Magnetics Business & Technology - November/December 2024 - 15

FEATURE ARTICLE
a digital IP block so it can be incorporated in the floor plan of the
device's control chip, or ASIC, using standard EDA tools. This
pairing for sensors and control circuitry as IP is unique as no
other sensor solution can be turned into an IP block and made
using standard CMOS techniques within the layers of the chip
structure, says the company. Nanusens aims to apply the capabilities
to open big markets for its embedded sensors such as
smartphones, earbuds, wearables, automotive, medical equipment,
aerospace and AIOT, as detailed below. As a result, the
company has started a Series A funding round.
Nanusens applies its technology to standard, high-volume semiconductor
manufacturing,processes to enable many MEMS sensors on a chip.
Its first patent, awarded in 2022, was for a round device with
a diameter of less than 150 microns with three evenly distributed
springs that are spiral so that they can be long to give high
sensitivity. The design can be used by Nanusens in a number of its
sensor designs such as a bone conduction sensor, motion detector
and accelerometer.
Josep Montanya,
founder and CEO of
Nanusens
" You can't simply shrink a MEMS sensor
design and build it with the CMOS metal
layers, " explained Dr Josep Montanya,
founder and CEO of Nanusens. " You
are going from micro structures that you
can see under a microscope to nano
structures that need an electron microscope.
That is a whole new realm where
superficial forces become much more
dominant, and there is no space to build
a large proof mass nor large soft springs.
We have had to invent completely new
sensor structures that will work reliably
when made in a standard CMOS fab line,
which means that they need to work with
large residual stress and large process tolerances. These have
taken years to perfect. "
Enabling AI to be smarter
AIoT, the fusion of the power of Artificial Intelligence and Internet
of Things infrastructure (Artificial Intelligence of Things), is seen
as the nirvana market for next generation embedded sensors
capable of gathering the data that AIoT needs for mass adoption.
Key to its success is having masses of data from sensors that
the AI can process. Nanusens sees its technology as disruptive,
enabling sensor data to be gathered in a completely new way
that will enable mass deployment of AIoT as it slashes the costs
and size of sensors to almost nothing.
Presently, MEMS sensors are typically manufactured on a tiny
sliver of silicon, or die, by a small number of specialist companies
with each sensor type being produced on a dedicated
production line so it is hard to ramp up production. These are
either packaged into the familiar black unit with wire connections
to be mounted on a PCB or fixed beside the main chip as a bare
die. Both approaches are relatively expensive and large with no
current way to reduce costs and size.
Nanusens believes that it has solved both of these problems by
creating the sensors directly within the control chip of the device,
or ASIC, as the chip is being manufactured. The sensors only
take up a virtually insignificant amount of space by being in the
chip itself instead of taking up space by being packaged beside
it. Also, many different sensors can be built into a chip to make
much smarter devices with a negligible increase in costs or
space taken up inside the device.
" Being able to include as many sensors as is required within a
chip for almost no size or cost penalty is going to revolutionize
the design of a whole new generation of smarter AIoT devices, "
asserts Montanya. " Until now, IoT has never been able to take
off as predicted because the costs of sensors were too great, the
size too large, the power consumption too high and the production
volumes too constrained. We are the only company to have
solved not just one of these barriers but all four by at least an
order of magnitude for each one. We enable masses of sensors
to be deployed for almost nothing to gather the real world analog
data into the IoT network that AI needs to be effective. This is a
vital role that will enable the potential of AIoT to be realised. And,
naturally, we are building an extensive patent portfolio to protect
our unique technology that will empower the AI and IoT revolution
that is AIoT. "
Founded in 2014 by Montanya and Dr. Marc Llamas, Nanusens
is headquartered in Paignton, Devon, England with research and
development offices in Barcelona, Spain and Shenzen, China.
For more info, see www.nanusens.com.
www.MagneticsMag.com
November/December 2024 * Magnetics Business & Technology 15
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Magnetics Business & Technology - November/December 2024

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