MEMS startup is part of Indian entry into chipmaking
Infab Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd. (Bengaluru, Karnataka, India), a spin off from the Indian Institute of Science, is a startup that is quietly getting on with getting India into the chipmaking business.
The company has chosen microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) as its field of endeavour where the barriers to entry are not the highest, but where value can be created for a variety of industrial, automotive and communications applications. As a result, while others are trying to create consortia with the know-how to construct wafer fabs and pitching for massive government subsidies (see Report: India plans $10 billion semiconductor subsidy) InFab is offering MEMS manufacturing services and fast turnaround multiproject wafers.
The company was founded in March 2021 by CTO Sudhanshu Shekhar who has acquired years of academic experience in MEMS as a researcher at the IIS. He was then joined by Muthuraman Swaminathan as CEO.
Infab is being “incubated” within the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) within the IIS in Bengalaru and it has access to CeNSE fabrication facilities for lithography, deposition and wet and dry etching of MEMS.
The company offers a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MEMS process for the fabrication via a multiproject wafer (MPW) service. The process supports development of inertial sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, micro-mirrors, thermal actuator, pressure sensor, DC-RF switch, energy harvesters. Customers can submit designs of up 9mm by 9mm size and receive 16 chips back in 8 to 10 weeks. The company also offers polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based and glass-based microfluidics platforms.
In email correspondence with eeNews Europe Swaminathan, said: “Our SOI MEMS process is developed in-house, and we offer custom and MPW fabrication services for our customers. To clarify, the process was not licensed from any external sources such as SOI-MUMPS; it was developed entirely by our team.” He added: “We create the PDMS-based microfluidics devices through a silicon mould process, which can support up to 3-micron.”
With regard to packaging Infab has access to a packaging facility within CeNSE, but also collaborates with third-party packaging providers within India.
InFab is funded by a mixture of government sources and customer projects.
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