Sensera Expands Microfabrication Capabilities to Meet Growing Customer Demand

25 October 2018
Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Announcement

Sensera Limited (ASX: SE1, “Sensera” or “the Company”), an Internet of Things (IoT) solution provider that delivers sensor-based products transforming real-time data into meaningful information, action and value, is pleased to announce that the Company has acquired and qualified additional thin-film processing equipment including a dicing saw, a wafer bonder and an electroplating cell to meet the growing customer demand in the MicroDevices segment.

The new dicing capability operates under full wafer and custom situations, featuring a positional accuracy down to 1 μm and a cutting speed of 300 mm/sec. It supports custom shaping of silicon, sapphire, Pyrex, quartz, ceramics and metals.

Tim Stucchi, GM/COO of the Sensera MicroDevices division, said:

“We are very pleased to expand our production capabilities, closely aligning ourselves with growing customer demand. This new production equipment substantially broadens our tool set and enables greater vertical integration and process control.”

Ralph Schmitt, CEO of Sensera, said:

“To drive down cycle times, improve quality control and reduce costs, our fab requires ongoing capability upgrades. Our objective here is to bring previously outsourced processes back in-house and to expand our internal capability to develop and produce complex MicroElectroMechanical System products and solutions.

“The new dicer, bonder and electroplating cell are essential components that Sensera needs to enable innovative development programs and commercial volume customer shipments.”

Operating under high vacuum, precisely controlled temperature and high-pressure conditions, the new wafer bonder facilitates extremely demanding applications. Eutectic, thermal compressive, adhesive and anodic bonding processes with a wafer alignment accuracy of 2 μm have been smoothly integrated into Sensera’s qualified processes, thus enabling the Company to offer many wafer level packaging (WLP) solutions to its current and future customers in multiple applications and market spaces:

• Microfluidic devices for bio-analysis, medical research and drug development
• Pressure sensors for human implantable surgical devices
• Precision accelerometer and gyroscope devices for geo-positioning
• Micro-mirror devices for laser based Automotive self-driving applications

The wafer bond chamber is configurable to process small coupons (from ~10 mm²) and wafer diameters from 25 mm (1”) up to 200 mm (8″).

The electroplating cell is able to plate and electroform wafers or discreet parts up to a size of 200 mm (8″). Typical applications of this capability include MEMS, integrated circuits on silicon, gallium arsenide and similar glass-type substrates. Sensera’s qualified processes on this cell achieve exceptionally low residual stress and enable tight thickness uniformity control.