Products

MEMS Fabrication Services for Micro-Components/Sensors and Actuators

Our thin film fabrication capabilities have been utilized to meet a wide variety of customer needs in the micro-component industries. GMR/AMR sensors are an example of how customers leverage our technical strength.

Our current process technology is CMOS-compatible, allowing for extension into other devices and customized thin film structures to meet a customer's design specifications. Such devices are applicable in:

Analog and digital signal processing
Wireless and optical telecommunications
Position detection
Process control sensing
Automated test equipment
Biomedical sensors

"AMS has been a true and vital partner in the development of Boston MicroSystems' embryonic business that supplies proprietary MEMS-based chemical detection products for worker safety, environmental protection and homeland security applications. An initial three-month project to fabricate MEMS prototypes has now blossomed into a comprehensive partnership spanning co-development, foundry manufacturing and the sharing of special capabilities.

What immediately impressed us early in our initial fab experience was the responsiveness, discipline and dependability of the AMS team. They were deliberate about schedules and specs, regularly communicated progress, anticipated issues, and prevented surprises. They met or beat deadlines. The first MEMS prototype worked well, even though this was the first time this new design had ever been made.

AMS stands out as a leading MEMS manufacturer, with many years of experience in volume production of complex MEMS devices and extraordinary quality control systems. As a business partner, AMS is open and reasonable with a can-do spirit. I have partnered extensively throughout my 25-year, high-tech career and believe that AMS sets the standard for a true and reliable partner."

Dan Button
CEO
Boston MicroSystems, Inc.

Click on an image to enlarge

An electroplated, high aspect ratio structure.

Cantilevers and walls produced by reactive ion etching process.

An example of planarization over high topology by cured polyer process.

An electromagnetic micro-actuator in build

An electromagnetic micro-actuator fabrication in progress.

Copper coils would around Permalloy cores

Copper coils wound around Permalloy cores.

Integrated AMR-Read, Inductive-Write Thin Film Tape Heads

Since 1999, AMS' integrated tape heads for commercial tape drives have been meeting the data storage industry's demand for high performance, reliability and low manufacturing cost.

Our AMR-reader consists of a soft adjacent layer, insulator and magneto-resistive layers sandwiched by two permanent magnets. The performance of the AMR-reader is rigorously controlled by the dimensions and electro-magnetic properties of each of the layers. In some cases, the bottom pole of the inductive writer is shared with the reader as its top pole.

Constant demand for higher performance and higher storage capacities creates several challenges for the existing wafer technologies. AMS supports our customer's product road map by continuous development efforts in AMR/GMR readers, improved photolithography, new magnetic materials and advanced modeling capabilities.

"Tandberg Data and Advanced MicroSensors (AMS) have been strategic partners since 1999. Since then, the business relationship has continued to expand, and today, AMS components are represented in almost all tape drives shipped to our customers. AMS delivers the key advanced thin-film head technologies that Tandberg Data requires to meet our product roadmap. In addition, AMS provides excellent customer support and their components continue to meet Tandberg's exacting quality standards."

– Tandberg DataASA