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Fraunhofer Venture
Spin-off Profile
MEMS Foundry Itzehoe GmbH
The development and production of micro-electromechanical components (MEMS components) are gaining more and more importance. Such components are increasingly used in modern electronic devices such as mobile phones, gaming consoles, hard disk drives, or automotive electronics. However, development and production costs for MEMS components are extremely high so that many companies outsource these tasks. In the past, the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology ISIT was able to take over development and production requests of numerous companies. With increasing production requests, at the end of 2009 the decision was made to found the MEMS Foundry Itzehoe GmbH (MFI) with the support of Fraunhofer Venture.
In 2009, the researchers at the Fraunhofer ISIT could obviously see that the Fraunhofer Institute alone could no longer sufficiently execute the most versatile requests in the area of MEMS components. Thus, the decision was made to found a spin-off of the Fraunhofer ISIT, which should focus on the customers' interests in MEMS production. The service of the new enterprise now primarily consists of stipulating by contract customer requests for MEMS developments of the Fraunhofer ISIT and resulting production. This way, research and development of MEMS components remains the focus of the work at the Fraunhofer ISIT while the transition to production isutsourced to MFI. The customers may now receive clear predictions regarding usage rights of devices, production times and processes, quality assurance, and costs. At the same time, the employees of MFI dispose of comprehensive technological competence as regards the machinery of the Fraunhofer ISIT as most of the employees used to work at the Institute.
For the production of MEMS components,such as micromechanical sensors and actuators, on microoptical components as well as on components for high-frequency applications (RF-MEMS), the customers are supplied with the Fraunhofer ISIT internal semiconductor production line. A 1,000 sqm clean room is available. Thus, all individual technologies are available from MFI to be able to realize the entire process chain from wafer start to final wafer measuring without interruptions. The focus is on photo lithography in thick resist layers, the wafer bonding process as well as glass forming.
It is this close cooperation between MFI and the Fraunhofer ISIT that ensures for the customer a quick and more cost efficient transition from the development of components to production.
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