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MICRONANOSYSTEMS
Micralyne engineers
enter the class ten
clean room through the
air shower.
Do it right the first time
Common mistakes MEMS product developers make. Chris Lumb from
Micralyne explains what you can do to avoid them.
M
ost MEMS product developments fail. We ingredients for both success and failure. We screen new projects
know a lot of the reasons why: this article using these criteria, and we suggest you should too.
outlines many of the common product Properly screening projects is important, to investors,
development mistakes we have seen during our history. product developers, MEMS suppliers, and the industry as a
Why is Micralyne qualified to comment on this? whole. Failure is incredibly expensive: it is a waste of investor
Micralyne is one of the world’s largest and most profitable resources, skill, supplier resources, and time. It is also a waste
independent MEMS developers and manufacturers. We have a of hope. Follow these guidelines to increase probability of
20 year track record of MEMS development. During this time success.
we have served hundreds of customers, both in developing new A typical successful ‘greenfield’ development will take in the
MEMS products with and for them, and in manufacturing the range of three years, yes, three years!, to get a product from
resulting products after development is complete. concept to volume production. Since there is rarely, if ever, a
We have seen enough product development to know the typical development, actual timing is frequently longer.
Actual steps in a development can vary, we are using the
following steps because they are common to most developments.
The elapsed time is shorter than the individual step times
because many of the steps happen in parallel.
While mistakes can happen anywhere, we at Micralyne
repeatedly see the bolded areas above as the seven most
common areas where developers make mistakes. Let’s look at
each in turn.
Above: Pre-development needs for successful MEMS
www.micronanosystems.info December 2008 / January 2009
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