Fresh from its successful appearance at CES in Las Vegas last month, the MEMS Industry Group (MIG) will be gathering at the Steigenberger Airport Hotel, in Amsterdam, NL, next month for the second annual MEMS Executive Congress Europe. The meeting will be held in conjunction with Smart Systems Integration 2013, which will also include a US MEMS session.
But the Congress itself has a full agenda that warrants much attention. It will begin on the evening of Monday, March 11, 2013, with registration and a networking event, and continue the following morning with a Keynote speech by Ralf Schnupp, Vice President Segment Occupant Safety & Inertial Sensors, Continental, entitled ” Future Trends in Automotive – Smart Systems and Sensors”.
Following the keynote, Dave Thomas, Marketing Director for Etch Products at SPTS Technologies will moderate a panel on MEMS in Consumer Products composed of Dave Doyle, CEO of Baolab, Robin Heydon, Global Standards for CSR, and Joel Huloux, Director of Standardization and Industry Alliances at STMicroelectronics. The panel will discuss how European companies are leading the world in the innovative use of MEMS for consumer products such as mobile devices, tablets, remotes, television, consumer health devices – and the list continues to grow.
Are there advantages in corporate structure or government funding in the EU that allow for more or better innovation than in other places? Is there a more developed relationship between consumers and OEMs in the EU that allow for consumer desires to be met faster or more innovatively? Panelists will also discuss the intense pressures of this highly lucrative but competitive market; does market leader also mean revenue leader? This panel asks and will try to answer these and other
tough challenges in consumer products.
Next will be the Polytec-sponsored MEMS in Automotive panel moderated by Marc Osajda, Global Automotive Strategy Manager, Sensor and Actuator Solution Division (SASD), Freescale Semiconductor – Germany, and made up of Frédéric Breussin, Business Unit Manager for MEMS & Sensors at market-research firm Yole Développement, Pietro Perlo, Vice President Torino E-District for Interactive Fully Electrical Vehicles (IFEVS), and Jan Peter Stadler, Senior Vice President of Engineering Sensors for the Automotive Electronics Division of Robert Bosch GmbH.
MEMS have, of course been critical to advancements in the automotive industry for decades, starting with low-cost pressure sensors and accelerometers in airbag crash sensors and other automotive safety and environmental control applications. Innovations in automotive MEMS continue today, where modern sensor applications are opening a whole new world of safety, energy-efficiency, and performance features.
Cars that park themselves are just the beginning. Thanks to MEMS, we are moving towards cars that drive themselves, zero-emission vehicles and automobiles that meet the ubiquitous connectivity needs of today's consumer. This panel will examine how MEMS is enabling ground-breaking innovation beyond crash sensors in the well-established yet highly competitive and consumer-driven automotive industry. Additionally panelists will address how MEMS components matured into a vital element in every new automotive technology and if/how the lessons learned on the journey can be applied in other applications and industries.
After a lunch break, the third MEMS panel – MEMS in Energy – will be convened by Bert Gyselinckx, General Manager at Holst Centre , imec, with Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, Eric Yeatman, Professor of Microengineering and Deputy Head of Department at Imperial College London. The energy industry is undergoing significant change – from deregulation in existing markets to expansion into new energy sources and regions to the rapid increase of energy costs, to the actual understanding that current energy sources will not meet future global demand. These changes require new solutions to meet the increasing demand for portable and highly efficient energy technologies.
With global adoption of European alternative energy innovation taking place, the EU has a unique perspective to offer, both in terms of harnessing alternative energy and the role of MEMS in that process. And as the industry evolves and grows, there is an increasing role for the use of MEMS technologies; MEMS devices are well suited for energy harvesting and power generation applications and have the ability to dramatically improve energy efficiency and reduce costs. This panel will discuss current MEMS initiatives for energy applications and explore areas of the energy industry which might benefit from integration with MEMS.
The last panel of the day will be MEMS in Medical – Focus on Aging, moderated by Frank Bartels), Founder of Bartels Mikrotechnik and President of IVAM, and including Jérémie Bouchaud, Senior Principal Analyst for MEMS and Sensors at IHS iSuppli, Joerg Habetha, Department Head of Personal Health Solutions at Philips Research, Kimmo Saarela, CEO of TreLab Oy, and Axel Sigmund, National Contact Person for MTI/DW and Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme, VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH.The panel will explore cutting edge advances being developed at medical device manufacturers intended for integration into existing and revolutionary medical products.
The panelists will discuss how MEMS is enabling better health/quality of life (QoL)with respect to monitoring, management, rehab and replacement. The experts will discuss leading technologies and growing commercial opportunities in the medical sciences, ranging from lab, to clinical care, to patient monitoring, including management, rehab, replacement, and drug delivery technologies such as microfluidics. They will further explore how MEMS is well suited for new lifesaving and life-enhancing applications that require a high degree of interactivity with the environment in a small package. As the global population lives longer and expects a high QoL until the end, how can MEMS meet the needs and solve the problems of this vast and aging populace?
The afternoon will come to a close with Keynote Speaker Renzo Dal Molin, Advanced Research Director for SORIN CRM within the Cardiac Rhythm Management business unit of SORIN GROUP. He will discuss his vision for implanted medical devices as healthcare solutions and the concomitant technical challenges.
Two more highly enjoyable events will follow that keynote. The first is MIG Managing Director Karen Lightman's delivery of her closing thoughts. Lightman will rapidly encapsulate the key points and issues that have occurred during the meeting, helping attendees walk away with a clear focus on what must be done next. A short time later, attendees will leave for a concluding dinner at the Heineken Brewery, where they will be able to toast a most successful meeting.
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