News Flash: IBM unveiled a new type of computer chip that integrates both electrical and optical nano-devices on the same piece of silicon. This could soon make it possible for supercomputers to perform one million trillion calculations – or an exaflop – in a single second. See: Lighting up chips gives computers a brain boost and IBM Unveils Nanophotonic Chip
Design Competition - 2013
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SCME co-Hosts the 2013 Sandia National Laboratories MEMS Design Competition
The SCME co-hosted the 2013 Sandia National Laboratories MEMS design competition at the Manufacturing Training and Technology Center on May 14. A dozen educational institutions presented, half of which where Mexican universities and technical colleges.
SCME’s Matt Pleil mentored a hybrid team from Albuquerque consisting of students from CNM and East Mountain High School. CNM’s Kyle McWethy, led this team. His design of the MEMS Robotic Arm earned the team an honorable mention in the Novel Design Category. Rebecca Brink and Audrey Campbell from East Mountain High School, was mentored by Olga Vasquez, their science teacher. Olga has been collaborating with SCME since it start and has taken all of the MEMS courses offered at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM). The MEMS courses at CNM are part of the Advanced System Technologies program, one of these is MEMS Design. The Albuquerque team is the only team consisting of community college and high school students. This is quite an accomplishment considering that all the other team consisted of University and Technical College engineering undergraduate and graduate students. .jpg)
The competition was robust with US entries from Carnegie Mellon, Texas Tech University, Airforce Institute of Technology, University of Utah and Mexican presentations from Universidad Veracruzana, University of Guadalajara, Universidad de Guanajuato, Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez, and Centro de Ingenieria y Desarrollo Industrial (CIDESI).
For an additional article on the competition see:
Southwest Center for Microsystems Education at UNM Hosts MEMS Design Competition
For information on University MEMS Design Competition, see:
- MEMS University Alliance Website (Carnegie Mellon)
- University Alliance Program (Sandia)
- TTU MEMS
Document Download Summary
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We have seen continuous growth in the number of educational materials downloads per month. Even though May is the end of the semester/school year for many, downloads was still close to the peak reached in April (3977). Over 63,000 document downloads have been completed since 2009. These numbers have been corrected for redundent downloads. We have doubled our impact in the last 10 months.
Cool MEMS Application Videos
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As MEMS applications become more and more omni present - there are more and more MEMS videos to watch. This blog is intended for me to share cool videos I find in my day to day work as a Microsystems (MEMS) educator. If you find a video you would like me to add - by all means send me the link! Check out the Video Links for other topics related to Micro/Nano technologies!
Microsampling Air Pollution - two MEMS based systems linked to an Android phone - tracking local environment of the user as he moves about throughout the day!
Bosh hits 3 Billion Sensors!
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NewsFlash: Bosch surpasses 3 Billion sensors Sold!
You may or may not know that Bosch not only produces spark plugs but also fabricates hundreds of different MEMS sensors and actuators. They invented to "Bosch Process" which allows MEMS fabricators to create extemely high aspect ratio structures in silicon. Many of their MEMS sensor systems can be found in automobiles. Most new cars comming out on the market have over 50 MEMS devices imbedded in them!
"Bosch supplies sensors for a wide range of applications in the consumer electronics and automotive industries. These sensors measure pressure, acceleration, rotary motion, mass flow, and the earth's magnetic field. Bosch has been at the forefront of MEMS technology since it first emerged, and today it generates more sales in the extremely dynamic MEMS sensor market than any other supplier. "
SCME Webinar Series Spring 2013
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The Spring 2013 Webinar Series is now complete and all recorded sessions are available here.
View the last recorded webinar NOW!
Problem-Solving Tools Applied to Microfabrication (Recorded March 28, 2013)
In this webinar, attendees were presented with a real life example of a microsystems manufacturing problem. Attendees used the tools of problem-solving, Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiments to solve the problem and recommend next steps. The link to the recorded webinar can be found below.
This recorded webinar is now available online.
To view the recorded webinar for Problem-Solving Tools Applied to Microfabrication, click here for webinar. (NOTE: You will be asked for a name and email address. It may take a couple minutes for the presentation to fully load.)
To download a pdf of the slides from DOE for Technicians, click here for slides.
To download the handout (with URL's from presentation), click here for handout.
To view any of the 12 recorded webinars, click here for the links.