New Year's Greetings / 1
Column / 2
Activities of the Micromachine Center / 3
Activities of the BEANS Laboratory / 6
Members' Profiles / 8

New Year’s Greetings
As we welcome in 2011, it gives me great pleasure to wish you all a happy New Yearand to offer some thoughts on this new beginning. First, I would like to express mygratitude to all who have given their cooperation and support to the Micromachine
Center and the BEANS Laboratory.
Approximately one year and three months have passed since September 2009, whenI assumed the post of chairman for both entities. During this period, Japan’s economy
has begun to show some signs of recovering from the failure of Lehman Bros. and theDubai debt crisis, but the state of Japan’s industry has not yet stabilized due in part tofinancial crises in Greece, Ireland, and other EU countries, the effects of a strong yen,
and increased competition in manufacturing industries from emerging nations such as
Hisao Sakuta,
China. In order to break out of this situation, it is essential that we intensify our efforts
Chairmanin technological development, which is the key to keeping Japan’s industries
Micromachine Centerinternationally competitive. For this reason, it remains vital for us to continue
BEANS Laboratory
intensifying our efforts in technological development related to MEMS and othermicro/nano fields, now considered important industrial technologies. As chairman I will
strive to continue our efforts in developing micromachines, MEMS, and other micro/nano fields, and I shall be gratefulfor your support.
To accomplish this, the BEANS Project (the Hetero-functional Integrated Device Technology Development
Project) was launched in 2008 to develop core process technologies required for creating innovative next-generation
devices and to build a platform for this development, with the aim of developing applications in a wide range of fields
that include energy and the environment, safety and security, and health and medical care, as well as in traditional
fields of application. We hope to increase and expand the market for micro/nano devices by creating new devices tosupport Japan’s industry across diverse fields. It gives me great pleasure to announce that we have received highmarks through the first half of the project. For the remaining two years, we will concentrate all of our efforts toward
implementing the BEANS Project, focusing on research activities aimed at producing results that will lead tocommercialization.
The previous year also marked the beginning of the G-device Project aimed at developing an advanced sensor
network and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. Through this project, we installed advanced
manufacturing equipment at AIST Tsukuba for fabricating 8-inch MEMS devices and began preparing the groundworkfor the Tsukuba Innovation Arena NMEMS in close cooperation with the MEMS Industry Forum of the Micromachine
Center and AIST.
In addition to constructing TIA-NMEMS, the Micromachine Center has continued working to create a better
environment for MEMS industrialization in Japan by promoting international standardization in MEMS fields andperforming activities aimed at industrial exchange and vitalization, for example.
Further, in response to the three laws on reforming the public interest corporations system, the Micromachine
Center submitted an application to the Cabinet Office for changing its current public interest status to that of ageneral incorporated foundation.
In the event that our application is approved, we will reevaluate our roles and responsibilities as a generalincorporated foundation and will continue our activities in the hope of contributing to Japan’s international
competitiveness in industry and to the creation of a future affluent society.
Finally, on behalf of the Micromachine Center and the BEANS Laboratory, I would like to offer you all mysincerest wishes for a fruitful year. Thank you and Happy New Year!
January 20111

Column

New Expectations for MEMS Devices
Isao Shimoyama, Professor
Department of Mechano-Informatics
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology
The University of Tokyo

Tactile Sensing
In settings where humans and machines coexist, humans
sometimes touch or ride on the machines. By sensing the stateof forces exerted when industrial robots and humans work
together to assemble parts, or by detecting whether a passenger
riding in a personal mobility vehicle is sitting in the seat and isin contact with the backrest, such machines can be precisely
controlled, properly accelerated and decelerated, and usedwithout incident on stairways and elevators. We may be able topredict when a vehicle could slip on a road surface by detecting
the frictional forces and coefficient of friction between the tires
and road surface. It can be said that MEMS provides us withnew functions by enabling us for the first time to detect
forces that humans and machines exert on each other and the
distribution of force vectors produced through contact between
humans and machines.
Increasing Sensitivity and Reducing Drift in PhysicalSensors
Industrial robots, service robots, and personal mobility
vehicles are constructed by assembling together rigid bodies.
Encoders attached to the joints of the rigid bodies detect theangle of rotation between bodies in order to calculate the positionand orientation of the links. Links are usually heavy in order topreserve rigidity, making the overall robot stiff and heavy.
However, through the combined use of accelerometers andgyrosensors, the states of the links and robot fingers can be
accurately learned, even when the links are flexible, making it
possible to produce much lighter robots. Therefore, a newchallenge facing R&D in robotics is to maintain the sensitivity ofexisting MEMS accelerometers and to reduce drift in gyrosensors.
Environmental AwarenessMeasurements using light are effective in robots, automobiles,
and personal mobility vehicles for detecting the state of objects
in the vicinity. Currently laser rangefinders are being used todetermine the distance to an object by emitting a laser pulse
and measuring the time that the pulse takes to reflect off thetarget and return. However, in order for laser rangefinders togain popularity, they must come down in both size and price.

Vietnamese Exchange Students and Japan’sAging Society
There are three Vietnamese students working in ourlaboratory, and all of them are excellent at their work. In fact,
all three had papers selected for presentation at theinternational conference MEMS 2011, which will be held in
Cancun, Mexico in January this year.
According to The University of Tokyo Guidebook, thenumber of foreign students accepted at the University of Tokyoin 2010 accounted for 250 of the total 14,172 undergraduate
students and 2,084 of the total 13,820 graduate students, andthe numbers increase each year. After graduating from highschool in Vietnam, the three students in my lab passed theentrance examination for the University of Tokyo and enteredthe undergraduate program as international students sponsoredby the Japanese government. All three continued on tograduate school and are now enthusiastically conducting
research in our lab.
Students in countries of East Asia and Southeast Asia receivea rich education in fundamental subjects, such as mathematics
and physics. This has proven to be an advantage for theVietnamese students, even after entering the University of Tokyo.
Further, there are no barriers to the wealth of information on
the Internet for students who have no problems with the English
language. Using information available over the Internet gives
these students a capacity to perform advanced simulations thatappears to surpass that of the average Japanese student at the
University of Tokyo.
The ability to attract capable young people with such
enthusiasm from overseas may benefit Japan, for which the
declining birthrate and proportion of elderly in the population is
expected to increase, as they may play an important role inhelping to reform our social system and to improve its efficiency
through science and technology. Because Japan’s declining
birthrate and aging population is advancing faster than the restof the world, I believe that it is the country best-suited toproposing and popularizing new lifestyles.

As illustrated in the above examples, MEMS excels at adding
new functionality, improving the performance of existing devices,and making things smaller, lighter, and less expensive, andMEMS devices are indispensible for operating machines in thesame settings as humans. When listening to the Year-end GrandSong Festival on New Year’s Eve, I heard the group AKB48 singa song that included the lyrics “Are we dreaming?” and “Don’t
open someone else’s map” and thought that I would like topursue the dream in the former and the originality in the latter
while researching MEMS devices in 2011.

The Role of MEMS Devices in Our Coexistencewith Machines and Robots
In order to maintain our international competitive edge
despite our aging society, we will have to make efficient use of
our environment, resources, and labor force, and optimize traffic
logistics, for example. Collaborative work among people andindustrial robots is increasing at factories, and the popularizationof service robots and household robots, not necessarily humanoid
in form, has begun to appear a reality. As was reported in anarticle in the Mainichi Shimbun on January 2, 2011 entitled“2010 Traffic Death Toll at 4,863, with Half Aged 65 andAbove,” safety is a vital issue in taking measures to produce anefficient transportation system for our aging society. Yet thisproblem applies to the younger generation as well as the elderly.
MEMS devices serve as a core technology for improving thereliability and safety of machines that coexist with humans.
These devices can accurately detect the circumstances at pointsof contact between machines and humans and the surrounding
environment. With a low volume of information, it is difficult toremove all uncertainty, even with intelligent processing of theinformation. However, if the quantity and quality of information
is improved using MEMS devices to acquire more data, safety
and reliability of machines can be improved.
Here, I will describe some concrete uses for MEMS devices.

Contact with seat andbackrest good=>OK to accelerate or rotate

Grip on armrest: 3N=>Relaxed=>Speed appropriate
Sample measurement of pressure
distribution on footrest

Slippery surface conditions(e.g., puddle or manhole)

Message for user!!! Caution !!!

Bump/slope
Cross sectionof tireTires may slip if speed isincreased.

MEMS triaxial tactile sensors(with vertically embedded
piezoresistive cantilevers formeasuring shear stress)
Cantilever for
shear yMeasured data
X-axis(front-back):30N
Y-axis(left-right):7N
Z-axis(up-down):240N=> Coefficient of friction: 0.125

Beam fornormalstressRoad surface

Figure2

Cantilever for
shear xNumerical targets
Size: 2x2x0.8 mm
Sensor resolution: 0.5% of output at rated load
Load capacity: 200 kPa (normal stress) and
50 kPa (shear stress)

Activities of the Micromachine Center

Research Studies and Standardization Activities
1. Survey of Industrial Trends

2. Standardization Activities

In the current fiscal year, the Micromachine Center (MMC)
has conducted surveys on trends in MEMS applications andtrends in MEMS-related businesses for the purpose of studying
trends in the MEMS industry.
As part of its efforts to research trends in businesses, theMMC visited some prominent MEMS-related companies in the
U.S. in November of last year. A comparison of the MEMS
industries in Japan and America reveals that in Japan MEMS
business is generally handled by one branch of a large generalcompany, while in the U.S. numerous venture companies are
emerging alongside the large manufacturers to handle thecommercialization of MEMS. The goal of this survey was to
identify problems in Japan’s MEMS industry by analyzing factors
in the success of these venture companies and comparing how
large companies in Japan and the U.S. approach MEMS.
The MMC visited the following companies for this survey:
A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, a MEMS product development
consultant; SiTime Corporation, a venture company for MEMS
oscillators; WiSpry, a venture company for RF-MEMS; Freescale
Semiconductor, Inc., a large manufacturer of automotive
sensors; Issys Sensor Systems, a venture company for MEMS
and microfluidics applications; Sand9, Inc., a venture company
for MEMS oscillators; and DALSA Corporation, a large MEMS
foundry.
This survey covered all the traditional steps in productdevelopment from the initial idea to the final product, including
research, technological development, prototyping, andcommercialization. Only those products that clear all the hurdles
encountered in the above steps reach commercialization. Whenexamining the development steps employed at the companies
we visited for this survey, it is clear that their approaches differ
in many aspects, but a few of the venture companies sharedcommon approaches and methods of exploiting the infrastructure.
During the idea and research stage, the companies first
conducted sufficient research to identify and predict market
needs before designing a suitable product based on theseneeds. In the steps from technological development toprototyping, the companies require development funds and an
infrastructure for device trial production, but it is not difficult
to obtain assistance in the form of government funding or
venture capital. In the U.S., venture companies can takeadvantage of the infrastructure in place at universities, where
they can find MEMS trial production lines suitable for
prototyping (taking the form of indirect assistance from stateand federal governments). These companies also have access to
the wealth of accumulated technologies at the universities.
Similarities were also seen in the approaches of major
corporations in Japan and the U.S. For example, major firms
tend to develop applications based on the element technologies
that they have accumulated over the years and to form allianceswith other companies in order to develop new businesses.
The details of this survey will be compiled in the FY2010
Report on Industrial Trends to be issued at the end of this fiscal
year. For a brief report on the survey’s findings, please visit the
Web site “http://beanspj.cocolog-nifty.com/mems/2010/11/
h22mems-a6dc.html.”

The Subcommittee on MEMS (SC 47F) of the TechnicalCommittee on Semiconductor Devices (TC 47) under theInternational Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is
responsible for reviewing
MEMS
international
standardization. The SC
47F was invited to the IEC
General Meeting held in
Seattle from October 6
to10, 2010 for TC 47related
committee
meetings and working
View of Seattlegroup conferences.
A total of twenty-five SC 47F-related participants attended
the General Meeting, including eleven from Japan, eight from
Korea, two from China, and one each from Germany, the UnitedStates, Finland, and Brazil. Some key members from China were
not present because their visas were not issued in time.
Four drafts of standard were up for review by thesubcommittee. The subcommittee members determined thatthe “bend- and shear-type test methods of measuring adhesivestrength for MEMS structures” proposed by Japan would
proceed to CDV (Committee Draft for Vote), after reaching
agreement on a revised draft in response to fifteen additionalcomments from Korea. The subcommittee discussed commentson the second CD (Committee Draft) on “test method for linear
thermal expansion coefficients of MEMS materials” proposed by
Korea, including one comment from Germany, thirty-six fromJapan, and ten from Korea. However, since the allotted time
was insufficient for presenting a revised draft in response to thecomments, it was decided that a third CD would be drawn up.
The subcommittee reviewed fifteen comments from Germany,eighteen from Japan, and eight from Korea regarding the CD on“forming limit measuring method of metallic film materials.”
Revisions incorporating the comments were approved, and the
document was advanced to CDV. A New Work Item Proposal(NP) on “bulge test method for measuring mechanicalproperties of thin films” received thirty-two comments fromJapan and five from Korea. The document was advanced to the
CD stage after revisions incorporating the comments wereapproved.
During the SC 47F conference, Korea gave a presentation
on two future work items: a method of measuring Poisson’s
ratio of thin films, and a test method for measuring thin film
properties on a flexible substrate.
At the TC 47 conference, the committee discussed a
proposal from Korea to establish an incubation working
group aimed at studying
standardization for new
fields, such as energy
harvesting and humanbodycommunicationinterfaces. The committee
agreed to establish an
incubation advisory group.
Conference Room3

Activities of the MEMS Industry Forum
1. Overview of Plans for MicroNano 2011

promotion of advanced research requiring a high capital
investment that individual companies generally cannot afford,
and the enhancement of design and trial production capabilities
needed for pioneering MEMS applications. The MEMS Industry
Forum (MIF) established the Investigative Committee for a
Micro/Nano Open Innovation Center (MNOIC) to consider anorganization and implementation schedule for best utilizing
TIA-NMEMS.
After a fourth council meeting, the 2nd MNOIC Investigative
Committee meeting was held in December. The meeting was
filled with lively discussion on such topics as how to arrange
participation by each company and how best to implement thecenter, including lab tours of the advanced 8-inch and 12-inch
MEMS-related equipment being installed in clean rooms by the
G-devices program and the Funding Program for World-Leading
Innovative R&D on Science and Technology. The MNOIC
Investigative Committee also serves as the TIA-NMEMSWorking Group, one of eight working groups established under
the Executive Council for promoting TIA-NMEMS.

The micromachine exposition MicroNano 2011 (including
the Exhibition Micromachine/MEMS and concurrent events)
will be held at Tokyo Big Sight on July 13–15, 2011. Preparations
for the event are being undertaken jointly by the Micromachine
Center (MMC), which is sponsoring the event, and the organizer
Mesago Messe Frankfurt Corporation.
We are pleased to note that attendance for MicroNano
2010 returned to its original trend of growth, due in part toimprovements in the economic climate and the addition of
ROBOTECH, an exhibition on manufacturing technologies forservice robots utilizing MEMS sensors.
With the proliferation of fabless and fab-lite businessmodels, the MEMS Industry Forum (MIF) is working on
improving the convenience for visitors to MicroNano 2011
through effective zoning, e.g., providing a MEMS outsourcing
zone for foundry services and analytical outsourcing, and a zone
for sensor networks, which are anticipated to improve energy
management and the safety and security of a company’s
infrastructure. In addition, we are discussing plans toaccommodate diverse interests through a wider variety of
symposiums, seminars, and other concurrent events.
The MIF is also working on plans to provide the mostvaluable technical information, business information, andbusiness opportunities in one location for exhibitors andvisitors. Please consider participating in MicroNano 2011 as an
exhibitor or visitor. This event is not to be missed!

2 n d MNOIC Investigative
Committee meeting

2. Program for Human Resources Development:“Micro/Nano Innovator”

4. International Exchange: a Survey on MEMS
Industrial Trends in North America

The “Micro/Nano Innovator” program for human resources
development is a nationwide, self-reliant program being
developed under the Committee for the Promotion of Human
Resources Development newly established this year, incooperation with the National Institute of Industrial Scienceand Technology (AIST) and the Kitakyushu Foundation for the
Advancement of Industry, Science and Technology (FAIS),
among others. The MMC has conducted various training courses
for this program, including “Advanced applications course: the15th MEMS Seminar” held in October, “Introductory course on
MemsONE” held in November, and “Techniques for promoting
MEMS commercialization” held in December. All of the courses
were extremely popular, indicating high interest in the field of
MEMS and a persistent need for MEMS human resource
development.

15 t h MEMS Forum

Installing state-of-the-art
equipment

In early November, the MIF dispatched a mission led by Isao
Shimoyama, professor at the University of Tokyo, to North
America in order to ascertain trends in the MEMS industry. The
group visited seven MEMS-related companies and participatedin the MEMS Executive Congress organized by America’s
MEMS Industry Group (MIG).
The group came away with an overall impression that theconsumer market in North America has become saturated withaccelerometers and other sensors, and that venture companies
and other businesses are working vigorously at developing
products for the next promising market amid declining prices
and fierce competition. There were also many sensor networkand high-frequency applications for smartphones, and medical
applications emphasizing performance and function over cost. It
was quite clear that the market in North America develops
dynamically, with existing major companies and venturecompanies sometimes collaborating and sometimes competing.

Course on techniques forpromoting MEMS
commercialization

3. Formation of the Tsukuba Innovation Arena
NMEMS

Freescale Semiconductor,
Tempe, AZ (USA)Formation of the Tsukuba Innovation Arena NMEMS (TIANMEMS) at AIST Tsukuba is an endeavor aimed at the4

Dalsa Semiconductor,
Bromont, Quebec(Canada)Release of MemsONE Version 4.0(4) Enhanced functions and expanded data in the material
databasea. Enhanced the function that allows characteristic data of specified
materials to be referenced and recorded together in a table.

Upon the release of version 1.0 of MemsONE (Computer
Aided Engineering System for MEMS) in February 2008,
the Micromachine Center initiated activities to disseminate
MemsONE throughout Japan. For the past three years, we have
kept up these dissemination activities using such catchphrases
as “an analytical tool providing powerful support for MEMS
design and manufacturing processes” and “a tool suitable bothfor experts and novices with little experience in MEMS.” During
this period, versions 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 of the product werereleased, each release offering enhanced and more powerful
functions with greater stability.
Version 4.0, anticipated for release in February of this year,
will have even more improvements in analysis capabilities, userfriendliness, and the operating environment. The following aresome of the improvements and enhanced features in version 4.0.

b. Added supplemental characteristic data for piezoelectricmaterials (particularly matrix data) required for piezoelectric
analysis.

(1) Added support for Windows 7
MemsONE can now be used in the Windows 7 environment.
The program was tested on various models of notebook anddesktop computers to identify any issues. Recommended
computer specifications are clearly noted in the product.

(5) Improved and enhanced pre-process functions
a. Added a function to compute mass properties (area and volume).
b. Improved user-friendliness of operations for setting local
subdivisions in hexahedral mesh division.
c. Made it possible to specify the number of divisions in hexahedralmesh division.
d. Relaxed restrictions on the inheritance and data quantity for
input parameters in the command “Sweep shell elements.”(2) Improved and strengthened the analytical functions
a. Added a contact analysis function for the large deformation
problem in elastoplastic analysis and thermal elastoplastic
analysis. This function enables analysis of the following contact
state.

(6) Improved and enhanced post-process functions
a. Resolved the issue of small text being difficult to read in thedisplay of analytical results.
b. Improved the post-process function so that the rotated statein the CAD modeler is reflected in the display of analytical results.

Conventional
analysis

Contact
analysis(7) Upgraded the installation environmenta. Reduced the number of installation steps and improved
messages displayed for suggesting measures required to resolve
problems that occur during installation.
b. Eliminated virtual drive R, using only drives P and Q while
MemsONE is executing.

b. Included process recipes for company-supplied multiprocessemulatorsc. Improved and strengthened the MEMS circuit simulator• Added a function for extracting a macro model to generate
MEMS elements from results of structural analysis.
• Added the ability to adjust the number of nodes on a rigid
plate.
• Enabled pull-in analysis of gap elements.
• Improved the editor function and strengthened the postprocess functions.

(8) Added a network license function
Added a function that enables multiple users, within thenumber specified in the license agreement, to use MemsONE
simultaneously on computers connected to a LAN.
Through the improvements and enhancements describedabove, version 4.0 of MemsONE is anticipated to be a more
complete tool with remarkable advances in the quality anduser-friendliness of its features. Sales and distribution ofversion 4.0 will begin in February 2011, and the MMC iscommitted to product dissemination. At the same time, will beoffering user assistance through training courses andtechnology forums, for example, and will work to attract newusers and expand our regular user base.

(3) Improved and strengthened the feature for setting
analytical conditions
a. Enhanced the functions for browsing the material database in
the conditional settings for mechanical analysis and enabled theinclusion of matrix data.
b. Added a time history table to the boundary conditions forelectric potential in piezoelectric analysis.
c. Integrated the number of output steps with the number ofcomputational steps.

5Activities of the BEANS Laboratory

Recent Media Coverage on the BEANS Project
Society of Chemistry NEWS, October 2010; 5) Foreign press:
America’s ABC News, “Glowing Beads,” October 2010; 6)
Online article: Medical Design and Manufacturing
Technology, Canon Communications.

This article focuses on activities in the BEANS Project thathave been covered by newspapers, journals, and other media
since the summer of 2010. The Japanese and foreign press haveshown interest primarily in our achievements in biotechnology.
The work by Associate Professor Shoji Takeuchi, director of theLife BEANS Center, on robots with a sense of smell andimplantable blood sugar sensors has been making the rounds
through various media outlets this past autumn. The following
is some of the media coverage that we at the head office havenoted thus far.

Research Achievements
Incorporating cell-based olfactory sensors in robots: anachievement of Shoji Takeuchi, associate professor at the
University of Tokyo and director of the Life BEANS Center,
researcher Nobuo Misawa, et al. An article on this achievement
was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States of America
and was covered extensively in Japan. A list of the media
coverage for the achievement is given below.

Research achievements at the Life BEANS Center: theUniversity of Tokyo and Mitsubishi Chemical Medience reported
on the Center’s success in developing a technique forfabricating bile canaliculi, p.11 of Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun,
12/6/2010.
On August 27, 2010, Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun published anarticle linked to Koji Miyazaki, associate professor at the
Kyushu Institute of Technology and member of Life BEANS
Kyushu, entitled “Thermoelectric materials that generate
electricity through a small temperature difference, and theirapplications in wearable electronics.”

Intellectual Property
1) NHK TV, Good Morning, Japan, 9/24/2010; 2) NHK TV,
NHK’s six o’clock news, 9/24/2010; 3) TV Tokyo, World Business
Satellite, 9/10/2010; 4) Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 8/24/2010,
morning edition; 5) Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, 8/24/2010, morning
edition; 6) Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, 8/24/2010, morning
edition; 7) Tokyo Shimbun, 8/24/2010, morning edition; 8)
Yomiuri Shimbun, 8/24/2010, evening edition; 9) Mainichi
Shimbun, 8/24/2010, evening edition; 10) Asahi Shimbun,
9/3/2010; 11) The Chemical Daily, 8/24/2010; 12) Online article:
Medical Design and Manufacturing Technology, Canon
Communications; 13) Foreign press: TechNewsDaily; 14)
Foreign press: Reuters; 15) Foreign press: New Scientist Tech;
16) Foreign press: the Brazilian newspaper Folha De S. Paulo,
8/24/2010; 17) Overseas scientific journal: Nature Materials,
8/23/2010, Research Highlights; 18) Overseas scientific journal:
Nature Materials, October 2010, Vol. 9, p.78, “Oocytes as
Sensors,” PNAS, 107, 15340–15344 (2010); 19) Overseas
scientific journal: the article “Olfactory Sensor” was selected forPopular Science’s Best of What’s New 2010 under the “Security”
category, 11/22/2010; 20) Radio broadcast: NHK World RadioJapan, 9/20/2010, 14:10–14:30; 21) General magazine: DIME,
no. 21, October 2010 (Shogakukan).
Developing an implantable blood sugar sensor: Shoji
Takeuchi, associate professor at the University of Tokyo
a n d director of the Life BEANS Center, et al. After its
announcement in January 2010, this blood sugar sensor
c a u g h t the attention of the foreign press at Exhibition
Micromachine/MEMS and became prominent in the news once
again when the achievement was covered in America’s PNAS.
1) YouTube, DigInfo video news, 7/29/2010; 2) Nihon Keizai
Shimbun, 10/5/2010, morning edition; 3) Nikkei Sangyo
Shimbun, 10/5/2010; 4) Overseas scientific journal: RoyalThe BEANS Project was recognized by Nikkan Kogyo
Shimbun on 9/17/2010 for its pioneering efforts in the creationof intellectual property in an article entitled “Supporting
intellectual property through cooperation among different
disciplines.”

Researchers
Two non-Japanese female researchers involved in the
BEANS Project were profiled in the media.
•Khumpuang Sommawan, a researcher at Macro BEANS Center,
was profiled in Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun October 15, 2010 in anarticle entitled “New technology research that transcends
borders.” After completing her undergraduate degree at Chiang
Mai University in Thailand, Sommawan obtained a master’s
degree at the University of Bristol and a doctorate at Ritsumeikan
University. She also worked at the University of Freiburg inGermany prior to participating in the BEANS Project.
•Heo Yun-Jung, a researcher at Life BEANS Center, received an
excellent paper award for young researcher at the 27th Sensor
Symposium on Sensors, Micromachines, and Applied Systems.
Yun-Jung graduated from the Korea Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea and received
her doctorate at the University of Tokyo.

Khumpuang Sommawan

6

Heo Yun-Jung

Activities of the G-device Project
Since April of last year, the G-device Center of the BEANS

cleaning to lithography, oxidation, diffusion, deposition, andLaboratory, sponsored by the New Energy and Industrial

etching. The back-end line installed in the smart clean room isTechnology Development Organization (NEDO), has beenequipped to handle chip/wafer-to-wafer bonding and wiring asworking toward the development of an advanced sensor

well as evaluations of the processed wafer profiles and the

network system and environmentally friendly processes. Inelectrical properties of devices, for example.
These production lines support microfabrication at a line

December of last year, the Center completed installation of asmart clean room and front/back-end advanced 8-inch MEMS

width of 0.35 µm, as well as three-dimensional micromachining,lines (TKB812-F/B) at the Research Center for Ubiquitous

enabling us to produce everything from sensors and other time-

MEMS and Microengineering, housed in the research base,tested MEMS devices to advanced devices. In our NEDO-

Tsukuba East of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial

sponsored R&D work, the MEMS lines will be used in the trial

Science and Technology (AIST Tsukuba East).

production and evaluation of test element groups (TEGs) used2

The smart clean room (area: 150 m ) is designed for low-for verifying processes developed in the BEANS Project, andTEGs of sensor network elements.

power consumption and low environmental impact. The clean
room is targeted to achieve clean-on-demand control using a

Our goal is to bridge the “commercialization gap” by using

sensor network system to monitor temperature, humidity,

these facilities to provide development support in MEMS

particles, power consumption, and other environmental

prototyping and pilot production aimed at mass production,

conditions, and a dedicated smart air conditioning system.

which areas have been considered a weakness in Japan to date.

The MEMS lines form a coherent fabrication line that

At Tsukuba’s R&D center for NMEMS (TIA-NMEMS), these

supports 8-inch and 12-inch wafers and includes a front-end

facilities are also expected to serve as the core of an R&D

processing line (TKB812-F) and a back-end processing andplatform for operations of the future Micro/Nano Openevalutation line (TKB812-B). The front-end line installed in a

Innovation Center (MNOIC).

2

clean room at AIST (area: 350 m ) covers everything from wafer

Overview of the advanced 8-inch MEMS line
Advanced 8-inch MEMS line
(for 8-inch MEMS and 12-inch semiconductors)

Installation site

Process
Cleaning/drying
Lithography

AIST
Main gate

Process and evaluation equipment
12" wafer cleaning system (RCA cleaning)
Organic draft chamber, IPA vapor dryer, water purifier
12" DMD maskless exposure system, mask aligner, i-line stepper
12" coater/developer, 12" oxygen plasma asher
Oxidation furnace, boron diffusion furnace, 12" low-temperature TEOS plasma-enhanced CVD system for forming silicon dioxide films

Tsukuba
East

Front-endclean room
(TKB 812-F)

Deposition

Silicon nitride LPCVD furnace
Phosphorus-doped polysilicon LPCVD furnace
3-chamber sputtering system for depositing metal, piezoelectric (AlN), and insulating layers
12"/8" silicon DRIE system

Etching

ICP dry etcher for metal, ICP dry etchers for silicon dioxide/nitride films
Silicon anisotropic wet etcher
Dry sacrificial layer etcher
Chip-to-wafer (12") bonding system, wafer-to-wafer surface-activated bonding system

JIS Center

Bonding/packaging 12" electron beam evaporator, vacuum annealing furnace
Back-end
clean room
(TKB 812-B)

Laser stealth dicer, 12" blade dicer
Wafer prober, noncontact-type film stress measurement system, 12" X-ray CT scanning system

Evaluation

Major equipment in the MEMS line

12" SEM (elemental analysis, crystallographic analysis), CD-SEM
12" spectroscopic ellipsometer, contact-type surface profiler, optical microscope, wafer surface particle analyzer

i-line stepper

TEOS-CVD system

Silicon DRIE system

Dry sacrificial layer etcher

Wafer-to-wafer bonding system

3D X-ray CT scanning system

8-inch8/12-inch

8/12-inch

8-inch8-inch8/12-inch

7

Members’ Profiles

ROHM Co., Ltd.
1. Company Profile
ROHM Co., Ltd. is a manufacturer of semiconductor
devices and electronic components and is involved in thedevelopment of systems in a wide variety of fields,
including consumer electronics, mobile phones andcommunication devices, and automotive devices. While its
headquarters are in Kyoto, ROHM utilizes a development
and sales network that has expanded globally to provide
LSIs and discrete semiconductor products with superior
quality and reliability.
Moore’s Law suggests that technological innovationin semiconductors will come through refinements in
manufacturing processes. ROHM, on the other hand, ispursuing improvements in performance through newconcepts, as reflected in its motto “More than Moore.”
We are meeting new demands in the industry by exploring
diverse technological innovation that transcends the
traditional measuring stick of “refinement,” while developing
or integrating element technologies in a wide range offields, such as new materials, MEMS, biotechnology, andoptical technology.
Among its efforts in the field of MEMS, ROHM
manufactures high-performance MEMS accelerometersand high-performance products suitable for sensor
networks employing MEMS devices. The latter is achieved
through the utilization of our core technologies, including
low power consumption, miniature packaging, digital-analog
mixed-signal ICs, and wireless communications. We’ve
also completed the development of a microvolume
blood analyzing chip, a concept realized by integrating
biotechnology with MEMS.

environment. Based on our concept of “More than Moore,”
we are now working toward the fusion of biotechnology
with semiconductor and optical technology, which wehave gained over the years, and are developing compact
medical and bio systems.
As an example of our progress in biotechnology,
ROHM has developed a POCT product called BanalystR, amicrovolume blood testing system employing a µTAS chip.
This system can perform tests on just a drop of blood andin less than ten minutes, outperforming large analyzing
equipment. The entire test reaction is made possible byconstructing a micro reaction space in the biochip usingµTAS technology and performing flow control for areagent that has been pre-encapsulated in the chip.
Compact systems using µTAS are expected to flourish
in a variety of medical settings for tasks that werepreviously unheard of, such as bedside examinations inclinics and examinations for health care in remote areas.
The microvolume blood testing system Banalyst
employing µTAS

2. Activities in Bio-MEMS
Nearly a decade has passed since ROHM began R&D inbiotechnology. Our R&D efforts have been oriented
primarily toward self care products. During this time, wehave been developing µTAS (micro total analysis system)
technology as a core technology. Owing to the decrease inpopulation in recent years coupled with a rapid decline inbirthrate and an aging population, we anticipate a surge inusers of health and welfare, medical care, and nursing
services. Indeed, the age of home care and point of caretesting (POCT) has arrived.
The field of biotechnology, of which we have only justbegun to scratch the surface in our R&D activities, iscurrently showing promise as a candidate for companywide development under one of our three concepts ofbusiness expansion aimed at the next fifty years: healthand medical care, safety and security, and the

The microvolume blood testing system
Banalyst employing µTAS

3. Conclusion
In addition to bio-MEMS devices, we will be working
on technical development of MEMS devices for applicationin sensor networks and energy harvesting systems. To
this end, we believe it necessary to engage in strategic
government-industry-academy collaboration in order tocombine our fields of specialty. We hope that such close
collaboration and the exchange of ideas will lead to rapid
development of novel products.

MICRONANO No. 74
MICRONANO is published quarterly by Micromachine Center (MMC), BEANS Technical Research Association(BEANS . TRA) to promote the international exchange of information related to micromachines, R&D and othertechnical topics, and is circulated free of charge. Please send your comments about MICRONANO to the publisher :MBR99 Bldg., 6F., 67 Kanda Sakumagashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0026, Japan
Tel : +81-3-5835-1870, Fax : +81-3-5835-1873
Internet Home Page h t t p : / / w w w . m m c . o r . j p /Date of Issue : January 14, 2011