The 9th International Micromachine / Nanotech Symposium

MEMS and Opportunities for University/Industry Technology Transfer
Nico. F. de Rooij, Professor, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland
The primarily role of the university is the education thatbringing up the students as scientists and researchers in future.
However the university has been implementing a collaboration basedon the contract with the company for their commercial products.
It is thought some type of contracts for the collaborationsuch as the company provides only fund to have developed acertain technology by the university or the researchers of acompany join to the collaboration at laboratory in theuniversity. In such cases, it is thought some difference in every
country regarding the ownership of patents and intellectual
properties of developed technology and commercialized
products based on the collaboration. However the fruits of thecollaboration have been realized as products in the market.
Today I will talk about MEMS and opportunities for technology
transfer from university to industry.

However the first results suggest that biological effects areindeed occurring in microgravity.
Since the flow sensor allowed measuring from micro to nanolittle, it was applied to microfluidic dispensing systems forpharmaceutical company. The system have advantages that areable to control the liquid quantity at the dispensing site, to readdirectly real time measurement of the aspirated or dispensed
volume and to indicate the status of diagnostic of the system
functionality (clogging etc). Nowadays a dispensing systemequipped with a nozzle arrays with sensor controlled liquidhandling, 5000nl to 25nl has been commercialized forpharmaceutical company.

Optical MEMS, Lab-on-Chip,
Tool for Nanoscience
In addition to above systems, Professor Nico. F. de Rooij
introduced us following MEMS products, as optical MEMS product: amplifiers, switches for optical communication, optical crossconnectors, variable optical attenuators, fourier transform
spectrometers, as lab-on-chip product : gas sensors, PH sensors,
glucose sensor and µTAS (Micro Total Analysis System) that
equipped small analyzing system and as nanotool : a cantileverwhich is required for study in the nanoscience and nanotechnology
and using for the probe of Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM)
and Scanning Force Microscope (SFM). The cantilever is a probe ofnew type that fabricated by MEMS technology.

Consumer products
Swiss is not thought without watch and is famous for thatindustry.
Recently the watch is incorporated a pressure sensor thatcan be measured the depth in the water and height on the land,
and a gyro that can be showed the direction of north on the earth
is also incorporated in a certain watch. In addition to thesesensors, mechanical gears that move the watch hands are now all
produced by MEMS technologies developed in later half of 1980s.
Nowadays these technologies are applying globally as if
shared ones.
By the way I would like to inform you that 30,000 people areworking in the watch industries in Swiss and the industry earns
2500 million U.S. Dollars annually.

Conclusion
I have been talked about MEMS technologies thattransferred to the companies and I would like to close thislecture after I introduce the name of the companies.
Swiss is a small country that has a population of only 7
million and not having big enterprises like Japan and U.S.A.
Now I would like to introduce the companies that transferred
MEMS technology from Neuchatel University.
Intersema is an existing company fabricating pressure
sensor, and MicroFlow Engineering is also an existing company
which is producing inhalers.
Regarding the recent start-up companies: Seyonic SA(founded in 1998) which is engineering and manufacturing
microfluidic systems for life science and space research, Sercalo
Microtechnology SA (1999) which is producing optical MEMS
switches and attenuators, and NanoWorld SA (2000) which isfabricating nonotools for scanning probe microscopy.

Microfluidic dispensing system
In the next speech, Professor Nico F. de Rooij introduced usa micro bioreactor that was developed for space application thatconsists of piezoelectric micro-pump, flow sensor, 3ml chamber,microfabricated PH sensor and electronics controller.
This miniature bioreactor has been developed for thecultivation of yeast cells aboard in a space laboratory (spacelab) and was used in three Space Shuttle missions.
The first experiment was conducted in "Spacelab 2nd
International Microgravity Laboratory on STS-65" in 1994,
secondly in "Spacelab in the Shuttle to Mir Mission SMM03" inMarch 1996, and the third mission in "Columbia STS-107" inFebruary 2003 that was totally lost due to the terrible accident.

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