Parallel-plates capacitors are commonly found on micromachined sensors and actuators. Typical capacitive accelerometers rely on these comb features and in recent years increasing performance has been obtained. In this presentation a comparison is performed between SOIMUMPs and MEMSOI: the advantages and the limitations a designer encounters when developing such structures, namely the trade-off between damping and capacitance. A technique to ease this problem has been applied to the sensor considered.

Rosana A. Dias received the M.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering - Medical Electronics, from University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, in 2007. During 2008 she was a researcher in the Electronics Department, developing an x-ray detector micromachining technique. She has been working towards the Ph.D. degree for about a year, at the University of Minho, focusing on µg MEMS accelerometers based on time measurement.

Many MEMS structures are highly symmetric. We will discuss devices, such as gyros and energy harvesters, where mechanical non-symmetries are vital to functionality or performance. In addition to cases where non-symmetry is introduced intentionally, it is also discussed issues related to non-symmetries introduced by (process) tolerances. This is placed in a context where both finite element analysis and behavioural models have their place.

Eskild Westby recieved his MSc degree in mechanical engineering in 1998 and his Dr.Ing. degree in electronics in 2004, both from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. From 1998 to 2006 he was employed at SensoNor / Infineon Technologies SensoNor in Horten, Norway, where he worked in the development department with design of microsystems. Since that, he has been working as an independent consultant. His main interests lies in the field of design and modelling of microsystems.

Artificial electrical stimulation of neurons has become an accepted alternative means of replacing functionality of damaged sensory organs. In this talk a number of experimental MEMS structures and associated electronics will be described,which are aimed at the development of a vestibular implant for balance related disorders.

Julius Georgiou received his M.Eng degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Ph.D. degree from Imperial College London in 1998 and 2003 respectively. In 2004 he joined the Johns Hopkins University as a Postdoctoral Fellow, before joining the University of Cyprus in mid 2005. His main area of expertise is in ultra low-power circuit techniques and has applied them to a range of applications that include biomedical implants. He is a member of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, the BioCAS Technical Committee, as well as a member of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Analog Signal Processing Technical Committee. His research interests include low-power analog and asynchronous-digital ASICs, implantable biomedical devices, bioinspired systems, inertial and optical sensors and related systems.

Simplifying the design process, the actual structure of a switch and the control of the configuration will guarantee a more reliable, robust and high yield RF MEMS in line series switch. Stochastic optimization techniques such as the PSO and statistical methods such as the Taghuchi methods allow optimization of several design parameters simultaneously, too. Following the above an RF MEMS switch with impressive performance characteristics can be achieved.

Nikolaos Charalampidis received his BSc in Electronic Engineering in 2001 from the ATEI of Thessaloniki, Greece and his MSc in Telecommunications Electronics in 2002 from Oxford Brookes University, UK. In 2007 was subsequently completed his PhD on Analog RF voltage-follower design, at the Oxford Brookes University. He is currently a lecturer at the ATEI of Thessaloniki in the field of Analog Electronics. His research interests are in the area of analog RF circuit design, RF MEMS switches, and reconfigurable antennas.

The increasing integration and complexity of digital and mixed-signal systems on silicon has been made possible by a the development of powerful design automation tools. Slowly, similar tools are emerging for MEMS design. This presentation will describe tool development at the University of Southampton, including the use of mixed-signal and mixed-technology simulation. Currently a design kit is being developed to permit MEMS design in a similar manner to IC design.

Mark Zwolinski has been a full professor at the University of Southampton since 2005. Previously, he was a lecturer at the same university for 15 years. He has published about 120 refereed papers and three books. He has supervised 15 PhD students to completion. His research interests include design automation, test, verification and multiprocessor applications.

A method for traceable measurement of vibrations using Laser Doppler Vibrometry (LDV) and its potential applications to the production of MEMS force standards will be discussed. The design of a mechanical testing MEMS device fabricated with MEMSCAP's PolyMUMPS process will be also presented as an example of current efforts to generate traceably measurable forces with MEMS.

Jose Portoles graduated in Physics at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) in 1998. He spent one year working as research assistant at the University of Paderborn (Germany), Laboratory of Point Defects in Solids. Then, he spent four years working in the IT industry after which he moved back to academia, following a PhD program at the University of Nottingham (UK), Laboratory of Biophysics and Surface Analysis, in the subject of MEMS devices for traceable single-molecule force measurements, obtaining a PhD in 2008. Jose Portoles is currently working as a research associate at Newcastle University (UK), MEMS group at the School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering.

Wearable sensors can help in making living at home of elderly and people with disabilities safer and more comfortable. In this work,the development of a ZigBee-enabled, multi-sensor platform is described, conceived for integration in an environmental control system. A custom MEMS accelerometer has been designed to this purpose, aiming at System-In-Package integration and featuring small size and low power consumption. Different layout options have been implemented and validated through extensive CAD simulations. A prototype device has been fabricated: test procedures and results are illustrated, and future design steps are outlined.

Valentina Bianchi received the Laurea degree (cum laude) in Electronic Engineering from the University of Parma in 2003. She received the Laurea (Master) degree (cum laude) in Electronic Engineering in 2006. Since then she has been working with the Department of Information Engineering at University of Parma, where she is now working toward her Ph.D. degree. Her researches are mainly focused on digital systems design and wearable sensors networks for Assistive Technologies application.

Chosen examples of our activities in European projects (6. FP – NEPUMUC and OPTOLABCARD, 7. FP – LABONFOIL and MAC-TFC) concerning smart microplants for explosives fabrication and harsh environment resistive sensors based on silicon and glass microsystems, detection of optical biosignals for DNA analyze in food pathogen recognition by the use of lab-on-chip, novel cocaine monitoring point-of-care device for professional drivers and MEMS-based atomic clock, will be described. All this projects were/are realized also with activity of students (MSc thesis and international students exchange) giving them unique chance for acquiring new skills during R&D project on microsystems. Brief overview of our Faculty specialities with some examples of student’s activities in these fields will be also shown.

Rafal Walczak received PhD degree at Faculty of Electronics of Wroclaw University of Technology (WUT) in 2004. His research activities are focused on technology of glass, silicon and polymer microsystems, detection of optical signals in MEMS and lab-on-chip devices and development of embedded PC-based systems co-working with microsystems. Rafal Walczak is an active academic teacher. He is a supervisor of Electronics, Photonics and Microsystems speciality at WUT. He is an author of over 50 articles in reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He was involved in EU 6. FP projects (OPTOLABCARD, NEPUMUC) and currently realizing 7. FP projects – LABONFOIL and MAC-TFC, as well other EU co-founded projects and many national R&D projects.

A brief introduction and state-of-the-art review about energy harvesting will be presented. Afterward, we will focus on the presentation of our last submitted design and the tools that Stimesi offered us to carry it out, basically through specialized software and fabrication process. The fabricated design presents the fully-dedicated core dice of an energy Harvester-on-Chip (HoC) with electrostatic transduction. The main highlights of this design are the use of multi-domain technology simulator, which offers us the possibility of performing a parametric design by defining hierarchical blocks, and the advantage of using a SOI-based MEMS technology with an available thick silicon layer to fabricate the mechanical suspensions with an associated improvement of the robustness and performance of the design.

Gonzalo Murillo received the Electronic Engineering Degree from the Universidad de Granada (Spain) in 2007. He was awarded a research fellowship to develop his PhD at the Electronic Engineering Department of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) the same year. His research interests are focused on the development of micro and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) and their integration using standard CMOS and specific MEMS technologies in order to provide wireless portability, by means of RF-MEMS elements, and power autonomy, exploiting N/MEMS for energy harvesting, in order to obtain an integrated global microsystem of high performance.

After a short introduction on the advantages of monolithic integration of CMOS and MEMS, an overview and comparison of the different possible integration routes will be given : MEMS first, MEMS interleaved and MEMS last. More in detail, the IMEC MEMS Platform technology will be presented, which is a member of the MEMS last category based on SiGe as structural material. The presentation will be concluded with some application examples based on this technology.

Luc Haspeslagh received his M. Sc. degree in electrical and mechanical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) in 1987. Since then he has been working with the Interuniversity MicroElectronic Center (IMEC) in Leuven, Belgium, initially as research assistant on the integration of non-volatile memories. Since 1998 he led the CMOS OPTIONS integration group fcoussing on embedde memory and "more than moore" applications. In 2004, he started the first project leading to the MEMS platform. He is currently principal engineer for the CMORE program, managing cross-disciplinary "more than moore" projects.