Very interesting. If you read this you will see the complexity of the MEMS manufacturing process and see exactly what Yuval Cohen meant when he said that the laws of physics were somewhat different at the scale of MEMS structures than people are normally familiar with in the behaviour of normal sized objects and materials!
Interesting too how this patent addresses most of the issues that were the subject of the failure of the previous implementations of the MEMS wafers and their rather cryptic announcements of the time. The comments that describe this period seem to be those made in the annual report of 2017:
" ... There are a few significant events that transpired since we met a year ago. The first occurred in September when TowerJazz physically began work on a mass production process for the MEMS wafers, and the second in October when we received the first fabrication run of Phase IV wafers.
As has been reported, the first run of Phase IV wafers revealed that the devices did not meet a critical mechanical specification, which in turn increased the voltages required to operate the devices. As was also reported all our attempts to try work with and around the higher voltages ultimately left us no alternative but to return to the fab with instructions to re-spin / reproduce the wafers.
I can now tell you that there was a silver lining to this setback. I can’t really get into the technical details other than to say that being compelled to work with much high voltages than originally intended led us rather significant discovery concerning the “points of contact” of our device. This discovery warranted our applying for a patent due to the significant benefits it provides in improving the yield and reliability of the product. Working closely with our fabrication partner we were able to implement this discovery into the current fabrication process, with wafers containing this innovation expected to be delivered over the coming weeks. ..."
As I read this I have to concede that giving coherent but simple explanations for the issues that arose and gave problems during the development would have been very difficult for the company. I have to say that I would have liked a lot more effort to have been made, but I do see their problem.
Recall that this is just one of the over a hundred patents covering the MEMS development.
AKP Price at posting:
$16.20 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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