Source: Content from "MEMS", thank you.
Micro U-shaped coil developed by Maizhu Semiconductor
(Size: 6.3mm X 3.6mm X 2.1mm, 155 turns in total)
Recently, Maizhu Semiconductor, a startup dedicated to the research and development and industrialization of wafer-level micro-electromechanical casting (MEMS-Casting™) technology, has successfully developed a micro U-shaped electromagnet
.
This electromagnet, which is smaller than a fingertip, aims to become
the smallest U-shaped electromagnet in the world at this stage.
Compared with a straight spiral coil, a U-shaped coil can form a closed magnetic circuit, and the electromagnetic force generated by an electromagnet can be dozens of times greater than that of a straight electromagnet. However, the structure of a micro U-shaped coil is much more complicated than that of a straight coil, and it is difficult to achieve miniaturization using the traditional enameled wire winding method. The
MEMS-Casting technology can perfectly solve this problem and can achieve mass production.
What is the story behind this MEMS-Casting technology?
"Traveling through 5,000 years"
From bronze to the Industrial Revolution, casting has had a profound impact on human civilization
In June 2020,
Elon Musk
announced that the body of Tesla Model Y will
be manufactured in one piece
using
GigaCasting
technology
, so that the 70 parts of the Model Y body are combined into one.
Not only can it greatly improve production efficiency, but also the consistency of the body can be greatly improved. GigaCasting, as the name suggests, is giant casting, which is the latest highlight of casting technology in front of people.
In fact, casting technology has always had a profound impact on the development of human civilization. As early as 5,000 BC, along with the development of pottery making technology, bronze casting technology was invented. Before that, humans were basically in the Neolithic Age using polished stone tools, and production efficiency was extremely low.
The emergence of bronze casting technology seemed to have accelerated the development of human civilization.
The metal is melted, poured into a mold, and then cooled and formed
.
This
metal processing method of casting can not only achieve more complex structures, but more importantly, as a mass manufacturing method, it can greatly improve production efficiency.
Because of its hardness and toughness, cast bronze is used to make production tools, such as plows for farming, knives for felling, or bows and arrows for hunting. The mass production of metal tools has greatly improved mankind's ability to conquer nature. China in the Warring States period was the first to develop iron casting technology.
Cast iron has greatly improved its hardness and toughness compared to bronze, making it more suitable for the manufacture of production tools.
It is no exaggeration to say that the development of cast iron technology has become one of the important factors in the rapid development of China's agricultural civilization.
Precisely because casting has made such an important contribution to the development of human civilization, a scholar once lamented:
It was casting, the essential foundation of all civilization, that unlocked the future and placed man on the path to conquering
his
environment
.
In the 18th century, after Watt improved the steam engine in 1769, mankind began the journey of the Industrial Revolution, which generated a large demand for machinery manufacturing.
Casting technology, which can mass-produce metal structures, began to provide support for the Industrial Revolution.
Casting not only met the production needs of a large number of industrial machine parts in the Industrial Revolution era, but was also widely used in the manufacture of rails, promoting the development of transportation.
The invention process of casting technology
Since the Industrial Revolution, the development of casting technology has never stopped. From
pressure casting, centrifugal casting, vacuum casting, clean body casting to the extremely difficult single crystal casting,
new casting technologies have been invented one after another. It is particularly worth mentioning here that
single crystal casting
, that is, the entire casting is a single crystal like the silicon wafer used in semiconductors. Single crystal casting is the only way to manufacture jet engine blades. The polycrystalline structure cannot withstand the high temperature and high pressure working environment of the jet engine because of the weak bonding force between the grains. To form a single crystal in casting, its solidification process must be extremely strictly controlled.
Single crystal casting can be said to be a pinnacle of casting technology development.
"Semiconductor X Foundry =?"
This PhD team completed a "historic collision"
Nearly 200 years after the first industrial revolution, semiconductor technology quietly emerged
, and mankind ushered in the third industrial revolution dominated by information technology. The impact of integrated circuits based on semiconductor technology on human society is profound and extensive, which is beyond doubt. Decades after the rise of semiconductor technology, in the 1980s, a
technology called Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS)
began to derive from semiconductor technology.
Unlike integrated circuits that manufacture logic operation devices on wafers, MEMS manufactures mechanical structures such as cantilever beams, cavity membranes, or comb teeth on wafers to achieve sensing, execution and other functions.
If integrated circuits are compared to the brain, then MEMS is more like the five senses. After decades of development, MEMS devices have become relatively mature and have been commercialized on a large scale. For example, MEMS devices can be seen in portable or wearable devices such as smartphones and smart watches. The automatic flip function of the smartphone screen is a classic application of MEMS devices. When we flip the phone, the MEMS gravity accelerometer in the phone senses the flip of the phone and automatically notifies the system to complete the screen rotation.
Whether it is the steam engine of the First Industrial Revolution or the motor of the Second Industrial Revolution, they all rely on casting mechanical parts.
Casting is like an old friend who works hard and never complains, and has been silently supporting the development of human civilization. When semiconductor technology first appeared, it stepped onto the stage of human history like a star, and the exponential growth of Moore's Law made semiconductor technology unique for a time.
Casting and semiconductors, two seemingly unrelated technologies, finally ushered in a historic collision and opportunity.
The MEMS-Casting technology
developed by Microcast Semiconductor
is a perfect combination of the ancient metal processing technology of casting and the emerging semiconductor technology.
Dr. Gu Jiebin/Founder and CEO of MicroTree Semiconductor
MEMS casting technology is actually an unexpected research invention. In 2012,
Dr. Gu Jiebin,
the founder of Maizhu Semiconductor
, returned to China from the UK where he had studied and worked for six years, and began to work at
the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
. With the regret that the technology he developed while studying for a doctorate at Imperial College London ultimately failed to be successfully commercialized,
Dr. Gu decided to study a new technical route to achieve the problem of micro-hole metallization filling of through-hole interconnects (TSV) in advanced semiconductor packaging.
During the more than nine years of research, Dr. Gu and his team broke through one problem after another. Finally, this MEMS casting technology was invented. Fortunately, this research work was also strongly supported by Li Xinxin, the then director of the State Key Laboratory of Sensor Technology.
Engineers are using the MEMS casting equipment independently developed by Maizhu
to provide TSV filling services to customers
MEMS itself is an ultra-precision machining technology involving multiple disciplines.
MEMS-Casting
is a multidisciplinary cross-cutting technology
developed on its basis by integrating fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, metallurgy, casting, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and semiconductor-related knowledge in physics. In Dr. Gu's own words,
the solution to each problem has a story worth telling.
For example, the inspiration for solving the problem of "cutting" liquid alloys from a mercury thermometer is an interesting story.
The research related to this technology was accepted and published by Electron Device Letters (EDL), the most recognized electronic device journal in the academic industry; it was accepted as an oral report by the top international academic conference IEEE MEMS for two consecutive years, and
won the only first prize at the IEEE EDTM conference
in
2021
.
"The Miniaturization Limits of Casting"
Realize wafer-level complex metal structure casting
By applying a variety of micro-nano principles, MEMS casting technology can reduce the size of traditional casting by a million times, so that humans can cast complex metal structures on wafers for the first time.
Before this, humans had almost only electroplating (casting) as a method to manufacture metal structures with a scale of tens to hundreds of microns. However, electroplating has many disadvantages, such as complex process (requiring a seed layer), toxic electrolyte that can easily cause environmental pollution, and unsuitability for manufacturing complex three-dimensional structures.
MEMS casting technology perfectly solves these problems:
because it only needs to use vacuum and pressure,
there is no pollution
problem;
the molding efficiency is very high
, generally a wafer only needs more than ten minutes to complete the metallization by casting process;
it is
easy to realize the manufacture of complex three-dimensional structures
, such as spiral coil structures. As a complex three-dimensional structure, if the spiral coil is manufactured by electroplating, it takes at least three times several hours of electroplating, but with MEMS casting technology, the entire coil structure can be metallized in just more than ten minutes.
In a sense, MEMS casting technology makes up for the shortcomings of human beings in the manufacture of metal structures at the scale of tens to hundreds of microns, and
is a breakthrough in semiconductor thick metal deposition technology.
Prototype diagram of iterative R&D of special equipment for MEMS casting
Nowadays, as an underlying platform technology, MEMS casting can not only realize the microporous metallization filling of TSV, but also can be used to manufacture complex three-dimensional structures on wafers, which well meets the current demand for further miniaturization and packaging of semiconductor devices.
In order to better apply this technology and respond to the national call for innovation and entrepreneurship, Dr. Gu founded Maizhu Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. in 2018, bringing this technology on the journey of commercialization.
At present, more than ten related intellectual property rights have been accumulated in this technology field, and many companies/institutions are cooperating with Maizhu Semiconductor on the application of this technology in multiple fields such as lithography machines, fluxgate current sensors, and national defense. At the same time, this technology also shows huge application opportunities in fields such as consumer electronics.
The importance of metal to modern human civilization is unquestionable.
In order to make better use of metal, humans have never stopped seeking new methods of metal processing.
"The detector is in the shape of a perfect water drop, with a round head and a sharp tail. The surface is an extremely smooth full-reflection mirror. The Milky Way is reflected on its surface as a smooth light pattern, making this drop of mercury look simple and beautiful."
The water drop in
Liu Cixi's novel
"The Three-Body Problem"
is so pure and perfect, and it is the ultimate yearning of humans for metal. Every bit of progress made by humans in metal processing will inevitably promote some progress in civilization.
If Musk's GigaCasting is the development of casting technology towards a huge scale,
Dr. Gu Jiebin's MEMS-Casting is the other extreme of the development of casting technology, an extreme of miniaturization.
☻
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