Sensors

Atomica has brought to life dozens of products across a range of sensing applications.

From the Internet of Things (IoT) to autonomous vehicles, robotics, advanced medical imaging, industrial detection systems, and more, Atomica is empowering countless life-changing innovations with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Thanks to MEMS, these products enjoy faster response times, lower power consumption, lower costs, smaller size, and better reliability, performance, and precision.

Leveraging the entire periodic table, we guide our customers to solutions that can be manufactured in volume. With both relevant knowledge and unique production capabilities, we use today’s most diverse material set to help you create truly innovative sensors and devices.

Applications

Thermal Imaging and Sensors

MEMS has transformed the thermal imaging industry with low-cost uncooled micro-bolometers and thermopiles for night vision, fever detection, and other thermal applications previously unavailable outside of the defense industry. These seemingly magical devices also empower humans to see in the long wave infrared (IR) spectrum (10-15 µm).

Atomica is pleased to help bring these innovations to life with our wafer processing, advanced DRIE, and getter deposition capabilities, particularly our proven vacuum wafer-level packaging (WLP) technologies.

Motion Sensors

MEMS-based motion sensors are adding inertial intelligence to products across industries including automotive, consumer electronics, aerospace, healthcare, oil exploration, and more. MEMS wafer processing enables the fabrication of advanced accelerometers (for straight-line acceleration), gyroscopes (for rotation), magnetometers (for orientation), and collective inertial measurement units (IMUs).

Recognizing that off-the-shelf motion-sensing devices often do not provide the precision or performance required for specific applications, Atomica is proud to work with customers to fabricate custom motion sensors. Our world-leading DRIE, advanced photolithography, WLP, and other capabilities position us to tackle the most challenging projects in sensor development. We are even bringing optical sensors such as fiber optic gyros into the MEMS realm with the help of platform technologies like Atomica’s silicon optical bench (SiOB).

Microphones

MEMS are driving the development of ever smaller, cheaper, and more sensitive microphones, in both analog and digital formats. Atomica’s mastery of complex wafer packaging using silicon and other advanced materials will help you bring cutting-edge acoustic sensing and response to your innovative device.

Gas and Chemical Sensors

MEMS-based approaches to detecting gases and chemicals rely on electrochemical, pellistor, photoionization, and other advanced methods. MEMS-based gas and chemical sensors are smaller, more sensitive, and can have more functionality than traditional sensors, enabling exciting applications in industries such as defense, manufacturing, health, and energy.

Other types of sensors:

Atomica offers experience and expertise in

Why Atomica?

  1. Largest US MEMS Foundry

    Atomica serves its customers from a 13-acre, 130,000 ft2 manufacturing campus (including a 30,000 ft2 class 100 cleanroom) in Santa Barbara, California. We operate over 400 sophisticated 150mm and 200mm tools and are ISO 9001 and ITAR certified. This makes us the largest independent MEMS fab in the United States, well-positioned to support the growing demand for domestic production of critical sensors, photonics, and biochips.

  2. Unique collaborative methodology to ensure program success

    At Atomica, we are resolved to help our customers bring their innovations to life using our proven phase-gate process to successfully navigate the challenges of design, development, prototype, scale-up, and high-volume production. Our multi-disciplinary team of scientists and manufacturing engineers tackles the hardest process development and integration challenges with an eye toward manufacturability (DFM). Our methodology entails rigorous project management to optimize resources, mitigate risks, and deliver predictable results.

  3. Extraordinary engineering expertise

    Atomica has over 20 years of experience commercializing technologies that change the future. Our extensive experience spans the full spectrum of MEMS, including photonics, sensors, microfluidic biochips, and other micro components. We have over 20 Phds on-site and we’ve worked on hundreds of programs to date. You could say we’ve seen it all. This experience combined with our volume production facility help ensure customers get to market fast with the highest chance of commercial success.

  4. Exceptional flexibility in materials and project types

    Atomica has a versatile and flexible engagement model. We are able to engage using our standard processes or provide bespoke, custom process development. We will consider programs of many sizes, as long as they hold promise to have an impact on the world once they reach production. Atomica also is able to handle a very broad range of materials providing access to an extensive set of processes and materials unavailable in CMOS fabs, including noble metals, polymers, and virtually any substrate (e.g., silicon, SOI, glass, fused silica, quartz, borosilicate, piezos, and III-V).