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Omnitron sensors that produce MEMS sensor chips have received $ 13 million to create cheap cars with their own drive. If it worked, we could say goodbye to those large rotating mounters on the caromous vehicles.
The investment will support the extension of the Omnitron engineering and operating teams, which accelerates the mass production of the company’s first product: reliable, affordable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) step mirror for multiple markets. MEMS was used in your time from Nintendo Wii to print sensors.
Corriente Advisors led a bike with the participation of The Attitude Ventures.
MEMS-KTERé sensors’ streaming has been limited by expensive, laborious production methods for decades of manufacturing intellectual ownership-the critical activator of optical cross connections (OXC) in data centers of artificial intelligence (AI), optical subtystms in Lidar for autonomous navigation, autonomous navigation, Transparent displays in headsets and glasses with extended reality (XR) and accurate laser spectrometry for methane gas detection.
Sensors can go for the OXCS Indeo for AI data centers and optical replacement for the advanced driver assistance (ADAS), drones, XR headsets, toxic gas detection systems and other interconnected electronics that are an integral part of our everyday life.
Sensor -drive markets
Omnitron focuses on the main market with Sensor MEMS technology:
- Improvement of Pilgrimage and Energy Efficiency in AI data centers: Fotonics OXC based on MEMS OXC for Tensor architects increases transmission speed and reliability in low -performance devices and increases AI workflow in data centers. According to New Street Research, this market will approach $ 30B in 2027.
- Strengthening affordability and Lidar’s lidarity in caroomas vehicles: Omnitron’s MEMS Step-Scanning Mirror focuses on the total Lidar Subtysts market, which is assumed that it will reach $ 6.3 B, according to Yole Intelligence by 2027.
- Improving the quality of the display in the area of headsets/glasses limited to resources: Omnitron mirror satisfies the growing demand for XR optics, a market that expresses IDECHEX, exceeds $ 5B by 2034.
“MEMS sensors are intelligent microscopic devices that allow us to touch the world through silicon,” Aguilar said. “However, old and inefficient production methods have prevented the type of MEMS growth, which is typical of semiconductors. This is going to change. Our IP MEMS Fable IP offers a new paradigm for bulk identical, accurate sensors on a scale. With large investments from Corriente Capital AS, our company can now meet our technology with other business funds.
Origin
Omnitron Sensors was founded in 2019 by the main group of MEMS industrial innovators and invented a new IP MEMS manufacturing, which improves the performance and reliability of the device and streamlines the assembly and creates MEMS sensors for high volume -sensitive market prices.
Aguilar was quite honest about how a company that now has 12 people has begun. He worked in companies like Google and Tesla and worked on Lidar Systems. He considered Lidar to be “Bane my existence”.
He founded a company with CTO Trent Huang, a quantum calculation and MEMS expert.
“I’m a nerd and my career building or integration of sensors into robots to be able to see and work in the real world.” It is (in) working with these sensors, especially Lidar, that I have seen the promise of what Lidar can do for robots. But I also experienced frustration from the use of Lidar in real applications. Although billions of dollars were spent on the market, we do not see in every car. What drives this problem is not a sexy word request, but it is boundability.
He said sensors often fail after a few months of traffic on the road. It was a narrow profile for large car manufacturers who do not want to operate the car to replace the sensor.
Aguilar said, “That’s why Lidar got on the market. And with my background in building these technologies and a good engineer, I visited these suppliers and went, hey, what is the hell? ”
He saw a great opportunity in the semiconductor production process and how to make them reliable. Therefore, he created a team five years ago and went to work on the plan to replace one of the moving parts with small small mirrors made using MEMS technology, where mechanical features are etiped into semiconductors, so they have small moving parts. In this case, small mirrors on the chip that can move.
Now in the third round of capital, the company improves its chips, which contain a mirror with a diameter of 10 millimeters (this is the golden part in the middle of the chips). It expresses 60 degrees, moves to the left and right and has one millisecond time settling. This is very fast and meets the Lidar system requirements, said Aguilar.
“That’s what our customers were really interested in.” And because we were able to provide three Intes letters, two in the automotive industry, one in the energy sector and awarded for Hungs Millions, ”he said.
How does it work
Lidar means the detection and range of light. The Lidar systems measure the distance by shooting an infrared laser with a high content of the target and closely measuring a pulse that returns. It works well, that’s a day or night.
The Lidar sensor is theoretically a great solution for a car with its own drive. It feels the world surrounds a car that Shelfe analyzes, where there are old security threats, when they go alone. In principle, it reproduces the situation consciousness that every human driver has.
But Lidar joined the laser that fired from the car. The light hits objects and bounces back, helping to paint the image of the environment in digital form. The system receives the signal back and then calculates where the object is and in what direction it moves. The processor takes all these points to the “point cloud” and then has a sense of all data.
Every Lidar system must laser. He also has a scanner, something that projects the laser into the world and the receiver that returns the signal.
Spinning device in the Lidar sensor is scanning of the environment, spraying laser light and measurement of millions of points in the scene as light back. Environmental scanning. The mirror resembles a large spinning disco ball. The photo detector is like a camera that captures light.
It is a moving component that spins the surroundings of Lidar, so it can get a 360 degree view of the environment. The challenge in a moving car is that it all has to happen quickly as the car moves.
Laser Galvo, the abbreviation for Galvanumeter, is an optical device that moves the mirror in responding to electrical signals, usually in the Laser Galvo scanner. Movement of the mirror allows accurate control of the direction and focus of the laser beam. MEMS chips can replace this device for a fraction of the cost.
“This is a great disruption that we are the market on the market.” And that’s what we’re changing inside the Lidar unit, ”said Aguilar. “It’s much cheaper and it’s more reliable.” That’s what Silicon does. ”
Progress toward production
To launch the product, the company had to design a new process of MEMS semiconductor to make it smaller, cheaper and faster. MEMS chips have not been prepared for this type of progress, which is 10 times denser than the others on the market.
“We had to return to the first principles and design a brand new technological node for MEMS to bring it to the market. And it’s a huge jump in density. So we build a much dense chip that allows us to achieve this performance, ”said Aguilar.
As an example, one element called aspect ratio for MEMS is usually about 20 to one, and for omnitron sensors the aspect ratio is 100 to one or a ditch inside a chip that is five times the depeper than usual.
Now the company gets its first chips back from low -capacity production and tests parts for tired. The company uses Foundries or contractual manufacturers that produce chips found in the US to create sensor chips.
But from the “Laboratory on Fab” or from testing to production, “many of these technologies and companies are dying,” Aguilar said.
Now the company is moving from the construction of chips on several silicon wafers per week to thousands per month to provide the severity of customers in the automotive industry, said Aguilar. This means switching to a larger MEMS factory with a higher capacity. This provokes a bike of financing.
For each vehicle there will probably be MEMS mirrors in the oven and two on the Lidar system. The MEMS sensor is smaller and cheaper and does not require so much energy. There are rivals, included MEMS chips creators in China, but Aguilar believes he has a technological advantage.
In addition to cars, there are telecommunications, increased reality and space communication devices that can use this technology.
