIcro and NAnotechnologies goingto EASTern Europe through NETworkingEU Contract no.: 510470 (SSA in FP 6)Project coordinator:National Institute for R&D in Microtechnologies (IMT-Bucharest)Contact persons: Project coordinator Prof. Dan Dascalu (dascalu@imt.ro)Project Vice-Coordinator Dr. Carmen Moldovan(cmoldovan@imt.ro)E-mail contact: net@imt.roPhone: +40 21 490 82 12 or

+40 21 490 84 12Fax: +40 21 490 82 38 or

+40 21 490 85 82Web page: www.minaeast.netSpecial presentation of this projectin MST News and MNT Bulletin(www.imt.ro/MNT)

MINAEAST-NET project

IMT is the organizer of the annualInternational Semiconductor Con-ference CAS (IEEE Event), with top-ics in micro- and nanotechnologies. CAS 2004 - 27th Edition, took placeon October 4-6, 2004, Sinaia, Ro-mania, see www.imt.ro/cas Announcement: CAS 2005 - 28thEdition, October 3-5, 2005, Sinaia,Romania (www.imt.ro/cas)

36

E U - P R O G R A M M E N E W S

2005-06 IST Work Programme hasBeen Published

The European Commission has pub-lished its new work programme forthe next two years under the "Infor-mation Society Technologies" pro-gramme. The full text .pdf version isavailable from:ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/ist/docs/ist_wp2005-06_final_en.pdf

Facing the Challenge - IndependentMid-term Report on the Lisbon Objectives and Targets

The European Commission has pub-lished the results of the independentexpert group who were invited tocontribute to a mid-term reportabout the Lisbon achievements. Thegroup was chaired by the formerPrime Minister of the Netherlands,Mr Wim Kok, and accompanied byseveral high-level representativesfrom research, industry and politics.

The Lisbon strategy, which wasagreed on in March 2000 betweenthe leaders of the European memberstates, aims to develop Europe as"the most dynamic and competitiveknowledge-based economy in theworld".

The conclusions of the group are dis-appointing: an overloaded agenda,poor co-ordination and political ac-tion between the member states didnot help to close the gap betweenEurope and the USA and Asia. Fur-thermore, Europe did not cope withthe obstacles of a slowly growingand aging population. "Time is run-ning out and there can be no roomfor complacency. Better implementa-tion is needed now to make up forlost time," the expert group warns.

While individual member states havemade progress in one or more policypriority areas, concerted progress isstill missing. To reach the goal, it isnecessary for the European institu-tions and representatives of memberstates to initiate action with greatercommitment and involvement by allcitizens. What is more, it is necessaryto create a common awareness ofthe fact that by working together allnations of Europe will benefit.

Five urgent actions were proposedby the expert group:

Increasing Europe's attractivenessfor researchers and scientistsCompleting the internal market interms of the free movement ofgoods and capitalReducing the administrative bur-denAnswering European employmentneedsBuilding leadership in eco-industryand pursuing policies that lead tolong-term and sustainable im-provements in productivitythrough eco-efficiency.

"In order to ensure that MemberStates take up their responsibilities, anew focus is required along threelines: more coherence and consisten-cy between policies and participants,improving the process for delivery byinvolving national parliaments andsocial partners, and clearer communi-cation on objectives and achieve-ments," the high-level expert groupdemands. The group therefore pro-poses that clear responsibilitiesshould be set up between all rele-vant institutions: the EuropeanCouncil, the Member States, the Eu-ropean Commission, the EuropeanParliament and the European socialpartners.

More information:http://europa.eu.int/comm/lisbon_strategy/index_en.html

Technology Offers and Requestsfrom the Network of Innovation Re-lay Centres

Electraflex - low-cost high-perfor-mance flexible piezoelectric vibrationand shock sensor

An established Scottish SME in con-tract electronics manufacturing spe-cialises in innovative leading-edgesurface mount placement tech-niques. Their design team originallydeveloped their innovative patent-pending shock sensing technology inresponse to a specific customer re-quest for a highly sensitive device forcharacterising vibration associatedwith glass breakage. Partners arenow being sought to apply the tech-nology in other applications and to

help develop its adoption in alterna-tive markets.

Innovative Devices for Irrigation &Climate Control SystemsAn Israeli company leading in thefield of control systems for the agri-cultural market is looking for innova-tive sensors & valves to provide infor-mation on climate conditions forgreenhouses. The sensors & valvesdeveloped should already be on themarket. The company is interested inthe transfer of the new technology;one way to do this may be a jointventure.

Optical Fibres System for Flame DetectionA Belgian manufacturer of industrialfurnaces for various sectors is lookingfor a technical solution capable ofdetecting flames around burners.The expected solution should bebased on optical fibres techniquesand should already be available onthe market. The Belgian company iswilling to establish technical cooper-ation or a commercial agreementwith technical assistance.

Info at: kreibich@vdivde-it.de

CeBIT 2005

On the occasion of CeBIT 2005, theworld's leading fair for informationand communication technologies,with more than 6,000 exhibitors andaround 500,000 visitors in 2004, theICT TG of the IRC network will againorganise the brokerage event "IRCfuture match". It is aimed at provid-ing exhibitors and visitors of the fairwith assistance to find partners inEurope for product development,common research & development,manufacturing, marketing or licens-ing agreements, joint ventures orsimilar partnerships. Companies, uni-versities and research institutes inthe ICT sector from all over Europeare invited to use this unique oppor-tunity to establish new cross-bordercontacts for future collaboration.The participation is free of charge!

Please contact: Ms Marion Laueml@tt.uni-hannover.de

37

E U - P R O G R A M M E N E W S

The 4th call of the 6th framework pro-gram of the European Union waspublished on November 16th. TheeSafety initiative specifically addressesits demands. It is the objective ofeSafety to develop and demonstrateCo-operative Systems for road trans-port. Cooperative Systems (as an ex-tension of autonomous or stand-alone systems), where vehicles com-municate with each other and the in-frastructure, have the potential togreatly increase the quality and relia-bility of information available aboutthe vehicles, their location and theroad environment, thus enabling im-proved and new services for roadusers. Such systems will enhance thesupport at the command of driversand road users and will provide for:

greater transport efficiency bymaking better use of the capacityof the available infrastructure andby managing varying demands;increased safety by improving thequality and reliability of informa-tion used by advanced driver assis-tance systems and allowing the im-

plementation of advanced safetyapplications.

The agreed conception of Co-opera-tive Systems for road transport is:"Road operators, infrastructure, vehi-cles, their drivers and other road userswill cooperate to deliver the most ef-ficient, safe, secure and comfortablejourneys. The vehicle-vehicle and vehi-cle-infrastructure cooperative systemswill contribute to these objectives be-yond the improvements achievablewith stand-alone systems." Researchproposals should focus on:

advanced communication concepts,open interoperable and scalablesystems architectures,advanced sensor infrastructure,dependable software, androbust positioning technologies

that are to be integrated into cooper-ative systems delivering core functionsfor vehicle safety and transport effi-ciency. Proposals shall indicate inwhat way vehicles will be used acrossEurope and internationally. Consortia

have to ensure the involvement of allstakeholders, e.g. road operators andauthorities, service and communica-tions providers, OEM and suppliers. Itis further requested to incorporatepartners from the new member statesand from SMEs.

This specific objective concerns 82 mil-lion Euros for IPs, NoEs (60%) andSTREPs, CAs and SSAs (40%).

The provided information is based onthe recent publication of the 4th calland information gathered during theeSafety clustering day (Brussels,November 8th , 2004).

Additional informationwww.cordis.luwww.nks-mst.de

Contact:VDI/VDE Innovation + TechnikSven KruegerE-Mail: krueger@vdivde-it.deMichael Huch E-Mail: huch@vdivde-it.de

eSafety - Co-operative Systems for Road TransportIST Call 4, 11/16/04 - 03/22/05, 1,120 Million Euros

Making Europe more secure for itscitizens is the main goal of Europeansecurity research. The achievementsof most modern technologies, e.g.micro- and nanotechnologies, haveto be applied to reach this goal.Miniaturization and System Integra-tion are important fields that willhave to be included in the scheduleof most important security measures.Microsecurity - a European networkinitiated by the Fraunhofer MicroMaterials Center in Berlin, is underconstruction to combine securitymeasures, microtechnology researchactivities with safety and reliabilityresearch in various fields of industry,transport and life sciences as well.The institutes of the Fraunhofer Soci-

ety's microelectronics branch havedeveloped the so-called safetronicsconcept, which stands for the combi-nation of advanced safety and relia-bility research based on the latestachievements in electronics and mi-cro- and nanotechnologies. This ac-tivity of nine institutes will leadamong other results to new MEMSconcepts for security applicationsand will also provide new fundamen-tal results and new applications inthe field of health monitoring sys-tems. This approach is based on avery comprehensive "health con-cept" that includes health for peo-ple, structures, goods, buildings,public infrastructures, etc. This "gen-eralized health concept" is very close

Microsecurity - Important Capabilities for HomelandSecurity ChallengesBernd Michel and Thomas Winkler

Microsecurity stands for microtech-nology and security. Most moderntechnologies have to be taken intoaccount to get a real breakthroughin advanced security research andapplication. Miniaturization by mi-cro- and nanotechnologies on theone hand and reliability researchon the other (microreliability,nanoreliability) have been shownto be a must to overcome the exist-ing gap in practical applications ofsecurity related microtechnologyresearch. The authors report on aEuropean Microsecurity Network tobe constructed and some relatedactivities within the FraunhoferIZM and the Fraunhofer Society incooperation with industry.

38

E U - P R O G R A M M E N E W S

to the American understanding ofhealth concept and somewhat differ-ent from the classical German (or Eu-ropean) understanding of healththat is mainly directed towards a hu-man health concept. From the moregeneral understanding of "health" itfollows that the "health" of struc-tures etc. is also included.

In Germany we also have two differ-ent words - "safety" and "security" -for the German word "Sicherheit". Inthe past, safety was mainly under-stood as "safety and reliability",which means the ability of structures,technical systems etc. to fulfil de-fined functions under specified con-ditions over a given period. The aimof safety research was to avoid mal-functions (and resulting damage ordisaster) due to incapability or loss ofcapability of the system to react ade-quately to certain, sometimes ran-domly occurring, conditions or re-quirements. Typical but different ex-amples of safety through reliabilityare aircraft, automotive electronicsand software.

Recently, security has become moreand more important. Security isaimed at the protection of people,goods, technical structures, public in-frastructures and informationagainst threats. Security means theability of structures and organiza-tions to detect, resist and combatterrorist attacks.

Making Europe more secure for itscitizens while increasing its specialindustrial competitiveness is themain goal of European security re-search. The Preparatory Action on'Enhancement of the European in-dustrial potential in the field of Secu-rity Research 2004 - 2006' constitutesthe European Commission's contribu-tion to the wider EU agenda for ad-dressing key security challenges fac-ing Europe and her partners. It focus-es in particular on the developmentof a security research agenda tobridge the gap between civil re-search, as supported by EC Frame-work Programmes, and national andintergovernmental defence pro-grammes (see the Commission's web-site:http://europaeu.int/comm/research/security/index_en.html for more infor-mation).

The achievements of most moderntechnologies, e.g. micro- and nan-otechnologies, will have to be ap-plied to reach this goal. Miniaturiza-tion and System Integration are im-portant fields to be included in theschedule of most important securitymeasures. The Fraunhofer Micro Ma-terials Center (MMCB) at the Fraun-hofer Institute IZM in Berlin is goingto initiate and support the Europeanpreparatory actions and projects inthe field of modern micro- and nano-electronics security and reliability.The Microsecurity network initiatedby the MMCB intends to combine se-curity measures and microtechnologyresearch with reliability research. Animportant topic of the activities maybe described by the slogan "Electron-ics for safety needs safe electronics".Special materials- und reliability-cen-tred topics which are in the focus ofthe network are:

Detection of smallest particles inovercrowded environmentsTools for instantaneous, automat-ed and reliable surveillance ofstructures and infrastructures, al-gorithms for data fusion and pre-selection of possibly dangerousdeviationsSensorics in interaction with com-munication technology and envi-ronmentModularization and system inte-gration, multi-purpose systems.

The Berlin Fraunhofer Micro Materi-als Center at IZM has been successfulas part of the international consor-tium of preparatory action (PASR2004) within the new frameworkprogramme. The EU intends to fund6 projects and 3 supporting activitiesout of some 180 proposals. Amongthese positively evaluated 6 projectsthe project IMPACT, guided by TNORijswijk, will be implemented, whereIZM will mainly contribute reliabilityaspects (experts increasingly use theterms microreliability and nanorelia-bility for this kind of reliability formicro- and nanostructured materialsand components).

Besides the large European activities,German SME activities have becomemore and more important in securityresearch and application as well. Se-cuPART e.g. is a network for securityrelated pattern recognition tech-

nologies that started a month ago.Under the guidance of the Fraun-hofer Group Microelectronics as net-work manager, and seven SMEs fromBerlin, Brandenburg, Saxony andBavaria, the Fraunhofer Institute IZMstarted the setup of an SME securitynetwork sponsored by AiF (GermanAssociation of Industrial Enterprises).The aim of this network is to furtherdevelop and apply advanced greyvalue correlation techniques (digitalimage correlation methods - DICtechniques) within the practical fieldof security related applications. DICtechniques will become importanttools in most modern sensors, MEMS,MOEMS and NEMS applications inthe microsecurity field.

These advanced imaging tools will befound among the key techniques foradvanced applications in many fieldsof homeland security and general se-curity applications of cost-effectiveand reliable sensing networks world-wide. This trend will be very impor-tant, as leading international special-ists reported at the US National Sen-sor Conference held in Lake Tahoetwo years ago. Microsecurity there-fore will not be a vision only. It willincreasingly become an importantfield of research in the security relat-ed branches worldwide.

Contact:Prof. Dr. Bernd MichelFraunhofer Micro Materials Center Berlinat Fraunhofer Institut IZMGustav-Meyer-Allee 25D-13355 Berlin, GermanyE-Mail: bernd.michel@izm.fraunhofer.dePhone: +49-30-46403-200Fax: +49-30-46403-211

Dr. Thomas WinklerChemnitzer Werkstoffmechanik GmbHE-Mail: winkler@cwm-chemnitz.de

39

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

Uncooled Infrared Focal Plane ArrayUncooled infrared detectors arebased on the thermal detection ofincoming IR flux instead of the quan-tum mechanism used in high- perfor-mance cooled detectors like thosemade from CdHgTe or InSb. The in-frared flux is detected at each pixelsite by measuring an absorber tem-perature increase as a function ofthe amount of IR energy absorbed inthe structure. The difficulty is then tointegrate these functions in a smallpixel pitch keeping a high thermalinsulation between the readout inte-grated circuit, which acts as a heatsink, and the absorber in close con-tact with the thermometer.

Microbolometer TechnologyThe requirements of enhanced visiondriver applications are mainly con-strained by the cost of the system. Inorder to fulfill DVE requirements wehave decided to reduce the focalplane area by decreasing the numberof pixels from the current 320x240pixels with a pitch of 45 µm to160x120 pixels with a pitch of 35 µm.To maintain a high level of perfor-mance despite the decrease in pixelpitch, we have enhanced mi-crobolometer performance by in-creasing thermal insulation and re-ducing the electrical 1/f noise in theamorphous silicon thermometer.Besides, the microbolometer focalplane arrays need to be packagedunder vacuum in a complex packagewith an infrared window. Regarding the DVE device, weswitched from the standard metallic

device used for 320x240 pixels to aceramics one. The development andthe mastering of the second genera-tion of microbolometer technologyenable us to decrease the pixel pitchto 35 µm, keeping the same level ofperformance. Profiting from this pos-sibility, we have designed a 160x120array with a number of innovativeon-chip features to simplify the useof this focal plane, keeping a verysmall silicon ROIC area down to 0.7cm² in order to reduce wafer-levelprocessing costs per die. This new160x120 array is designed to fulfillmedium-resolution, low-cost applica-tions. One of the most promisingfunctions is the possibility, with de-vice power on, to automatically ac-quire pixel non-uniformity coeffi-cients and to store them in on-chipmemory for performing the currentcompensation during the followingnormal image acquisition and read-out sequences. This automatic modeof operation could be changed to anexternal driving mode with non-uni-formity coefficients stored in an ex-ternal memory. Most of the biasesare generated inside of the ROIC foruser-friendly operation.

Low-Cost Infrared LensesUsually IR lenses are made from ger-manium or zinc selenide monocrys-talline ingots that are cut into blocksand then polished to obtain IR lens-es. This method is long and expen-sive and a new approach is under de-velopment for manufacturing IRlenses from IR glass. This type of ma-terial could be directly molded intothe final lens shape, decreasing theresulting cost of manufacturingwhile keeping a high performancelevel by using Fresnel lenses or as-pherical lenses.Umicore IR Glass S.A. is a companyspecialized in the production ofchalcogenide glasses and optics bymolding. Umicore IR Glass has devel-oped a new chalcogenide glass com-position. This glass, named GASIR2, isfabricated by using high-purity ger-manium, antimony and selenium(Ge20Sb15Se65) in a completelysealed silica ampoule. An industrialprocess has been developed to pro-

duce this glass with well-controlledproperties. This process ensures agood reproducibility of glass qualityand the refractive index. The repro-ducibility of the refractive index isbetter than 1.5x10-5 at 10 µm.To obtain low-cost infrared optics,additional important conditionsshould be fulfilled: low-cost startingmaterials, inexpensive process for in-got production and inexpensive pro-cess for lens fabrication. GASIR2 glasscontains 20% of germanium and theother 80% of starting materials arerelatively cheap. Consequently, thecost of bulky GASIR2 glass is signifi-cantly lower than that of germaniumand zinc selenide.Lenses in GASIR2 glass can, of course,be produced by polishing or singlepoint diamond turning. But the maincompetitive advantage of this glass isassociated with the fact that evenvery complex lenses (asphero-diffrac-tive for example) can be produceddirectly by molding, eliminating thecostly polishing or single point dia-mond turning used for other in-frared lens material. A high-precisionmolding technology has been devel-oped to produce low-cost chalco-genide glass lenses with a good per-formance level. Spherical, asphericaland asphero-diffractive lenses havebeen manufactured with very accu-rate surface precision. The form de-fect of the molded surfaces can belower than 0.5 µm with a typicalroughness of 25 nm.

ICAR Infrared Camera for CaRsO. Legras and H. J . Lenz

The use of infrared systems forhigh-volume and low-cost applica-tions is now in the pipeline thanksto the development of new tech-nologies: uncooled infrared focalplane array and infrared glass. Wepresent developments after threeyears of project activity, in particu-lar results obtained on detectorsand optics manufactured for theICAR project. The aim of this pro-ject is to see a pedestrian from adistance of at least 190m and vehi-cles from about 500m to be able toavoid them if necessary.

Figure 1: A molded Asphero-difractive Lens inGASIR2 Glass ( Ø 60 mm )

40

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

When depositing an antireflectioncoating onto the molded lenses, thereflection losses can be reduced, re-sulting in 98% transmission, com-pared to 70% for uncoated lenses.A durable coating has also been de-veloped as a protection for exposedlenses. Coated asphero-diffractiveGASIR2 optics has been used in in-frared cameras and good resolutionthermal images have been obtained.The performances are comparable tothose of an optic made with aspheri-cal germanium.GASIR2 offers an alternative solutionto germanium for thermal imaging,especially for medium- and high-vol-ume applications.

Camera DesignThe driver reaction time (under nor-mal conditions) is around 1sec at130km/h, the covered distance isaround 30m. On wet road, the brak-ing distance is 1.5 higher than on drytar (100m); we then have definedthere a status for the need of a dis-tance of 180m (30+1.5x100). Con-cerning FOV, we need to cover atrange distance at least the roadwidth plus sidewalk. The system istherefore a trade-off between range,FOV and die size to be compliantwith the specifications and to be aslow as possible in terms of cost.These requirements lead to the real-ized Camera Design. The Field ofView of the camera is 18° horizontaland 9° vertical, that means only 80 ofthe 120 lines of the detector areused. A sharp image is given from adistance of 5m to infinity.The power consumption is less than5W at 12VDC, the weight is less than0.8 kg and the size is 110x80x80 mmincluding optics.The camera will be operated by aRS232 interface and the Video Out-put Format is in accordance withCCIR Standards.

Human-Machine InterfaceOptical automotive displays for driv-er support systems should be quicklyreadable in all conditions in order tominimize the so-called "eyes-off-the-road time". For automotive all im-portant visual information from thevehicle to the driver is shown in theinstrument cluster. Due to the in-creasing amount of information theinstrument cluster layout is changingand now often includes re-config-urable displays showing different in-formation in different situations (ondriver's needs).An example for a display with a shortaccommodation and 'eyes-off-the-road time' is the Head-up Display(HUD), which positions a virtual im-age close to the horizon line. State ofthe art for automotive vision en-hancement is a system to permanent-ly display a monochrome thermal im-age in front of the driver; the imageis generated by a liquid crystal display(LCD), and is magnified and mirroredinto the car windscreen.For the ICAR project, CRF developedand equipped its demonstrator vehi-cle with a new concept of human-ma-chine interface taking advantage ofHUD technology and image process-ing technology. The aim was toachieve system end-user high accep-tance and usability. Bosch GmbH hasdeveloped the new HUD; it is de-signed for night vision systems and isbuilt with automotive components. The image is generated by a 16:9 LCDdisplay; the light path goes from thedisplay to the aspheric-coated com-biner, which magnifies and reflectsthe image towards the driver. The vir-tual image for the display is of 15°Horizontal and 5° Vertical FOV; thisfits well the thermal sensor image.To reduce the accommodation timeof the driver, the distance from thevirtual image to the eye point of thedriver is set to 2 meters. The mechan-ical dimension of a virtual image dis-play is typically a critical feature, asprevious realizations have significantimpact on the interior design of apassenger car. The device developedis quite compact and can be easily in-tegrated in new car cockpits; the de-vice is self-contained (don't use thewindscreen as a combiner), so it is in-dependent from windscreen design.The second innovation introduced onthe project is the use of image pro-cessing techniques to improve the

thermal images and make the infor-mation better understandable. Twomain activities have been carried out:adapt and improve the images (bysoftware contrast and sharpness ad-justment) and detect and highlightpotential hot obstacles (vehicles,pedestrians, animals) in the vehicletrajectory. Color graphics symbols al-low the driver to quickly identify thedangerous object on the HUD.

OutlookHigh potential is expected from ad-vanced Microsystems to develop low-cost and high- performance systemsto improve vehicle safety duringnight and difficult weather condi-tions, using affordable Driver VisionEnhancement systems. In the ICARproject, (within the EURIMUS frame-work) we are developing a camerafor car application. The first results infocal plane and lens material devel-opment will be integrated in the de-sign of the infrared camera compo-nents that will be tested under realconditions at the end of 2004.

ConsortiumULIS (Leader) CEA / LETIUMICORE IR GlassCEDIPCentro Ricerche FIATVALEOCarl Zeiss Optronics

Detailed information about microbolometers is available atwww.ulis-ir.com and about IR Glassat www.optics.umicore.com

The authors would like to thankFrench, German and Italian NationalPublic Authorities for supportingthese developments.

Contact:H. J . Lenz Carl Zeiss OptronicsE-Mail: h.lenz@zeiss.de

Figure 2: ICAR Camera

Figure 3: ICAR - HMI in the dash board andHMI - Prototype at the steering wheel

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

41

PReVENT - Integrated project underthe 6th Framework Program (02/2004 - 01/2008)The year of the Integrated Project(IP) began with the commencementof activities of the PReVENT IP (PRe-VENTive and Active Safety Applica-tions) in February 2004. Supportedby the EC and under the leadershipof DaimlerChrysler with the manage-ment support of ERTICO and IMC,this four-year undertaking involvesover 50 members from the publicand private sectors to develop andvalidate a variety of preventive safe-ty applications in a number of sub-projects and activities. The start ofthe PReVENT Integrated Project (IP)is the culmination of the close collab-oration between partners of and or-ganizations EUCAR, CLEPA and ERTI-

CO. As part of theEUCAR IntegratedSafety Initiative,PReVENT - which isin line with theeSafety initiativefrom the EuropeanCommission, plansto implement manyof the recommenda-tions of the EC'sCommunication onInformation andCommunications forSafe and IntelligentVehicles.

While contributing to this key action,PReVENT will develop, test and eval-uate safety-related applications, us-ing mostly existing advanced sensors,positioning and communications de-vices integrated into on-board sys-tems for driver assistance. In short,PReVENT will help drivers to avoidaccidents. Depending on the impor-tance and timing of the foreseeabledanger, the types of systems exam-ined in PReVENT will alert drivers asearly as possible, warn them, and ifthere are no reactions from the driv-er, actively assist and intervene ac-cordingly in so far as possible.

Besides this key focus on saving lives,PReVENT priority areas have beendefined to contribute towards arapid market implementation of suchsystems, by helping to overcome themajor barriers for their introduction.It also intends to enlist the coopera-tion of national and European pro-grams. PReVENT consists of a num-ber of subprojects in complementaryfunction fields:

Safe Speed and Safe Following, Lateral Support and Driver Moni-toring, Intersection Safety,

PReVENT will develop, test andevaluate safety-related applications,using mostly existing advanced sen-sors, positioning and communica-tions devices integrated into on-board systems for driver assistance.UseRCams, being a subproject, fo-cuses on the development of an ac-tive 3D sensor, vital in providing im-proved obstacle detection and clas-sification at short range.

PReVENTive and Active Safety Applications (PReVENT)

Edwin Bastiaensen and Peter Mengel

Figure 1: Sensor integration for safer driving

Advertisement

42

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

Vulnerable Road Users and Colli-sion Mitigation.

An additional cross-functional fieldcovering methodologies, common ar-chitectures, liability issues, and tech-nology or standardization orientedactivities (digital maps and sensor da-ta fusion) safeguards the integratedapproach.

One of the future highlights of theproject set to take place in 2007 willbe the PReVENT Safety Demonstra-tion, which will involve all the con-sortium members and national initia-

tives to present the main results oftheir activities and raise political andpublic awareness of preventive safe-ty applications and their contributionto road safety in general.

The PReVENT consortium brings to-gether more than 50 partners withkey representatives from the indus-try, public authorities, universitiesand various public/private organiza-tions, including a total of 12 OEMs,16 suppliers, and 23 institutions andothers. The Core Team consists ofDaimlerChrysler, BMW, VTEC (Volvo),Ford, Renault, CRF (Fiat), PSA Peu-geot Citroën, Siemens VDO Automo-tive, Robert Bosch, Sagem and IN-RETS. The IP management is carriedout by ERTICO and IMC.

3D Camera Development in the Sub-Project UseRCamsUseRCams focuses on the develop-ment of an active 3D sensor, vital inproviding improved obstacle detec-tion and classification at short range.It will be especially suitable for colli-sion mitigation, protection of vulner-able road users and blind spot detec-

tion. A 3D camera prototype will bedeveloped based on a nanosecond-pulsed laser and a customized CMOSphotosensitive sensor with short in-tegration time; it will deliver dis-tance information based on time offlight measurements, combininghigh lateral resolution with a rangeof up to 20m, independent frombackground illumination. Associatedalgorithms will allow detection, loca-tion and classification of traffic ob-jects. The sensor system will be test-ed for applications covering pre-crash, blind spot detection and side-and rear-end collision warning.

The concept and developments aredevoted to customization, applica-tion and evaluation of an active 3Drange camera for Road User protec-tion and Collision mitigation con-cerning:

Near to intermediate front/sidedistance range (20m-25m) of carsLateral proximity of trucks (blindspot surveillance) Implementation of 3D-algorithmsfor object (obstacles, pedestrian)detection and classification inde-pendently of surface reflectivityand ambient lightening conditionsPerformance evaluation with car/truck demonstrators on typicaltraffic scenarios and obstacle oc-currence

The R&D challenge aims at the devel-opment of a new generation of low-cost 3D-sensors in fully solid-state mi-crosystems technology. Fast and ro-bust, three dimensional image acqui-sitions will be based upon CMOSphotosensitive circuits with ultra-short integration time, IR laser pulsesources and time of flight measure-ment principles (MDSI- Multiple Dou-

ble Short Time Integration). The finalmicrosystems will be capable of di-rectly measuring the shape, type andvolume of moving traffic targets(pedestrians, vehicles) and determin-ing the direction of movement. Inte-grated in the target applications,they will provide a close to 100% re-liability rate (as regards the identifi-cation of passing targets) with a falsealarm rate counting close to 0% de-spite varying ground reflectivity andambient light (sunlight). The consortium partners for this sub-project are:

Siemens AG, Corporate TechnologySiemens VDO Automotive AGBMW Forschung und Technik GmbHCentro Ricerche FiatTechnocentre RenaultVolvo Technology ABFraunhofer GesellschaftLewicki Microelectronic GmbH

UseRCams is a subproject within theintegrated project PReVENT. The sen-sor development, based on microsys-tems technology will lead to a newquality of obstacle detection andtherefore perfectly fit in the IP andOEM safety function roadmap.

For more information: www.prevent-ip.org

Contact UseRCams:Siemens AG, Corporate TechnologyPeter MengelE-Mail : peter.mengel@siemens.com

Contact PReVENT:DaimlerChrysler (IP Coordinator)Peter KonhaeuserE-Mail: peter.konhaeuser@daimlerchrysler.com

ERTICO (IP Management)Edwin BastiaensenE-Mmail: e.bastiaensen@mail.ertico.com

Figure 3: 3D-line image sensor prototype with4X64 pixels (source: FHG/ IMS Duisburg)

Figure 2: UseRCam`s vicinity monitoring

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

43

New market viewVehicle manufacturers are develop-ing many new features for vehiclesthat will increase both safety anddriver assistance. CMOS imaging willplay a key role in those two fields.Safety applications include, amongothers, lane tracking for departurewarning, collision avoidance, occu-pancy detection for smart airbags,driver vigilance monitoring and blindspot detection. Driver assistance caninclude night vision, park assist, roadsigns recognition and automaticheadlamp control.

Lane tracking uses a camera to verifythe position of the vehicle comparedto the lane markings and provides awarning to the driver if the vehiclestrays from the lane unintentionally.The use of rumble strips at the edgeof roads has reduced the number offatal accidents in recent years. Elec-tronic in-vehicle lane departure warn-ing systems will similarly increase mo-torway safety. In the not too distantfuture, lane tracking could be includ-ed in the cruise control function forsmooth guidance. It could also becombined with collision avoidancefor speed regulation and automaticbraking.

Occupancy detection for smartairbags requires the system to knowthe type of passenger (child, small,large, tall or just an inanimate object)and the passenger's position (upright,reclined, leaning forward) to properlydeploy an airbag during a crashevent.

Driver vigilance monitoring is a videoprocess to detect the typical move-ments of a tired driver (movementsof the head, eyelids, eye focus andtracking). Drowsiness and sleepingdrivers are a major cause of motor-way accidents affecting both privateand commercial drivers.

Blind spot detection checks for thepresence of a vehicle in the side viewmirror blind spot. It can display thepicture (passive solution) or give awarning (active solution). The warn-ing can be a sound or a small coloredlight inside the mirror itself.

Significant research in the last decadehas prompted development of so-phisticated algorithms and systems.From the system point of view, muchof the research has been on the im-age sensor itself and many patentshave been awarded for image sensortechnology that fulfill the stringentspecifications of this new market.

The choice of an image sensor -Melexis solution and experienceThese new features require a newkind of image sensor. CCDs usuallyhave a too high cost and serious tech-nical disadvantages like blooming;they are thus not well suited for thisnew market. Consumer CMOS sensorsare optimized for linear responsewith high sensitivity and low noisebut do not meet the dynamic rangerequirements for safety applicationsin automobiles. Automotive sensorsare derived from industrial sensorsthat already had some high dynamicrange features and a wider tempera-ture range. These sensors usuallycome in a ceramic package and workwith a high quality lens. An industrialexample of high dynamic range hasbeen in the monitoring of solderingprocesses.

For automotive, Melexis introducesMLX75006 (CIF) and MLX75007 (PV-GA) automotive grade CMOS cameraICs sensitive for visible and near infra-red light. Their integrated glass lensoptions, fail-safe features, plasticpackage and wide temperaturerange make them the ideal fit for au-tomotive safety and driver assistancesystems.

Their unique overmolded plasticpackage with optional integratedglass lens stack simplifies customers'assembly and protects the IC andbond wires against scratches andlight. This compact "camera module"solution can be pick and-placed andreflow soldered as any other elec-tronic component. It is focus free anddoes not require any adjustment. Alow leakage process fabrication pro-cess and built in temperature com-pensation capabilities like offsetcompensation, leaking pixel detec-tion and interpolation make theMLX75006 and MLX75007 the firstand only image sensors on the mar-ket to achieve an extended tempera-ture range from -40 to 105°C.

The programmable pixel responsewith linear, multiple slopes or loga-rithmic behavior can be used toreach the required level of dynamicrange. This flexible pixel can be fullycontrolled by the user and operatesas a global shutter, a feature similarto CCDs and that was formerly im-possible in CMOS sensors. Globalshuttering (also called synchronousshutter or "snapshot") avoids thepicture lag or skewing that appearswhen the imager is in motion orwhen imaging a moving scene.Furthermore, many real-time and in-field integrity checks are built in tocomply with the stringent and fail-safe requirements for safety relatedapplications. The sensor informs thecontrol application of any failure ofthe programming interface or the

readout interface and it has testmodes for application diagnosis. Thecamera IC offers the ability to moni-tor its communication lines (uplink

CMOS Imaging: From Consumer to AutomotiveArnaud Darmont

Figure 1: Lane tracking and blind spot detection

Figure 2: MLX-CMOS camera IC

44

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y

IntroductionTransport is a key factor in moderneconomies. With an increasing de-mand for transport services the Euro-pean Union needs an efficient trans-port system and has to tackle theproblems caused by transport: con-gestion, harmful impact on the envi-ronment and public health, and theheavy toll of road accidents. The costof accidents and fatalities is estimat-ed at 2% of Gross Domestic Productin the EU (eSafety 2004).In recent years, the number of trafficaccidents and fatalities has been de-creasing. There is convincing evi-dence that the use of new technolo-gies has contributed significantly tothis reduction in the number of fatal-ities and injuries. For this reason, theeSafety initiative aims to acceleratethe development, deployment, anduse of Intelligent Safety Systems. In-telligent safety systems for road vehi-cles are systems and smart technolo-gies for crash avoidance, injury pre-vention, and upgrading of roadholding and crash-worthiness of carsand commercial vehicles enabled bymodern IT.

The research focus for the as-sessment of the socio-economicimpact of intelligent safety sys-tems (ISS) is twofold. On theone hand, the objective of thisstudy is to provide the method-ological basis. On the otherhand, the suggested methodol-ogy should be tested by way of ex-ample to explore the attainable so-cio-economic benefits of intelligentsafety systems in Europe. It has to benoted that socio-economic impact isconsidered in a broader perspectiveincluding private profitability aspectsand additional economic benefits(employment and distributional ef-fects).

State of the ArtSince the late 1980's, there has beena large number of studies dealingwith the impact of Intelligent TrafficSystems on road safety. The develop-ment of Advanced Driver AssistanceSystems and further Intelligent RoadSafety Systems raised the question oftheir potential impact. Several pro-jects funded by EU Member States orthe European Commission and stud-

ies by the automotive industry andequipment suppliers have alreadyprovided some data on their impact.A large number of projects dealswith technological research and de-velopment and provides a basis forfurther progress of the field (e.g.AIDE, CARTalk, CHAMELEON, EDEL,GST, HUMANIST, INVENT, PReVENT,PROTECTOR, RADARNET, SAFE-U).Several projects are focused on ac-companying measures in order to de-velop the sectoral innovation systemand strengthen networks and co-op-eration (ADASE II, GST, HUMANIST).Some projects reflect on the imple-mentation of safety systems and onmeasures to support the applicationof new technologies (ADVISORS; RE-SPONSE). Finally, a number of pro-jects discuss costs and benefits of thetechnologies that were investigated

Exploratory Study on the Potential Socio-EconomicImpact of the Introduction of Intelligent Safety Systems in Road VehiclesJohannes Abele, Herbert Baum, Christiane Kerlen, Sven Krüger , Torsten Geißler and Wolfgang Schulz

and downlink) as well as the on-chipanalog and digital circuitry. Thismonitoring feature, as well as the in-tegrity checks, are unique and makethe sensor suitable for safety applica-tions, including the "2-box" designsolution where the sensor is separat-ed from the control electronics.The sensor offers other features likethe possible readout of differentparts of the same image without re-acquiring a new image and the abili-ty to readout non-rectangular win-dows of interest.

Since 1999, Melexis has gained con-siderable experience in automotiveoptical product development, pack-aging, testing and manufacturingwith its 128 x 1 pixel linear optical ar-ray (1D). The MLX90255 and its de-rived ASICs measure torque and an-gle position in steering systems (Elec-

tronic Stability Program, ElectricPower Steering). The logical nextstep was the development of two-di-mensional arrays for general auto-motive imaging. These 2D sensorscan easily be combined and synchro-nized as a pair to create a 3D visionsystem. The interface has been stud-ied for easy connectivity, control andsynchronization of several imagesensors and light sources.

This solution is planned for mass pro-duction in 2005 with the MLX75006CIF (352x288) and MLX75007 PVGA(750x400) resolutions. Both are avail-able in a choice of black & white orcolor versions. Engineering samplesof each are currently available. Engi-neering samples of the integratedglass lens solution will be available inJanuary 2005.

In the field of vision, Melexis is atechnology leader in the automotiveIR-spectrum imaging field (thermalimaging) with single zone, dual-zoneor multi-zone (up to 10x10 pixels) IRthermopiles. These sensors can beused in air conditioning systems andsome vision applications. Melexis' fu-ture developments in optical sensinginclude Time-of-Flight, a 3D distancemeasurement method based on thepropagation delay of light.

Contact:Arnaud DARMONTApplication Engineer & Marketing CMOS imagersadu@melexis.com

Figure: Overall methodology of the study

46

M S T / M E M S F O R S A F E T Y A N D S E C U R I T Y / PA N O R A M A

A study was commissioned a fewyears ago by the Government to in-vestigate the status of Microsystemsand Nanotechnology (MNT) in theUK, and to determine the way for-ward. Following the publication ofthe Taylor Report, a number of ini-tiatives were put in place.

In order to ensure that the UK wins ashare of the predicted global marketof $1,000 billion within the next tenyears, significant Government fund-ing is being invested. For example,this year 2004, more than $225 mil-lion is being invested in academic re-search, and this figure is set to rise insubsequent years.

In 2003 the Government announcedan injection of $162 million invest-ment in MNT over 3 years, with addi-tional support by the English Region-al Development Agencies, and theDevolved Agencies of Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland; as wellas seeking matched industrial fund-ing. The money was split into $90million for applied research and $72million for capital projects.

Also, the MNT Network was estab-lished at the beginning of 2004 withthe appointment of the Director,Professor Hugh Clare. The MNT Net-work is a joint venture between theDTI and the Development Agencies.The remit of the MNT Network is toestablish and support with time aflourishing MNT infrastructure in theUK. Further information on the ac-tivities of the Network is available onhttp://www.microandnanotech.info/

The UK Government has committedto significant levels of funding forscience over the next ten years withthe launch of the Technology Pro-gramme earlier this year. A propor-tion of this substantial investmentwill be used to support MNT activity

The UK is recognised for its excel-lence in science, and the high stand-ing of its academic institutions in theworld. The high level of investmentin the science base has ensured thatthe UK is at the forefront of researchin many of the fields making upMNT. The way has been led by thetwo Interdisciplinary Research Cen-

tres (IRCs) in Nanotechnology at Ox-ford and Cambridge. These IRCs arereceiving funding of $18 million eachover a 6-year period, from January2002. In addition to Oxford andCambridge there are upwards of afurther ten significant centres locat-ed in UK universities, including theLondon Centre for Nanotechnology(Picture), and about 60 major groupsin total across all universities.

The UK also has a number of interna-tionally renowned public researchlaboratories which have MNT relatedprogrammes, such as the NationalPhysical Laboratory (NPL) (Picture);Council for the Central Laboratory ofthe Research Councils (CCLRC), whichincludes the Rutherford AppletonLaboratory in Oxfordshire, and theDaresbury Laboratory in Cheshire;the Advanced Materials Research In-stitute (AMRI); Centre for AppliedMicrobiology Research (CAMR); De-fence Science and Technology Labo-ratory (Dstl); Materials EngineeringResearch Laboratory (MERL); and theUnilever Centre for Molecular Infor-matics, etc.

MNT Activity in the UK

(ADVISORS, CHAUFFEUR, DIATS, E-Merge, STARDUST, TRL-report). How-ever, a systematic assessment and co-herent analysis of the potential so-cio-economic impact of IntelligentRoad Safety Systems is not yet avail-able. In addition, such an analysis isfurther complicated by the fact thatmany systems are not yet widely de-ployed.

Reflecting on the socio-economic ef-fects of ISS, it is necessary to distin-guish different levels of impact:

1. Operational analysis dealing withthe technical assessment of opera-tional effectiveness

2. Socio-economic evaluation and 3. Strategic assessment

This study argues that an assessmentof the socio-economic impact of in-telligent safety systems has to com-bine these different evaluation ap-proaches.

Approach of the StudyIn order to assess the socio-economicimpact of intelligent safety systems,it is necessary to define which safetytechnologies will be taken into con-sideration and discuss their marketdeployment. Then it will be possibleto reflect on traffic effects that arethe basis for the socio-economic ben-efits of intelligent safety systems.

The technology work package willprovide a short description of intelli-gent safety systems and discuss theirpotential impact on road safety. It isnecessary to consider safety func-tions inter-dependencies and theircombined potential influence onroad safety. At this point it is possi-ble to account for possible draw-backs. New Technologies can, for ex-ample, contribute to an increase inaccidents due to drivers' distractionor reduce the traffic flow. The market work package will pro-pose a model describing the diffu-sion of intelligent safety systems. The

target figure is the rate of equip-ment with intelligent safety systemsat a given date. In order to get thisfigure, it is necessary to reflect alarge number of influencing factorsindicating the market potential andpotential user acceptance. Apart from that, the project willanalyse traffic effects which resultfrom the market introduction of in-telligent safety systems. This workpackage requires data covering thelatest available traffic forecasts inthe member states of the EuropeanUnion (e.g. traffic development, acci-dents). The outcome of the modelwill be a methodology to assess theimpact of intelligent safety systemsfor different stakeholders.

Contact:Johannes AbeleVDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH,GermanyE-Mail: abele@vdivde-it.dePhone: +49 3328 435 283

47

PA N O R A M A

Upon his appointment, the NetworkDirector Professor Hugh Clare, start-ed the process of defining the MNTstrategy for the UK, and the strategyand organisation of the MNT Net-work to achieve the overall objec-tives.

The approach developed for the UKis to create a Network of both aca-demic and industrial institutions en-gaged in MNT activity, and establisha virtual centre with open accessmanaged through the Network. Thisorganisation of facilities is designedto have a strong manufacturing andproduct focus.

The strategy for MNT activity in theUK has been identified in four KeyAreas. These are:

Nano-particles, Nano-materialsand Novel Materials Nano-biotechnology, Pharmaceu-tical, MedicalNano-metrology, Characterisationand Standards

Nano-Fabrication - silicon, glass,plastic, metal, etc.

The UK MNT manufacturing base hasgrown very strongly in recent yearswith more than 500 active companiesand institutions. A Directory of UKMNT companies is being establishedhttp://www.mnt-directory.org/ whichis fully searchable. A couple of ex-amples of the breadth and depth ofMNT activity in the UK includes ink-jet technology, which was developedin Cambridge. Many of the compa-nies which grew out of the earlywork are based in the area; large-scale production of carbon nano-tubes by Thomas Swan & Co Ltd;more than 2,000 people are em-ployed in the manufacture of com-puter disc drive by Seagate (Picture);the UK has 2 centres licensed forstem-cell research.

Other major MNT centres includeBioCity, Nottingham (Picture); Qine-tiQ Nanomaterials, Farnborough; Op-TIC Technium, St Asaph (Picture); IN-

EX, Newcastle; MNT, Packaging Cen-tre (planned), Liverpool (Picture);QinetiQ, Malvern; CIP, Ipswich (Pic-ture); EMFab, Plymouth; and Beg-broke Park, Oxford. These are state-of-the-art facilities, which also in-clude generous provision for incuba-tor units.

A strong science base; good facilities;a rapidly growing industry base; in-cubator facilities; and access to fund-ing (London and Cambridge boasttwo of the highest concentrations ofVenture Capital in Europe) make theUK an excellent country to do busi-ness in MNT.

Contact:David TolfreeDirector, Consultant in Microsystems andNanotechnology Technopreneur Ltd, Daresbury, Warring-ton, Cheshire, WA4 4AD, UKE-Mail: d.tolfree@dl.ac.uk

Advertisement