The demand for sensors to monitor conditions and gather data increases as the AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) market expands. However, one barrier has been the accessibility of mass-producing sensors. Nanusens, a young British sensor company, thinks it has found a solution.
With Nanusens’ technology, the sensors are built right into the ASIC, which serves as the device’s control chip. By being integrated into the chip itself rather than being placed next to it, this design allows the sensors to take up very little space.
The technology also makes it possible for a variety of sensors to be integrated into a single chip, allowing chip designers and OEMs to create considerably smarter products with only a small increase in cost or internal volume. The multi-sensor system might make room for additional features and bigger batteries, extending gadget life while consuming less power.
Contrarily, the way that sensors are currently manufactured makes it more challenging to ramp up production. Sensors are now built on a thin slice of silicon, or a “die,” by specialized firms, with each type of sensor being made on a separate production line. These are either installed next to the primary chip as bare die or packaged into the well-known black unit with wire connections to be mounted on a PCB. There is currently no method to minimize costs or size of any technique, which creates a barrier to the development of the AIoT.
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology allowed Nanusens to create the sensors. According to Dr. Josep Montanyà, CEO of Nausens, in an email conversation with Design News, “We have added a very simple post-processing step, vapor HF, to remove part of the silicon oxide of the back-end of the CMOS, releasing part of the metal layers in the back-end of the chip, so that they can move. “How to design these MEMS, which were to be manufactured using metal lines with poor mechanical properties (thin and with high residual stress),” was the major challenge.
Circuit Control Detects Capacitance
The business also created a control circuit that collects sensor data by monitoring changes in capacitance within the sensor. This IP block, like the sensor itself, is digital, thus it may be included using common EDA tools into the layout of the device’s control chip or ASIC. According to Nanusens, no other sensor solution can be converted into an IP block and manufactured using conventional CMOS techniques within the layers of the chip structure, making this pairing of sensors and control circuitry as IP special. According to the business, using this strategy will simplify it and lower the cost of an AIoT device’s bill of materials.
Dr. Montanyà of Nanusens lists the technology’s advantages as being less expensive, smaller, capable of high volume production, and consuming less current in lower nodes. Because it is a very small portion of the main processor chip and does not require a separate container, the cost of the sensor is reduced, he claimed. “In addition to being monolithically integrated, it is also incredibly compact. and less substantial with lower nodes.
Dr. Montanyà claims that by the end of the year, a multi-sensor IC built around Nanusens’ 3D accelerometer will be available on the market. Additionally, the business is negotiating other IP deals with a number of other semiconductor firms. A Series A investment round has already begun for Nanusens.
In addition to developing accelerometer sensors, Nanusens is also working on gyroscopes, magnetometers, pressure sensors, microphones, IR imagers, and gas sensors as alternatives to the accelerometer design. This could open up numerous additional applications for embedded sensors, including those in the automobile, medical equipment, aerospace, earphones, wearables, and smartphone industries.