Kionix was founded in 1993 to commercialize MEMS technology and intellectual property from Cornell University. We recently spoke with Dr. Greg Galvin, founder and CEO of the company, about his experiences with MEMS tech transfer, acquisitions, as well as Kionix' current status and future plans.
by Dr. Henning Wicht, Wicht Technologie Consulting
This question came up time and again— and several times at Semicon Europa this April. We had presented the figures for MST/MEMS of the NEXUS study which Wicht Technologie Consulting (WTC) coordinated and Yole Development presented its figures for MEMS. Shortly thereafter InStat released a new MEMS market report.
Continue reading "Why so much difference between the MEMS market forecasts?" »
(Press Release) -- The nano job market is heating up, according to Small Times magazine, the leading source of news and analysis about the micro and nanotechnology sectors. Small Times conducted a compensation survey of micro and nano professionals that revealed an overall trend in higher compensation and expanding job opportunities. More than 1,300 micro and nano professionals throughout the United States and 36 other countries responded.
Continue reading "Study shows strong job growth in the Micro and Nanotechnology sectors" »
With a high level of ongoing innovation in the MEMS industry, strategic management of intellectual property can be beneficial for companies and universities for maximizing profits and developing partnerships. We spoke with Meagan Dietz, a consultant at McKinsey & Co., who is an expert in innovation and intellectual property knowledge development. Among other topics, we discussed a recent study that was conducted by McKinsey and the lessons that may be applied to intellectual property management in the MEMS industry.
HL Planartechnik from Germany, a specialty MEMS device maker reporting $15 million in annual revenues talked about their inclination sensors (about 50% of their business) which are used in automotive applications such as theft alarm. Their other sensors include IR and magnetic field sensors for applications such as bank note verification. Another interesting application they mentioned was a MEMS-based electronic parking brake.
VTI Technologies, based in Finland, talked about their MEMS devices. They stressed that their accelorometers are made via bulk (vs. surface) micromachining process which results in enhanced performance (because of a larger proof mass) albeit at a higher price. VTI reported that they shipped over 40 million MEMS devices to date.
Today's program featured a full day event with conference sessions on MEMS and nanotechnology. The sessions included presenters from Analog Devices, Freescale, VTI, Olympus and others.
Analog Devices (ADI) gave a nice overview of inertial MEMS -- accelerometers and gyros. These sensors have seen improvement over the last 10 years which resulted in price reduction driven by yield improvement and enhanced performance with better FEM simulation and design tools.
After attending the conference sessions, we headed to the expo hall to chat with the exhibitors. There are quite a few MEMS related companies at the show which basically fall into four categories -- foundries, device manufacturers such as Freescale and Analog Devices, software makers such as IntelliSense and COMSOL (the maker of FEMLAB) and equipment makers such as Suss.
Tronic's Microsystems, a French MEMS foundry, told us that they recently opened an office in San Francisco. About 50% of their business comes from Europe and it appers that they are looking to expand their presence and reach out to customers in the US.
Silex Microsystems, a Swedish MEMS foundry, was at Sensors for the first time and told us that they currently have about $6 million in annual revenues with about half of that coming from the US. They opened an office in Boston a few weeks ago.
Dalsa Semiconductor, a MEMS foundry from Quebec, indicated that they do about $25 million per year with their MEMS business. Their current customers include venture backed companies Akustica (microphones) and Discera (RF MEMS oscillator).
COMSOL talked about their new MEMS module for FEMLAB.
We began our second day at the conference with a session in the morning about software validation and verification for medical sensors and devices. While most MEMS designers and manufacturers probably will not face this problem directly, it certainly helps to know more about the FDA regulations and approval process if you are going to partner or become a supplier to a medical device manufacturer.
John Dexheimer, a partner at a venture capital firm First Analysis Ventures presented on the current state of the investment activity in the sensors and MEMS industries. What stood out from John's presentation is that an acquisition exit strategy (vs. going public) seems to work best for companies in our space. What seems to happen quite frequently was that sensor and MEMS start ups become suppliers to larger companies and then sometimes get acquired by them. When asked about acquisition valuations, John said that they were essentially all over the map. Our take? As always, VCs may be helpful with funding but you should primarily rely on your own funding sources and, most importantly, find initial customers. Having revenue and installations goes a long way if you are looking to be acquired by a larger company or financed by a VC.
By the way, John mentioned that they focus on later stage investments, so going to them if you just starting out with your venture may be difficult.
Sensors 2005 started today with four day-long seminars. We attended one of them, Sensors for Manufacturing Efficiency. The seminar was organized by the Department of Energy and Gideon Varga chaired the sessions which served as an annual review of DoE sponsored companies and projects.
MEMS Investor Journal is at Sensors 2005 in Chicago this week and will be providing exclusive coverage for our subscribers. We'll be attending most of the conference sessions and speaking with company representatives at the expo.
