Applications and Projects in the Field Devices and Technologies

During the last decades the research and development activities in micro- and nanoelectronics led to a continuous reduction in structure size and therefore to an increasingly growing integration density. The goal is always to further increase the functionality on a chip or a microsystem.

Fraunhofer IMS continues this trend and develops compact and efficient micro- and nanosystems in various application areas:

DEPFET (“depleted p-channel field-effect transistor“) detectors are extremely fast imaging pixel detectors with an excellent energy resolution, and with especially high radiation intensity. Sensors and detectors with integrated electronics for ionizing radiation find application in basic and applied research as well as in industrial analytics and quality control. A DEPFET cell consists of an operationally fully depleted silicon substrate and a field-effect transistor embedded into this same substrate.  With DEPFET detectors, the first amplification level is integrated in each pixel. This leads to a very small input capacity and therefore to a very good noise behavior of the detector. Until now, these special low-noise detectors have been only produced in the research laboratory. Together with PNSensor GmbH, Fraunhofer IMS researchers are currently developing a manufacturing process for DEPFET detectors with industrial quality standards.

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In the project HOTMOS Fraunhofer IMS and Carnot CEA-LETI are working together to increase the operating range of microelectronic systems for the application in harsh environments. In this project a SOI CMOS technology platform has been developed for the application of microelectronic circuits for temperature ranges of more than 250 °C.

The high integration density of the 0.35 μm SOI CMOS enables the intelligent and compact drivers that contain on-chip controls, fault management and energy management.

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Within the framework of the project „Functional ultrathin materials trough atomic layer deposition for the next generation of nanosystems technology” (short: FunALD) a new kind of material production, especially for sensor technology, is being researched, the “Atomic Layer Deposition” (short:ALD). New organometallic raw materials (“precursors”) for the ALD process are being developed, test structures on the basis of layers and layer sequences are being designed and manufactured, and measurement processes are being developed to characterize layers and layer sequences systematically.

The goal of this three-year project is to develop ultrathin, functional materials on the basis of ALD technology for applications in the area of mechanical sensors and gas sensor systems.

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Fraunhofer IMS is participating within the EU research project „MARIE“(MAteRIal TranscEiver) with the production of dielectrical resonators (RFID tags) for sub-millimeter localization. Fraunhofer IMS is manufacturing the high-frequency resonators in the microsystem technology Lab&Fab. Objects with these “tags” can be localized in a field of high-frequency. The goal is to achieve a better location accuracy of less than a millimeter.

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In the Fraunhofer and Max-Planck cooperation project ZellMOS researchers from Fraunhofer IMS, the Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research and the University Clinic Heidelberg are working on electrical contact of living cells via semiconductor circuits. For this purpose, CMOS nanoelectrode arrays are  produced using metal oxide semiconductors. In a joint effort the researchers of both research organizations want to demonstrate a direct, efficient, bidirectional and long-term stable electronic coupling between living cells and CMOS-integrated 3D electrodes.

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In the project PoC-ID a compact measurement device on the basis of a BioMEMS sensor is being developed for the diagnosis of infections with the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in newborns. For this purpose Fraunhofer IMS is working together with its project partners on a sensor that detects the existence of the virus and the concentration of several infection parameters in one sample. The process development and the production of the MEMS sensor is carried out in the in-house microsystems technology Lab&Fab. The functional structure of the MEMS sensor consists of a few micrometers thin membrane which is cause to vibrate via piezoelectric effects. This membrane is additionally coated with capture molecules that selectively bind infection parameters or virus samples. Through the binding of the molecules the mass of the membrane is increasing and results in a reduction of the vibration frequency. This vibration frequency change is detected by an in-house developed electronic evaluation units and provides conclusions on the existence and the concentration of the sample parameters.

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