Overseas Trends

MEMS 2005, Miami (Jan. 30 – Feb. 3, 2005)
The 18th International Conference on Micro
Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS 2005) was held in
Miami Beach, Florida at the Fontainebleau Hilton
Resort from January 30 to February 3, 2005. The
conference, which began in 1987 as the Micro Robots
and Teleoperators Workshop, has continued to grow inscale, exceeding the previous year’s numbers ofsubmissions and participants.
The number of abstracts submitted for this year’s
conference was 750, of which 216 were accepted, aconsiderable increase over last year’s 629 submissions,of which 217 were selected. Since the accepted
number changed very little, the percentage ofaccepted abstracts dropped to 29% from 34% lastyear. Countries who gave the largest number ofpresentations this year were the United States with107, Japan with 47, South Korea with 16, and Germany
with 9, followed by Denmark, Holland, Switzerland,and Taiwan. By region, 50% of the presentations weregiven by North America, 21% by Japan, 16% byEurope, and 13% by Asian countries other than Japan.
Among research institutes, 21 presentations weregiven by the University of Tokyo, 20 by the Universityof Michigan, 9 by the Georgia Institute of Technology,and 9 by the University of California, Berkeley. The
final tally of participants was estimated at about 702,with 376 participants from North America, 162 fromAsia, and 104 from Europe, based on advance
enrollment.
Sessions of the conference featuring oralpresentations were divided into the categories Self
Assembly and Packaging, RF-MEMS, Pneumatic/JetSystems, Optical Microsystems, Power MEMS,
Physical Microsystems, Polymer MEMS, BioanalyticalSystems, and Nano Systems. Polymer MEMS was a
new category established this year.
The presentations covered a wide range from basic
research on materials, processing technologies, andelement technologies for actuation to applied researchenvisioning specific applications. However, few
companies gave presentations detailing actuallycommercialized devices and systems. Overall, theconference seemed to serve as an opportunity for
speculating about what systems will be produced overthe long term. This impression is supported by the factthat 86% of all presentations were given byuniversities.
The three invited speakers at this year’s conference
introduced the principles of microfabricated atomic
clocks, liquid lens technology, and direct methanol
fuel cells, and reported on the recent trends andfuture outlook of these technologies. These fields areexpected to have future applications and,
consequently, seemed to attract much interest.
One of the general trends in many presentations
appeared to be developing practical applications for
RF-MEMS and Physical Microsystems based on CMOS.
Presentations on Polymer MEMS talked about on-chipprocessing of the polymers themselves, and the use ofpolymers for flexible movement. Devices
manufactured by combining nanoprocessed polymers(plastics) and silicon substrates that are capable ofcontrolling the functions and performance expressed
through nanoprocessing by extending and pulling thepolymer with the silicon actuator likely indicate afuture trend toward devices that are capable ofintegrating dissimilar materials.
There was also a sense of heightened anticipation
for future applications of bio and nanomaterials inreports on cell patterning in the Bioanalytical Systems
session, particularly with regard to imagers forpatterning and mapping bacteriorhodopsin andproperty measurements of nanomaterials in the Nano
Systems session.
Next year, MEMS 2006 is scheduled to be held in
Istanbul, Turkey on January 22-26, 2006.

Conference room for oral presentations

Conference room for poster presentations

6