Improving the performance, power, reliability, and cost of MEMS sensors
by Eric Aguilar, Co-founder and CEO at Omnitron Sensors
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) provide sensory interfaces to the electronic applications we can’t live without. Now shipping in billions of applications, MEMS devices have transformed our everyday existence.
Over time, technological leaps in MEMS have depended on new platforms. Yet it’s been more than a decade since the MEMS industry last benefited from such a leap. By leveraging the best of proven manufacturing processes, Omnitron Sensors has created “a new MEMS topology,” foundational IP that rearranges the silicon process steps and introduces a new packaging method to support lower power consumption, smaller form factors, and faster switching speeds. In doing so, Omnitron’s topology dramatically improves on the traditional surface micromachining process in which thin films are deposited and patterned on the surface of a substrate.
This new MEMS topology doesn’t diminish the remarkable nature of its predecessors. It’s a generational advancement that integrates the best of previous approaches to improve the performance, power, reliability, and cost of a wide variety of MEMS sensors, including the MEMS mirror.
Often just micrometers or millimeters in size, MEMS mirrors are versatile devices used in the displays of AR/VR/XR headsets, in optical switching used in datacenters, and in the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems used for 3D mapping in autonomous cars and other robotic systems.
MEMS mirrors matter
MEMS mirrors are attractive for a multitude of uses. Yet traditional devices often struggle with limits to the field of view, size, and speed, all of which restrict their usefulness.
We’ve overcome these challenges by employing deep etching followed by oxidation to create gaps and fill trenches with polysilicon. This method enables the formation of trenches up to five times deeper than those in conventional designs while maintaining very narrow gaps of 2 microns, extending 200 microns deep to a manufacturable 100:1 aspect ratio.
In addition to this increased depth, our approach provides a wider range of motion, greater linear capacitance changes, and more force per unit area. These advancements are crucial for performance and reliability in data centers, cleantech, drones, and autonomous platforms.
The potential of MEMS mirrors to improve the speed and power efficiency of routing optical signals in an AI datacenter is especially compelling, particularly when such datacenters consume a massive amount of power.
As AI workloads and hyperscale data centers push the limits of traditional networking, optical circuit switching (OCS) is emerging to overcome bandwidth bottlenecks, reduce energy consumption, and enhance scalability.
Omnitron is pioneering a new type of MEMS-based OCS technology that delivers faster switching speeds, lower latency, and higher switch counts—key factors in enabling the future of high-performance computing and AI-driven infrastructure. Built on the company’s high Figure of Merit (FoM) MEMS mirror design, Omnitron’s architecture eliminates input/output (I/O) limitations and increases tilt angles, supporting higher port counts, larger arrays, and more agile optical networks.
Beyond performance, this simplified manufacturing process reduces the number of fabrication steps to just a handful, lowering defect densities, improving reliability, and driving down costs.
Manufacturing advancements such as Omnitron’s will help fuel new types of MEMS applications that are scalable, high-performance, and low-power.