MEMS | ARTICLE
<< Figure 4 >>
Bosch Sensortec In order to react quickly and flexibly to requirements in the extremely dynamic consumer electronics market, Bosch Sensortec GmbH in Reutlingen was founded in 2005. This Bosch subsidiary recently brought the world’s first 9-axis sensor to market. The BMX055 is capable of measuring acceleration, yaw rate and the earth’s magnetic field in all three spatial directions at the same time, which makes it suitable for a whole range of potential applications. The sensor can be put to work wherever there is a need to pinpoint a mobile device’s spatial location and position — or its orientation relative to the earth’s magnetic field — and can be integrated into even the smallest devices.
MEMS sensors – technical background Engineers create incredibly fine silicon structures inside the sensors that shift by fractions of a micrometer when the casing is moved. This alters their electrical properties, which is something that can be measured and converted into a data stream, telling a cell phone for example what position it is currently in. Bosch engineers are working with very small dimensions, some sensor components measure just 4 microns — 17 times less than a single hair.
Since micro mechanical sensors produce only weak electrical signals, experts have integrated additional electronics either into the component housing beside the sensor or sometimes even directly onto the same chip. These take the weak signal, then process it, amplify it, and convert it into digital data. In this way, MEMS sensors can provide measurements directly to control units. And these precision sensors will soon be able to do much more, whether sewn into articles of clothing to measure your heart rate, serving as mobile weather stations, measuring CO2 concentrations in the air, or picking up the typical movements we make when pocketing our cell phones so as to deactivate the display.
Bosch Sensortec GmbH, Robert Bosch GmbH
www.bosch-sensortec.com www.bosch.com
Captions << Figure 1: This image provided by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) shows the finely etched silicon structure of a Bosch acceleration sensor. The insect pictured here with the chip is included to give a sense of scale. The long silicon structures
48 | commercial micro manufacturing international Vol 6 No.5
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52