Dissemination and Publicity Projects
1. The 14th MEMS Seminar

technologies and services for diagnosing MEMS-specificprocesses and analyzing failure modes.
The technical forum that followed the MEMS seminar
involved guest exhibitors and stimulated an enthusiastic
exchange of technological information. Afterward, the venue
was changed to more relaxed surroundings for an informal
gathering, where committee members of the FSIC, lecturers,
and other participants engaged in a lively exchange of ideas.

The 14th MEMS Seminar on “New MEMS technologies (design,processing, and evaluation) and their product applications” washeld on February 5 this year at the Hyogo Prefecture Citizens’
Hall in Kobe, Japan. A total of thirty-seven people participated inthe Seminar, which was organized by the Foundry ServiceIndustry Committee (FSIC; chair: Fumihiko Sato of Omron
Corporation) under the Micromachine Center (MMC).
Through the support of the New Industry Research
Organization, this year’s MEMS seminar featured lectures byrepresentatives of MEMS-related companies in Hyogo
Prefecture and its neighboring prefectures, as well as a catalog
exhibition during an ensuing technical forum. The program
given below illustrates the rich variety of events included at the14th MEMS Seminar.
(1) “Advances in MEMS integration and fusion andexpectations for the creation of new industries,” Susumu
Sugiyama, professor of Ritsumeikan University(2) “Micronano molding technologies for MEMS devices,”
Tadashi Hattori, professor of the University of Hyogo(3) Presentations by the FSIC (machining and joiningtechnologies)
ULVAC, Omron, Olympus, National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology, Panasonic ElectricWorks, and Hitachi(4) An introduction of technologies by MEMS companies in theHyogo area
Sumitomo Precision Products, Silicon Sensing Products(5) MEMS device evaluation technologies
Daiichi Kagaku, Oki Engineering(6) Presentations by the FSIC (design and analysistechnologies, etc.)
Nihon Unisys Excelutions, Mizuho Information & ResearchInstitute, Mathematical Systems Inc., and the committee
chair, Fumihiko Sato
(7) Technical forum
FSIC, Silicon Sensing Systems Japan, Kasen Nozzle Mfg. Co.
The following topics were discussed at the 14 th MEMS
Seminar.
In his lecture entitled “Micronano molding technologies for
MEMS devices,” Prof. Hattori pointed out the need for
personnel training and drastic cost reductions in manufacturing
processes in order to ensure the market success of products
employing MEMS technologies, and explained how a molding
technology using micro-molds will be a key technology.
Progress toward establishing and standardizing anevaluation technology for MEMS devices is lagging behind thatfor semiconductor devices, but this element technology is ofutmost importance for developing products that incorporate
MEMS. Highly reliable MEMS devices and products will beattainable by using the results of prototype evaluations as
feedback in device design. On this topic, we heard lectures ontechnologies and equipment for controlling the local
environment of microdevices with great precision andThe 14 t h MEMS Seminar

2. The Release of MemsONE Version 3.0
January 20 of this year marked the release of MemsONE
version 3.0, a design and analysis support system for MEMS.
Developed by an industry-academia joint research consortium
comprising nine businesses, thirteen universities, one research
institute, and one association, MemsONE is Japan’s first softwaretool aimed at providing support for efficient MEMS design anddevelopment. MemsONE is not only a useful tool for the mostsophisticated MEMS researchers and engineers, but alsoeliminates the stress for researchers and engineers in other areas
who are novices or less experienced in the field of MEMS inaccessing the most advanced MEMS-related data and know-how.
The following are some of the enhanced features included inthis latest release.
(1) Added the boundary element method to electric fieldanalysis(2) Added an all-in-one setup for boundary conditions inthermal nanoimprint analysis(3) Expanded the analysis scale for dynamic systems(4) Improved the hexahedral mesh generator(5) Improved the mask CAD(6) Added a function for generating solids (comb-fingers andmeander beams)(7) Enhanced the function for adding analytical models in theMEMS circuit simulator(8) Upgraded the knowledge database from 1,700 to 3,400 items(9) Upgraded the material database from 203 to 388 items
Details of the latest version are provided in the MemsONE
Corner of the MMC’s Web site. To access this page, please visit
the URL http://www.mmc.or.jp/mems-one/ (Japanese only).

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