August_EDFA_Digital

edfas.org 7 ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 22 NO. 3 KevinDavidson is a senior engineer who has beenwith GlobalFoundries inMalta, New York since 2011. An Air Force communications veteran specializing in electronics, Davidson has beenworking in the fieldof semiconductor failure analysis since 2002. His primary areas of expertise include electrical/ physical fault isolation, defect characterization, and dual beam SEM/FIB techniques. Esther Chen is a failure analysismanager at GlobalFoundries, Fab 8 inMalta, NewYork. She received her master’s degree inmaterial science and engineering from National Tsing-Hua University Taiwan. Her current role is managing the wafer level and package level failure analysis group to support yield learning and product qualification. GUEST EDITORIAL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 are capacitive plates whose position will change relative to stationary plates on either side, thereby forming a dif- ferential capacitor with the capacitance change being a function of acceleration. MEMS are fabricated in much the same way as inte- grated circuits: Thin film layers are deposited on silicon wafers, then photolithography and etching are used to remove the unwanted portions of the thin film layers. The MEMS fabrication is often done in integrated circuit (IC) fabs, using IC materials, IC tools, and IC processes. The critical difference is a final process step that removes one of the underlying layers, allowing parts of the structure the freedom tomove. By leveraging established semiconduc- tor technology and infrastructure, MEMS enables small, lowpower, cost-effective sensors readily compatiblewith support electronics. With this powerful MEMS technology comes the ability to sense the world around us, literally, from the palm of your hand. Modern cellphones have accelerometers to sense the tilt and orientation of your screen, microphones to sense voice sound pressure, magnetometers to aid navigation, gyroscopes for camera image stabilization, barometric pressure sensors, proximity detectors that know when the phone is held to your ear so the screen can be turned off to save power, andmore. As consumers have become accustomed to and dependent on having all this data and the features it enables, the demand for sensorization is growing through the electronics ecosys- tems and proliferating MEMS sensor use in cars, homes, offices, and cities. By providing huge volumes of multiple data types, MEMS sensors are improving and enhancing our daily livesmaking us smarter, safer, andmore productive. Inmy keynote address at ISTFA 2020 this November, I’ll review the history of this life-changing technology over the past decades, including details of the manufacturing materi- als, tools, and process. Different MEMS sensor types will be shown and their operation explained. Lastly, several examples of howMEMS technology and sensorization are enablingmarketmegatrends suchas autonomous driving, smart med tech, machine learning, and biometrics will be discussed. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Timothy Brosnihan currently serves as executive direc- tor of the MEMS and Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) at SEMI. TheMSIG consortia represents hundreds of compa- nies across the world, furthering the advancement of the MEMS and sensors ecosystemcritical to smart devices, big data, and IoT. Prior to joining SEMI, Brosnihan held various management roles in the semiconductor andMEMS indus- try, totaling over 25 years of experience fromsmall start-up companies to large corporations. After earning amaster’s degree and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and MEMS from the University of California, Berkeley, Brosnihan started his career with Analog Devices’ Micromachined Products Division working on a variety of products from inertial sensors to optical switches. From there he joined Pixtronix, a MEMS-based display start-up company later acquired by Qualcomm, where he was senior director of MEMS Technology. He later joined Cirrus Logic as director of MEMS Development to bring up a MEMS microphone product line.