MEMS in Transition

Wide-scale applications for Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) became practical in the 1980s when they started being fabricated with the same silicon wafer processes as semiconductor chips. Once they could be mass produced, they found a major market in automobile safety systems as inertial sensors for airbag deployment. Then came the introduction of smart phones in the late 2000s. According to Dr. Alissa M. Fitzgerald, CEO, A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, a MEMS and microtechnology product development company, every smart phone these days contains dozens of MEMS chips. And now there are many more safety applications in automobiles beyond just air bag sensing.