AMFitzgerald partners with Sumitomo’s MEMS Infinity for PZT

Partners | January 17, 2024

By Peter Clarke

MEMS design services company A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates LLC (Burlingame, Calif.) has formed a partnership with MEMS Infinity, a foundry subsidiary of Sumitomo Precision Products Co. Ltd. (Amagasaki, Japan), to accelerate the commercialization of piezoelectric MEMS sensors and actuators made using lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT).

MEMS Infinity is newly launched division within Sumitomo 20,000 square-foot cleanroom housing 150mm and 200mm wafer fabrication lines — which include PZT-specific patterning equipment and proprietary epitaxial-PZT (epi-PZT) thin film deposition.

PZT is an upcoming technology allowing the development of novel MEMS sensors and the re-imagining of some established sensors based on capacitive silicon etch technology. PZT applications allow microspeakers in ear buds, micromirrors for automotive lidar, medical ultrasound imaging, microfluidics, AR/VR and haptics.

Where’s PZT in the US?

The US lacks a commercial-scale PZT foundry manufacturer and existing PZT-capable wafer fabs are predominantly captive suppliers with some exceptions, Alissa Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of AMFitzgerald, told eeNews Europe in a phone interview. Thin-film PZT manufacturers include MEMS Infinity, Rohm, Fujifilm in Japan, China-owned Silex Microsystems and Bosch in Europe, STMicroelectronics in Singapore and TSMC in Taiwan.

“As a material that enables many types of emerging, performance-intensive MEMS devices, thin-film PZT is much in demand,” said Fitzgerald, in a statement. “PZT, however, requires specific process tools and expertise that are not widespread. For companies trying to develop PZT MEMS technologies, it’s been especially difficult to access commercial-quality material during development stages, while wafer volumes are low. That’s a problem because using poorly controlled research-grade materials during prototyping really slows down product development. But that’s about to change. Our new alliance with MEMS Infinity will give our customers an integrated design-to-manufacture solution using high-quality PZT from day one.”

Under the partnership with MEMS Infinity AMFitzgerald will be able to use the Japanese facilities aerospace-grade prototyping services. The partnership is non-exclusive, Fitzgerald told eeNews Europe, which will give her company the freedom to select a different volume manufacturing partner if necessary.

However, there will be benefits to staying with MEMS Infinity for volume. A foundry-specific MEMS design will decrease risk, reduces development costs and time to deployment. Because prototyping can be finished at a volume production facility it will allow the use of proprietary data on thin-film PZT to improve accuracy of MEMS design and modelling, minimizing the need for design-build-test cycles and accelerating product development.

“For decades, SPP has used production-proven processes of its high-quality PZT to produce MEMS inertial sensors for the most demanding applications,” said Masahiko Tanaka, managing executive officer, Sumitomo Precision Products,” in a statement. “To respond to increasing worldwide needs, our foundry expansion through MEMS Infinity broadens our manufacturing capability in PZT MEMS. Together with AMFitzgerald – our choice collaborator for PZT MEMS design and product development – we can deliver an exceptional solution for customer needs in growing markets.”