常见问题解答-公司
Q. How long has MEMSIC been around?
A. Dr. Yang Zhao founded MEMSIC, INC. in 1999.
Q. Where is MEMSIC located?
A. The Company headquarter is located in North Andover, Massachusetts(20 miles north of Boston), its design center near Chicago, IL, and its wholly owned subsidiary (MEMSIC semiconductor, LTD.) in Wuxi, China (120 kilometers from Shanghai). The North Andover headquarter is responsible for sales and marketing, financing, and R&D while the Chicago design center is responsible for product design and development. The Wuxi subsidiary is responsible for manufacturing, product engineering, manufacturing engineering, quality assurance, packaging and testing as well as application engineering to support the Asia market.
Q. Is MEMSIC public or private?
A. MEMSIC, Inc. is a privately held company incorporated in 1999 with initial funding from
Still River Fund, and Investar Capital, Inc. (a TSMC investment company). In 2001, the company closed a second round of financing with
Celtic House,
Ironside Ventures and its first round investors.
Q. What does MEMSIC do?
A. MEMSIC is a semiconductor company that specializes in MEMS (Micro Electric Mechanical Systems) ICs (Integrated Circuits). MEMSIC has developed and brought to market a unique MEMS-based accelerometer that contains no moving parts. MEMSIC's product combines the sensor and associated electronics onto a single chip that is manufactured on a standard, sub-micron CMOS process. The accelerometer provides the highest long-term reliability and performance available today at an unprecedented low cost.
Q. What is an accelerometer?
A. Accelerometers, sometimes called inertial sensors are used to measure tilt or inclination, shock or vibration, or inertial acceleration. Any application that requires the control or measurement of motion is a potential application for accelerometers.
Q. How is MEMSIC different from other manufacturers of accelerometers/sensors?
A. MEMSIC's unique thermal sensing and operating principle (see technology webpage for details) offers superior motion sensing performance. Since MEMSIC's accelerometer has no moving parts, it eliminates the problems of surface adhesion, also known as stiction, and particles associated with capacitive or piezo-resistive-based technologies. It also provides much higher shock ratings than capacitive or piezo-resistive-based technologies. Additionally, integrating the sensor and control electronics onto one chip using a standard CMOS process is a world first.
Q. Why are MEMSIC's products so cost-effective compared to that of competitors and other technologies?
A. MEMSIC designs, manufactures and markets CMOS Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) IC products that have on-chip mixed signal processing. MEMSIC is the first and the only company that integrates a MEMS inertial sensor with mixed signal processing circuitry onto a single chip using a standard CMOS IC process. This combination of technology has successfully yielded products at substantially lower cost and higher system performance and functionality than competitive products.
Only a few MEMS companies in the world have the capabilities for high volume manufacturing. To that end, MEMSIC has established a high yield, high quality, and high volume MEMS manufacturing infrastructure that has been fully ISO9000 certified in 2001 and has passed the TS16949 audit in December 2002. By establishing its own manufacturing in China (a wholly owned subsidiary) and maintaining technology development in the United States, MEMSIC has the best of two worlds. The Company is more cost competitive due to lower manufacturing costs and has a higher return on capital investment than all of the major competitors and still has access to new technology developed in the United States.
Q. Are the products in development or production?
A. The company currently has over 20 products, more than any competitor, covering the full range of applications in the market. These products are being shipped to customers in the automotive and consumer markets for production and design qualification.
Q. What market's does MEMSIC's technology apply to?
A.
- Automotive Tier One
- Automotive Tier Two
- Navigation/Telematics
- Yaw rate and rollover
- Stability/Suspension
- Headlamp control
- Tire pressure
- Smart part brake
- Alarm
- Trailer brake
- Consumer electronics
- Global positioning systems
- Five-axis compass solutions
- Auto-keystoning for LCD projectors
- Tilt scrolling for PDAs and cell phones
- Laptop computer security
- Balance and vibration sensing for washing machine and dryer
- Mobile phones
- Safety shut off sensing for portable heater
- Electronic safe
- Computer mouse
- Lift chair leveling
- Video games, joysticks, game pad controls
- Industrial
- Inclination sensing (RV motor homes, construction equipment, forklifts)
- Elevators
- Machine vibration (health)
- Seismic sensing (gas line earthquake safety shut off ,elevator control)
- Medical
- Portable blood pressure monitor
- Hospital surgical bed inclination
- Patient fall monitors
