News Article
Akustica Pick Foundry Partners
Akustica, maker of the single-chip MEMS microphone has announced that it has qualified Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson") and Lingsen Precision Industries, LTD ("LPI") as foundry and assembly partners, respectively.
With the addition of Epson and LPI to its extensive list of qualified foundry and assembly partners in North America, Europe, and Asia, Akustica continues to drive rapid scaling of production capacity to meet customer demand.
Based on its CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology, the transducer portion of the single-chip microphone is fabricated alongside the circuitry in the standard metal dielectric layers that are deposited during a baseline CMOS process. The result is a silicon wafer full of complete monolithic microphones that have been fabricated using only the typical CMOS processes and equipment found at global semiconductor foundries.
In addition to being fabricated in standard CMOS foundries, Akustica's CMOS MEMS microphones are also diced and packaged by experienced semiconductor assemblers around the world using industry-standard tools for pick-and-place, wire bond, and lid attach. Conversely, other MEMS microphone technologies require custom and captive manufacturing facilities for both the MEMS transducer fabrication and the backend assembly, resulting in long lead times and large capital expenditures when additional capacity is needed to meet customer needs.
"We selected Epson and LPI because they are veterans in the industry and are manufacturing and assembling a diverse set of high-volume semiconductor products," said Scott Naugle, vice president of manufacturing for Akustica. "We are ramping production to support the rapid adoption of silicon microphones in mobile phones, laptops, and other consumer electronic devices. Experienced, reliable semiconductor foundry and assembly partners such as Epson and LPI are keys to our success in that mission."
According to Jean-Christophe Eloy, managing director and founder of Yole Développement, the silicon microphone market will be more than 500M units in 2008 and will continue to grow at a 30% CAGR through at least 2012. "It is essential for MEMS microphone manufacturers to be able to ramp to significantly high volumes in order to meet the needs of the mobile phone market," said Eloy. "CMOS MEMS technology puts Akustica in the unique position to be able to quickly and cost effectively ramp microphone production with standard CMOS foundry and assembly partners around the world to fulfill this demand."
Based on its CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology, the transducer portion of the single-chip microphone is fabricated alongside the circuitry in the standard metal dielectric layers that are deposited during a baseline CMOS process. The result is a silicon wafer full of complete monolithic microphones that have been fabricated using only the typical CMOS processes and equipment found at global semiconductor foundries.
In addition to being fabricated in standard CMOS foundries, Akustica's CMOS MEMS microphones are also diced and packaged by experienced semiconductor assemblers around the world using industry-standard tools for pick-and-place, wire bond, and lid attach. Conversely, other MEMS microphone technologies require custom and captive manufacturing facilities for both the MEMS transducer fabrication and the backend assembly, resulting in long lead times and large capital expenditures when additional capacity is needed to meet customer needs.
"We selected Epson and LPI because they are veterans in the industry and are manufacturing and assembling a diverse set of high-volume semiconductor products," said Scott Naugle, vice president of manufacturing for Akustica. "We are ramping production to support the rapid adoption of silicon microphones in mobile phones, laptops, and other consumer electronic devices. Experienced, reliable semiconductor foundry and assembly partners such as Epson and LPI are keys to our success in that mission."
According to Jean-Christophe Eloy, managing director and founder of Yole Développement, the silicon microphone market will be more than 500M units in 2008 and will continue to grow at a 30% CAGR through at least 2012. "It is essential for MEMS microphone manufacturers to be able to ramp to significantly high volumes in order to meet the needs of the mobile phone market," said Eloy. "CMOS MEMS technology puts Akustica in the unique position to be able to quickly and cost effectively ramp microphone production with standard CMOS foundry and assembly partners around the world to fulfill this demand."
